Wall Street powerstyle: My chopper, my Diners Club, my radio telephone

In the 1980s, the investment bankers saw themselves as the rulers of the world – not just Wall Street. Driven by greed and power they loved to flaunt what they had. But what were the symbols of megalomania?

Oliver Stone’s 1987 film ‘Wall Street’ paints a precise and yet frighteningly realistic picture of a New York investment banker, Gordon Gekko. He wears tailored shirts in strong colours with white, Winchester collars and cuffs – and brightly coloured braces as a further contrast. The ‘uniform’ of 1980s Wall Street was made by Brooks Brothers or Alan Flusser, while a solid gold watch from Cartier or Vacheron Constantin would be worn on the wrist.

True to the motto 'time is money'

To escape the New York traffic chaos, the stock market kings would head to the airport or the beach house in The Hamptons by way of a Sikorsky S-76 helicopter – true to the motto that ‘time is money’. On the way, you could continue to deal in commodity futures or conclude a hostile takeover on your mobile phone. Those who really wanted to impress had the new Motorola DynaTAC 8000X; or, if you needed more talk time, you might buy a Nokia Mobira Talkman with its hefty accompanying kit. And it would all be paid for on the Diners Club or Amex Platinum card, of course.

Work hard. Play hard.

In their spare time, the wolves of Wall Street staged wild parties where cocaine was served in volumes comparable to the sand on the beach in front of their villas, and women were served as decorative objects. In every sense, life was lived with the philosophy of ‘work hard, play hard’ – even if, today, we can't decide whether we find Gekko and Co. fascinating... or just ridiculous.

Photos: Getty Images, Nokia, 20th Century Fox

FOUNDRY MC R80 BLACK RACER

Foundry Motorcycle in Chichester have built a couple of really nice Beemer customs recently, and they have an unenviable task making a Boxer twin stand out in the UK, (where flat twins seem to be everywhere), but not only is this bike a well-proportioned quality custom, it also has a few unique features, most notably that pipe, which runs through the back of the seat. We’re told it’s extremely well insulated. …The bike certainly impressed the visitors at last October’s Bike Shed exhibition, in a see of BMWs.

The donor bike started life as a 1981 BMW R80 TIC which was purchased via ebay from a guy in East Sussex who is one of Lord March’s personal drivers. We’d been looking for a suitable BM donor for a while and Tom ended up with three in the space of two weeks. Originally the bike was being put together as Tom’s daily ride but it was spotted whilst on display at this years Goodwood Revival by Carl who patiently waited for it to be finished, then promptly came and whisked it off to join the rest of his fine bike collection.

In 2006 Tom’s brother was wandering around Barcelona when he spotted a very cool looking R80 parked amongst the rest of the bike chaos and emailed Tom a photograph. At the time, it was completely unlike any other Beemer he’d seen, clubman bars, pod filters, single seat and some other neat touches, Tom instantly fell in love with the overall style and decided he had to build something with a similar character. The picture was regularly talked about, but it took six years to finally get round to the build.

After looking at the original photo many, many times, it was decided that the Foundry bike needed to be a little more refined. So, after the initial ‘strip down’, a new rear subframe was created to work with a shorter seat, then an up and over exhaust followed, but that couldn’t be the same as anybody else’s! Exit through the upholstered seat rather than under or around it seemed a pretty fresh approach and a quick mock up looked great. Tom also had a real bee in his bonnet about fork clamp mounted headlights, so decided to create an extended fixed headlight frame, which gives the front of the bike great attitude.

“The custom leather seat was made hollow with minimal padding (this was never gonna be a tourer!) and extra heat shielding. Wheels were stripped, painted/powder coated then rebuilt with stainless spokes. Frames were blasted and coated, the engine was checked, cleaned and painted and batteries were moved. The bike was fully rewired, pod filters were added, carbs were adjusted and a Daytona digital speedo fitted into a custom top yoke. We’d painted the tank ourselves and were reasonably happy with it, but then met Dennis at D-Lucks! He reckoned he could do a far better job and he certainly did. The matt and gloss black with gold combo was beautifully executed in double quick time and topped off with a fine gold ‘Foundry MC’ propeller logo.”

“The exhaust sounds like no other boxer we’ve come across yet, a tractor at idle then something that Marc Marquez would ride, as the revs pick up.”

“The bike was always meant to be a café racer style machine and as such has a committed but not uncomfortable riding position. With the lowered front end and raised rear, it rides pretty well having no problem delivering a big grin. After a day on the bike with fast and stop start riding for our latest video it still felt great. We love the bike and hope Carl does too. Hopefully it won’t be too long before some nicer weather comes round and he can really start getting out and about.”

It’s great to see Tom & Simon from Foundry going from strength to strength with their builds, and it’s clear they are developing their own style too. Check out their shop & cafe in Chichester and see more from them online on on The Bike Shed’s Foundry MC pages and on their Facebook and Website.

Photos by Merry Michau.

1976 LANCIA STRATOS ‘STRADALE’

The Lancia Stratos Stradale is quite easily one of the most famous cars of the last century. The first Lancia Stratos HF prototype was shown at the 1971 Turin Motor Show with the design being clearly based on the captivating Stratos Zero concept car from the previous year’s show, a car which is still considered by many to be one of the top ten concept cars of all time.

It’s exceedingly difficult to know how many of the Lancia Stratos Stradale cars were actually made, Italian bookkeeping throughout the tumultuous 1970′s was about as good as you might expect, although it is widely believed that fewer than 500 were produced. A fairly significant number of these were crashed by their owners due to the exceedingly delicate and fine tuned skills required to drive them at speed, especially around corners.

The rally version of the Stratos was astonishingly successful, it won the tightly contested World Rally Championships in 1974, 1975 and 1976 after which it was withdrawn due to changes in the rulebooks. 

The images used here are all 1600px wide and will make marvellous desktop wallpapers.

Photo Credits: Constantin Fischer ©2012 Courtesy of RM Auctions

Bonhams to sell ex-Works Ferrari 375 Plus at Goodwood

Bonhams will auction a Ferrari 375 Plus – the first of only five built – at its Festival of Speed auction in June. A factory car, it competed in both the Mille Miglia and Le Mans, and its long-running ownership dispute has now been resolved…

The 330bhp team car, shown to Classic Driver at a private preview event last night, was first campaigned in the 1954 Mille Miglia in the hands of Umberto Maglioli, before being driven to victory at Silverstone by fellow Argentinean Froilan Gonzalez at Silverstone. Its final race for the factory team was at the 24 Hours of Le Mans later that year, which saw the sister 375 Plus take the chequered flag, while this car – chassis 0834AM – was forced to retire, although not before setting the fastest lap of the race.

For some time, the car has been at the centre of an ownership dispute between the Kleve and Swaters families. Bonhams has spent the last year negotiating a deal between the parties and, now that an agreement has been reached, the car can be sold. As a result, the new buyer will not only become the custodian of the restored car, but also numerous extras including a spare 4.9-litre V12 and what remains of its original body panels, still bearing traces of the 1957 Cuban Grand Prix race colours.

Bonhams has not set an estimate yet but, with its ownership title now cleared up, some experts believe that the rare Ferrari could become an eight-figure car when it is sold without reserve at the Festival of Speed in June.

Photos: Joe Breeze & Simon Clay, Marcel Massini (period images)

Hundreds of classic and modern Ferraris can be found in the Classic Driver Market.