The Turbo GS-T/R (Testa Rossa)
(This special GS-T model was a Mitsu featured LA Auto Show car)

The Turbo Mitsubishi's (especially the above GS-T/R) are the the closest thing to the Autodelta 1600 Alfa Romeo GTA's I have ever street 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.

The engine was completely gone through to enhance performance, with bigger valves, overbore cylinders, new, much bigger turbo, custom made headers and specially tuned turbo pop off valve.

A new all genuine leather power seat interior (including the door panels) replaced the cloth one that originally came with the car.

Fire out. RIP, beloved Turbo Eclipse...

What really sucks, is that I was without use of the car for the 3 years it took to get it to the performance level and aesthetic look that I sought, and then Staci mostly drove it for the 800 miles before it caught fire.

So, how did this meticulously maintained GS-T come to catch fire?

Well, nobody will ever know for sure, but I have a pretty solid theory on the unfortunate chain of events that led to its fire and total loss.

Staci drove it to the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills for a junket. Now, normally at the Four Seasons, they parked this car in the "expensive cool car" section on top, never in the parking garage below (see photo).

But on this day, they must have had lots of other expensive/unusually exotic cars already taking up the top "showcase" parking spots, so they valet parked the GS-T in the underground parking garage.

When Staci Layne Wilson went to claim the car, they drove it up, and because it's dark in the underground parking, had switched the lights on, but when they presented the car to her, they forgot to switch them off.

Staci then drove to a special movie screening, and not realizing the lights were on (she never noticed the radio light being dim while driving, OR the engine off/lights on warning), alarmed the car and went to the screening.

When she returned a few hours later, the car would not start (the lights being on had drained the battery), so she called AAA to get it started.

The AAA mechanic would have had to undo the top battery hold down and then take off the special snap on battery terminal covers in order to jump the battery.

After he got the car started and they both realized the lights had been on, Staci said he told her to turn them off and to drive for about 15-20 minutes before turning the car off, and then quickly left for another call.

Staci said he did not spend any time under the hood after he got the car started. The premium battery in the car was only a few months old, having just been replaced when we got it out of the paint shop.

So I'm thinking that 1. he did not snap the safety covers back over the side mounted battery terminals, and 2. he did not re tighten the battery hold down all the way.

The very next time the car was driven, is when the fire occurred.

I believe that the battery hold-down being loose allowed the battery to creep over to the engine side (vibration alone would have caused this), and without the protective caps over the battery terminals, the positive terminal touched metal, causing the battery to short out and catch fire.

So, for want of a premium parking space, Staci's inattention, and possibly the AAA mechanic being in way too much of a hurry, this beautiful and exotic car I had spent so much time and money on was lost forever.

How very sad.