The Turbo GS-T

The Turbo Mitsubishi's are the the closest thing to the Autodelta 1600 Alfa Romeo GTA's I have ever driven.

Since retiring my GTA from the street, I have owned many other exotics (including several Ferraris — one of which was a Testarossa S), but none have ever quite equaled the GTA as a pure fun car to drive until discovering the Mitsubishi Turbos.

The Ferraris, which are truly outstanding automobiles, were really fun to drive, but not to own — the insurance and maintenance costs kept creeping up until they became real disposable income killers.

The rarest Ferrari I ever had was a 1958 TR (250 Testa Rossa) that I co-owned with Ralph Britton in the early '60's.

Ralph owned and (as its only mechanic) ran, Scuderia, a start-up independent Ferrari repair shop in Manhattan Beach, CA.

As a professional fine artist at the time, I helped him out by painting all the exterior sign graphics for the new shop, but don't think I signed them.

Too bad, as they might be worth something as fine art pieces today, and would be considered early pop art.

Ralph looked like a larger than life version of Stirling Moss, and was as good an auto mechanic as Moss was a race car driver.

My daily driver at the time was a very temperamental early 1958 black Porsche Speedster Carrera GT, and Ralph was the only mechanic I was ever able to find that kept it running.