The image of Ferrari down under

Honest John Back Room » Motoring discussion
View Threaded
Sat 26 Sep 2009 01:33
The image of Ferrari down under - Lud
The TV scriptwriter Troy Kennedy Martin, who wrote the first few episodes of Z Cars establishing the characters, and later the much admired Edge of Darkness, as well as the vulgar and silly (but also much admired) sixties caper movie The Italian Job, has just died.

One of the two movie projects of his that didn't get made was on the Ferrari family. During the negotiations he, the Kiwi proposed director and others went to Switzerland for a meeting with various people including a younger Silvio Berlusconi, then a rising media mogul and potential financier of the film. At the meeting Berlusconi asked if anyone present had ever driven a Ferrari. No one had except the Kiwi director.

He said he had briefly owned a Ferrari at home in New Zealand. But he had stopped driving it because whenever he did people kept shouting: 'What a *******!'

I had expected the story, told by my sister-in-law who was a good friend of Kennedy Martin, to end with the offer of free drives in new Ferraris. But it actually ended on the total inability of the interpreters expensively present to think of a word in Italian to translate that, in such a way that it could be applied to a Ferrari owner.

They couldn't. There's no such word. Heh heh.

Edited by rtj70 on 26/09/2009 at 11:53

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sat 26 Sep 2009 02:20
The image of Ferrari down under - LikedDrivingOnce
They couldn't. There's no such word. Heh heh.


Shame. The English world describes most politicians to a "T". (Including some Italian ones).
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sat 26 Sep 2009 07:45
The image of Ferrari down under - oilrag
Didn`t Jimmy Tarbuck sell his Rolls after someone shouted " It`s alright for you, golden balls" from the pavement in Liverpool?
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sat 26 Sep 2009 07:52
The image of Ferrari down under - oilrag
Of course, all they shout at me, from the pavement in Leeds is "Chin up Lad - ere, catch thee a bit of tripe"
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sat 26 Sep 2009 09:59
The image of Ferrari down under - NowWheels
Didn`t Jimmy Tarbuck sell his Rolls after someone shouted " It`s alright for you golden
balls" from the pavement in Liverpool?


More than a decade ago I met a couple in their 60s who'd fallen on hard times when their very successful business had gone badly splot. I rather liked the way that they weren't moaning at all about it, and described the bankruptcy as being entirely their own fault: at a busy time they had neglected to do the usual due diligence on the creditworthiness of their biggest and most reliable client when taking another big order, whose sudden collapse took them down too. Their main regret was the loss of the twenty well-paid jobs the business had provided for skilled craftsmen, who they feared would never get such good work again.

They gave me a lift afterwards in their old banger, and in the course of the conversation it came out that when the business went so did the old Rolls. The woman appeared to be very twinset-and-pearls sort of posh, so I thought that must have suited her well, so I asked how she liked the banger.

"Much more comfortable," she said, "Because I can sit on a seat".

She had been so embarrassed bv hubby's Rolls that she used to sit on the floor in case anyone saw her.

Edited by NowWheels on 26/09/2009 at 09:59

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sat 26 Sep 2009 10:14
The image of Ferrari down under - ForumNeedsModerating
>>They couldn't. There's no such word. Heh heh

And I thought it was only the Americans who were supposed to have no sense of irony.
Reply | Report as offensive | Link

Our honest used car pricing is a little bit different to all the others. You can get to our values through make or model - you don’t have to follow a prescribed route. Plus, it’s live, which means we can react to changes in the market quicker than any printed price guide.

Honest Used Car Prices

From which small car to buy at which price point to the best UK-built cars, our Top 10s have the lot. Click now for your shortlist.

Unsure of what to buy? Our Top 10s are here to help you....