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Sunday, June 16, 2013

Bête Noir! The Black Beast! Vanderbilt Cup Winner 1909 and 1910!

Excerpt from the Klingberg Vintage Motorcar Festival 2013 Program

This car alone was well worth the price of admission..... 10 times over!  Wow!  What a Beast!  The engine ALONE weighs about 2,000 pounds!  And to hear it start and run!  OMG! I saw that they planned to start it at 1:00pm, so I marked the time and strayed a few yards away to the Jerry Letterri Collection.  Holy Christmas!  What a collection.... I got totally distracted  by this until I suddenly heard this enormous eruption!

Day um!

It was 1 o'clock and they had just started the Bete Noir!  It was that kind of a day:  there was soooo much to see, and every exhibit was so amazingly interesting..... I can't believe I missed the Bete Noir Start up!
Not to worry though!




Here are the  notes on the car.  Right next to this display was another display with a several more flyers on the history of the Bete Noir.  I naturally grabbed those.  I will try to scan them and add them to this post, so check back in a couple of days.




Here is the video of the Bete Noir running.  The FIRST video I was able to snag, a little belatedly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AZg4JN9hCM

Sent from my iPhone

OK now.... I was so fascinated by this 'beast', that I hung around chatting with the guy in the video and listening to the questions asked by other visitors.  Trust me, there was a tremendous amount of interest in this car!

That paid off!

A little while later, someone asked, on behalf of an older gentleman, if they could hear the "Bete Noir"  run, since they had missed the 1pm  show.  I was standing next to John (at least I think that was his name. He is the guy in the video that you can see starting and stopping the Bete Noir.) at that exact moment..... and I could see him hesitate for a second.... and then say "Sure, why not!"

I couldn't believe my luck!  It pays to hang around, folks!  You never know!

Here is the video that followed!  This time I was ready, and I got it from start to finish!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KFp_hS2PGw

I loved it, as did everyone who heard it, I am sure!

Enjoy!

Addendum:  Baurspotting has actually seen the "Bete Noir" once before!  Last fall we attended the Lime Rock Park Historics Sunday in the Park.  Talk about sensory overload!!!  Well sure enough, I was going through some pics today and.... look what I found!


Interestingly enough, there is no reference to this car as "Bete Noir", nor anything else about its history!  

Bete Noir Brochure from Klingberg Vintage Motorcar Festival






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