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- A resident of a Los Angeles neighborhood who was not happy that a permitted car show was held on their street tossed several eggs from a window, one of which landed on a beautiful green Maserati Ghibli.
- Police were called, the thrower was stopped.
- The situation was resolved, but is this normal?
Imagine this happening at Pebble Beach: Some freshly arrived local, unaware there was a car show planned for the 18th green right outside the fence of his luxury golf dwelling, is outraged by the unfairness that his morning has been slightly inconvenienced, so he throws eggs at the cars on the lawn, ruining a couple million-dollar paint jobs solely to demonstrate his outrage at the sheer unfairness of it all.
Absurd? It’d never happen? No one’s that self-absorbed? This was Los Angeles. Read on.
Organizers of the recent Macchinissima Italian car show in the Arts District, just east of downtown Los Angeles, had done all the right things. They’d applied for and received permits to hold their street event on Traction Avenue. They’d posted the requisite signs telling residents the show would take up the east side of the street. And they even included the warning that non-show vehicles left parked there would be towed.
Nonetheless someone—we don’t know who—took down all the signs the night before the show and threw them in the trash. Organizers found the signs and put them back up. The morning of the show, there were still cars parked on Traction Avenue. They weren’t Italian cars.
So organizers had the cars towed because the alternative was to cancel the show, or do the show but with a couple late-model Acura crossovers, Volkswagens, and Hondas scattered among the Alfas and Lancias. (Imagine one guy insisting he should be allowed to leave his golf cart on the lawn at Pebble or Amelia).
One resident—or maybe it was the resident’s partner or friend, it’s not really clear—upon looking out the window of their third-floor apartment, was so displeased with the show in the neighborhood that the action he or she decided was best was to throw eggs out the window onto the classic cars below. The thrower managed to hit one Maserati Ghibli. You may already know what eggs do to car paint.
As the eggs continued to be hurled, someone called the cops. LAPD was on the scene, at first admonishing the egg tosser via loudspeaker to cease. “If you don’t, you’ll be arrested.” The eggs stopped. One officer went upstairs to make contact with the alleged miscreant.
There are two sides to every story, of course. Parking along Traction Avenue had been free up until two weeks prior. So residents were already a little peeved about suddenly having to pay for what had been free when they signed their lease agreements or finalized their loans or moved in. And some of their cars were in fact towed—including, apparently, the vehicle of the alleged egg-tosser.
A person was brought down by the police and was introduced to event organizers. Both sides stated their positions. Organizers offered to pay for the guy’s towing charges; in fact, for the towing charges of all towed cars. No charges were filed against anyone for throwing eggs.
Again, imagine if this had happened at Villa d’Est, Salon Prive, or Chantilly? But this was Los Angeles, a city with problems a lot bigger than eggs on Ghiblis. The police, and especially the event organizers, demonstrated restraint in the face of what could most charitably be described as vandalism.
Even the car’s owner and several fellow car owners joined together with all manner of surface protectant products and got the egg slime off the Ghibli. That car and a Quattroporte next to it were moved to a safer spot. The identity of the alleged tosser was unclear.
The next Macchinissima, scheduled for June 1, will be held indoors.
Mark Vaughn grew up in a Ford family and spent many hours holding a trouble light over a straight-six miraculously fed by a single-barrel carburetor while his father cursed Ford, all its products and everyone who ever worked there. This was his introduction to objective automotive criticism. He started writing for City News Service in Los Angeles, then moved to Europe and became editor of a car magazine called, creatively, Auto. He decided Auto should cover Formula 1, sports prototypes and touring cars—no one stopped him! From there he interviewed with Autoweek at the 1989 Frankfurt motor show and has been with us ever since.
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