* HAPPY COUPLE — Bob LaFlufy and this 1961/62 Ferrari
the Fercari was, weil, a Ferrari. Some 30 years later, LaFlufy — now

250 GTE first crossed paths in the mid-sixties at the Capilano G
the owner of Autoclasgic Restorations — finally acqu

Wednesday, July 3, 1996 - North Shore News — 15

re ae

L

mater nant eam

NEWS photo Terry Peters

olf & Country Club. LaFluty was a caddy and |
ired the object of his teenage affection. .

ay ar : TT fy a

an offer. The hack talked once. :
more of restoring the car. LaFlufy

Summer tove-lost story ends on happy exhaust note

’. Peak for a couple of

‘LUSTFUL cravings take on
“many, incarnations, but for
teenage: boys ‘it’s a good bet a
.” Car — preferably an exotic one
— out-muscles that girl in the
= front row: when it comes to the
day-dreaming department.
‘AS a teenager in West
“Yancouver in the 1960s, Bob
LaFlufy’s dream was a 1961-62
‘Ferrari 250. GTE. Black. Italian

sports car. Definitely exotic.
And like a recurring vision, that

black. Ferrari. would roar past
LaFlufy most summer mornings as
he trudged from his Sentinel Hill
home to West Vancouver's
Capilano Golf & Country Club to
get-in his two rounds as a caddy.
Only this dream was grounded in
reality. The’ 12-cylinder kind.

The driver of the car was Peter
Bentley. now Chairman of
Canadian Forest Products (CAN-
FOR).

Bentley played golf at Capilano
most weekend mornings, and
LaFlufy looked forward to week-

-ends when he knew he would have

lunch with the object of his affec-

_ tion.

“After caddying a round in the
morning, I'd take my bologna’
sandwich and my coca-cola and I'd
go out and sit in the parking lot and
look at this car,” says LaFlufy. sit-
ting back in his chair one afternoon
last week.

But like many young romances,
LaFlufy (pronounced La-Floof-ee)
and the Ferrari parted ways. But
from afar, LaFlufy kept tabs on his
dream. /

A few years after that summer,
Bentley sold the Ferrari to Dr.°

Shakespeare on
‘the mountain —

BARD on the Beach
‘becomes Bard on the

Saturdays in July
and, judging by the
crowds thai attended
last year’s perfor-
“mance, you might
want to start making
“plans to get up
Grouse Mountain |
-yery soon.

it Both plays in Bard’s
‘the trip up the tram this year:

Martin |
Millerchip _

n will make
Much Ado

afternoon.

Both plays are afternoon
performances, commencing
at | p.m. If it rains, Bard
will try again the following

“The marriage of Bard and’
Grouse Mountain is unique.
I know of no other company
that takes Shakespeare’s
plays up to the top of a
mountain,” artistic director
Christopher Gaze told

* Curtain Call at a recent per-
formance of Much Ado.
“I'm as proud as can be
about our relationship with

Grouse Mountain. [ think they are doing 4

About Nothing July. 13 and The Merchant of:

Venice July 20.

See Grouse page 16

very wise thing by reaching out to the com-
munity and getting them involved,” he con-

FRIENDLY fun typifies Bard on the Beac
Claudio shares a joke with Dean Paul Gib:

Naim Knott of Vancouver, who
drove the black beauty’ for a few
years then traded it in at the Bow
Mac car dealership in 1972. From
here, however, LaFlufy lost track
of the car.

What he didn’t know was that
the Ferrari was sold for $4,500 by,
Bow Mac to a Coquitlam taxi dri-
ver, who drove the car for two
years and parked it in his garage,
vowing to restore it over the win-
ter. He didn't. ; ;

Eighteen years later, in 1992,
LaFlufy picked up the trail of the
Ferrari again and made the cabbie

best

was spurned: But four weeks ago
the Coquitlam man showed up at
LaFlufy's Autoclassic’ Restoration
business in North Vancouver. He-

’ wanted to sell (cue violins).

‘* LaFlufy and the Ferrari are
today living happily together. And”
that long-needed restoration is |
planned for this winter. ;

“It was ‘a very “special -car,”:
Bentley, the original owner, said,
when told of LaFlufy’s story..“I'm

; delighted to hear that, wish him all

the best for me.” |
” Make that wish them all the

“Photo

h productions. Kurt Max-Runte (left) as’
son’s Don Pedro. | LR OE