Peter Bourassa - The Incidental Collector Column
Peter Bourassa is an everyday ‘car guy’. He enjoys F1, IndyCar, IMSA, good motoring books and art. His enthusiasm led him to build MMRsite.com for car people who want the “best” motoring goods and services. For 10 years he has published MMRsite.com and the MMR Community Newsletter weekly. He drives WASRED (a black high-mileage, 308 Ferrari), a high-mileage Audi All-Road and a hot-rodded Ducati Sport-Touring bike.
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He loves the Eagles, the Travelling Wilburys, the Met, Shakespeare, Jay Ward, the NYC Marathon, choral singing, golf and automobilia.
He has read Peking to Paris, Racing in the Rain and everything Denise McCluggage ever wrote at least twice! For the most part, he is you! The quintessential “car guy” who has somehow, incidentally amassed loads of really neat motoring related collectibles! (Jan 2023 - Peter has retired and moved to Alaska!) |
Peter Bourassa of Motorsports Marketing Resources (MMR) speaks at Velocissima Alfa Romeo Owners Club regarding automotive books including A.J. Baime's Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari and their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans.
Some of Peter's Articles: The Incidental Collector Column
1972 USGP driver’s meeting photo next to bookshelf in Peter’s office.
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Automobilia Issue #1 Sept/Oct 2018
According to the dictionary, “AutoMobilia” is not actually a word. It is an amalgam of the words “automobile” and “memorabilia “ and the latter also is a euphonious contraction of the words “memory” and the Latin for “stuff”. Though the word “memory” is not a part of the title of this new publication, “memories” justifies its existence. Our goal here is to periodically present a selection of stories, images and products to kindle old memories and remind us all that we are neither unique nor are we alone. If our lives are truly a journey, memorabilia are certainly its sign posts. As I look about me, I see two large framed posters by Nicolas Watts, one of Moss driving the #722 Mercedes in the ‘55 Mille Miglia. Arguably the greatest “drive” in history. The other is... |
Chris Osborne holding her newly awarded Ralph Fabri Medal. She received this well-deserved medal from the National Society of Painters (NSPCA) in Casein & Acrylic for her Janis Joplin Porsche painting.
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Memorabilia with "An Added Dimension" - Artist Chris Osborne Issue #2 Nov/Dec 2018
The perfect photograph or print, the painting that captures a moment, or a sculpture that evokes a memory, is from its inception both Art and Memorabilia. Most of us, even those among us who own but one such book, image, or piece...are Incidental Collectors. We are enthusiasts first, collectors second. In this issue we introduce you to The Mistress of the Added Dimension. Connecticut artist Chris Osborne has been invited to display her paintings of cars and stars at automotive events of all types across the country. |
BERGWERK: The most evocative cars in the motorsport history owe their reputation to fluke. Known as the Silver Arrows, the Mercedes W25 were presented as aluminium ‘bullets’ simply because of a weight restriction at the Eiffel GP in 1934. The Mercedes cars - all painted in Germany’s racing colour of white - weighed just one kilogram more than the Nurburgring’s new weight restriction. Nothing further could be removed from the car to reduce its weight so Mercedes team manager, Alfred Neubauer, suggested stripping the paint down to the hand-bashed aluminium bodywork. This, combined with their sheer power, gave rise to the name ‘Silver Arrows’. So powerful was the W25 that when Mercedes driver Ernst Henne tested it at the Nurburgring in 1934 the force of the supercharger took him by such surprise that he finished in a stream at Berwerk, only to be rescued by an old woman.
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Rachael Clegg: More than meets the eye. Issue #3 Jan/Feb 2019
If you are an enthusiast who delights in the history of our sport and finding out how, why and where things happened, you might appreciate Rachael Clegg’s artistic take on historic events, that took place on two of the most important and dangerous tracks in the world. In my school days, my classmates and I were ferried on rare occasions to a large museum to view the works of famed artists. Many considered this akin to “casting pearls before swine”. We were kids! We yawned at Rubens portraits, pointed, tittered, and blushed at the site of plump semi-nude angels and yawned again at each landscape. And then there were the enigmas; the works of Van Gogh and Picasso, for which our guides had no plausible explanation that a pre-pubescent mind could ever comprehend. Now I am drawn (forgive the pun) to art that has a story. It is a dimension now essential to adding pieces to the cherished detritus of my life. Some of the time the story is obvious in the image. At other times, a discussion with the artist is needed to give the piece meaning for me. The 12.2 mile Nurburgring in Germany is unquestionably the most dangerous race circuit in the history of the sport. Dubbed “the Green Hell” by Jackie Stewart, it has been neutered and mercifully bears no resemblance to its earlier deadly iterations. Today’s 12.2 mile track is the site of an excellent driving school, and a “rent-a-road” format that by paying a toll, people without imagination or knowledge of history run their quick street cars. |
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Collecting vs Accumulating – A Fine Line? The Schlumpf Obsession! Issue #4 Mar/Apr 2019
I found the image by Michael Furman on the cover of this month’s issue intriguing. While I am recognized here as an “incidental” collector, when it comes to books about whose subjects I have an interest, I become a “determined” collector. What caught my eye, was a book about the Schlumpf brothers of France’s Mulhouse Museum fame, authored by a favorite British motorsports journalist of the period, Dennis Jenkinson. He was Stirling Moss’s navigator in the winning 1955 Mille Miglia, rated one of the greatest drives of all time. Thus, an opportunity to learn more about how the reclusive Schlumpfs lost their amazing collection, written by a man with impeccable motorsports credentials, was irresistible. |
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Writing from the Heart Issue #5 May/June 2019
“Collectible” and “valuable“ needn’t be prerequisites for adding an item to your collection. In the case of books, the aspect of “value” can be as important as the quality of the material or its rarity. In this issue, I would like to bring two books to your attention whose monetary value is wildly different based primarily on their availability. Yet in my opinion, both have a common value, based solely on their content. Here is the story of these two stories, but first a little of my backstory…. |
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Books! My Favorite Thing after Vintage Cars, Bright Women & Loud Music Issue #6 July/Aug 2019
Actually that is not exactly what both the Publisher and Editor of this fine magazine had in mind when they recently asked if I would write about what is my favorite thing after vintage cars, bright women, and loud music. You know there are people in our life that we see irregularly. Yet no matter the elapsed time, the warmth and conversation always picks up precisely where it left off. A select group of books fall into that category. And that got me to thinking about what it is about each of these special friends that mean so very much to me. For some, it is the specific content for which I had a passion, for others it is simply the manner in which it is written, sometimes it is the images. |
