Reply to "Another De Tomaso heads north..."

David and I, along with our respective spouses, had the good fortune to be hosted for a wonderful dinner by Mark and his charming wife a couple of weeks ago at their beautiful country estate. To those of you who have considered making the pilgrimage to Ottawa to see Mark's collection, I warn you that, if you do, you will be treated so well and so warmly that you will never want to leave. You will also catch Mark's De Tomaso-itis virus, because it is highly contagious upon exposure to his jealousy-inducing car collection, and to his massive De Tomaso technical information and memorabilia archive.

Not only has he meticulously photo/videographed every step of the disassembly of his Mangusta, but he has collected, collated and bound virtually everything ever written or posted anywhere on the planet about the Mangusta (and every other De Tomaso, I expect). I mentioned a rather obscure and very old magazine article I happened to know of about efforts to sort the handling of the car, hoping I could make a contribution to Mark's collection, but his response was, "I know that article, just wait a minute." Whereupon he took precisely half the promised time to reach for a catalogued and bound collection of articles from one of his fully organized bookshelves, and pull the article to show to me. A professional archivist, witnessing this, would prostrate themselves and launch into the "We are not worthy!" chant with gusto.

I would be remiss to fail to note Mark's professional photography of his and others' De Tomasos, the products of which are displayed in his workshop. I confess to some disorientation during my visit, because I did not know where to look first; at the amazing photography on the walls, at the memorabilia in the display cases, at the archives, at the warehouse-grade parts storage or at the dream collection of cars.

You can't call Mark a De Tomaso hoarder, because that would imply a messy accumulation just for the sake of accumulation. In Mark's case, this could not be further from the truth. The evident love lavished on each of his cars, the medical-grade sterility and precision of the parts bin organization of his disassembled Mangusta (which, by the way, is a solid, rust-free basis for a restoration bound to be world-class), and the fact that he and Yasmin actively drive these cars, attest to this. Mark is simply one of us, a De Tomasoholic, but dialled up to 11. He is what I want to be when I grow up.

Mark, my hat is off to you. You are an inspiration. Which is a polite way of saying your disease is contagious. The next time Alix and I come to visit, we are wearing full hazmat suits with respirators.

- Peter