When most folks think of writer Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) they think of boating. (Because, fishing). Or perhaps they think of flying around the world to shoot things.
Not many folks think of the adventurous author and journalist as a car guy. But he was. In his fiction, Hemingway called out many car brands, even Bugatti. And he loved roadtrips.
He drove a Ford Model A across the U.S., a Lancia B10 around Europe after WWII, and a Chrysler convertible in Cuba. Hemingway also got drunk, went for a drive with his wife, and crashed his car.
Twice. With two different wives (numbers three and four).Despite these incidents, Hemingway served as a brand ambassador for Buick. I feel like he attracted some young, hip Buick buyers in the 1950s .
First of all, Ernest Hemingway grew up in a time when cars were much less common. In his fiction he writes about a teenager borrowing his affluent family’s only car for a date.
He writes that when he and his wife Hadley (number one) moved to Paris to live off her small trust fund they could not afford a car.
When the Fitzgeralds (yes those Fitzgeralds) showed up with one it was a major flex. Apparently Zelda had impulsively sliced the roof off so Ernie and Scott had to dodge rainstorms while on drunken roadtrips.
An intriguing Rolls-Royce popped up on R.M. Sotheby’s site. The Phantom II was shipped form England to Paris as just a frame with an engine (very common for luxury cars in those days).