Overcast day… It’s rainy and windy; Coleman Hawkins plays melancholy standards in the background. Fall draws me deeper and deeper into depression. The brain tries to find bright spots… And the memory of the beauty of them all emerges. A femme fatale, the most beautiful, but also cool calculating, and utterly unattainable. I only flirted with her little sister …
Italy 1955
On the outskirts of Milan Zagato with its skilled hands had created forms so beautiful that the world hadn’t seen anything like it since the creation of the Venus de Milo. She was named 2121 and she was of a noble family. The family name was Maserati and she belonged to the newest branch in the dynasty named A6G. The dynasty also tried with other designers Pininfarina, Vignale, and Frua. It was, however, at Zagato that something very special would occur, and divine beauty sees the light of day. 2121’s sisters were also beautiful with Zagato. Made from the finest aluminum, rolled and beaten into unnatural fine forms. The beauties’ contact with the mortals’ earth was produced by Borani also in the finest aluminum and with sparkling spokes in chrome plated spring steel. The heart was put in the form of a fine 6-cylinder engine with 3 dual carburetors. Yes, the beauties should indeed compete with angelic voice and trombones. Zagato had chosen 2121 as its gem, and she was obviously having some quite opulent forms. She had two large well-shaped bulges at the top and a particularly narrow opening down front. Later the press called the bulges “double bubble roof” and the opening for “single air intake” but the press has no sense of poetry as you know.
2121’s first appearance was in the Mille Miglia in 1955, but unfortunately she couldn’t carry through despite the dynasty’s high hopes. In shame she was sent away, far away, all the way to America to a godforsaken place called California with western bars and coarse transport habits. All alone, scared and unsure, she was placed with the foul Sal DiNatale. DiNatale was an Italian living in the Promised Land and the owner of a larger garage. The place had a rough and tough corporate culture, not as the loving Carrozzeria in Milan where she was born. In the beginning DiNatale used 2121 for what he called a “replacement vehicle” to his wealthy male customers in the garage. A “job” which gave 2121 many scratches and dented her self-confidence.
Not many jobs may well be so humiliating and psychologically damaging as being “courtesy vehicle”, and after a period she broke down. DiNatale must have had a few human moments in the midst of all the barbaric, in a moment of weakness he takes pity on 2121. Whether it was love or indeed pity is not known, but he sends her back to Italy. To Corleone in Sicily, and DiNatale promises to arrive later…
Arriving in Sicily 2121 is welcomed by DiNatale’s Italian family, the Sicilian heat and the smell of wild rosemary gets her to believe in a bright future … Quickly it becomes rather bleak as the family incarcerate her in one of the wings to the large olive farm. The confinement is complete as a special enclosure without windows and light is built in inch-thick bricks. No one then could believe she would sit here with her unique but also decayed beauty for over 30 years …..
DiNatale never came back to Italy. He chose to stay with his fattish and dominant wife with black all-woolen tights.
United States in the mid-nineties
The prominent Zagato enthusiast, David Sydorick, is hunting. In search of the beauty above them all, the missing beauty 2121. He knows the history; he knows she has been in the hands of some Mr. DiNatale. He has tried many times to contact DiNatale, but in vain. One day, two gentlemen are calling with the desire to see Sydorick’s collection of Zagato beauties, especially one of 2121’s sisters, 2176. The two men show up, one presents himself as Sal DiNatale …
Surprised and slightly chocked Sydorick carries out his presentation of 2176, a beauty, but not at all in comparison with 2121. Later Sydorick gets to talk to DiNatale about the rumors of his knowledge of 2121. DiNatale confirms that he really still has 2121 under lock and key in Italy. It would take two winters to persuade DiNatale to sell 2121 to Sydorick.
Corleone, Sicily
Sydorick arrives late at night at the place where 2121 is located and in the poor light from a single bulb, he notes that he has been lucky. There she was. 2121 in her decay and in her dark prison, but it WAS she.
The following day Sydorick, with the help from DiNatale’s son-in-law and a hammer tore down the entire wall surrounding her and she could be rolled out into the daylight after 30 years of waiting.
A lot of people from town were gathered hoping to see who had bought “The Trapped Beauty “.
2121 was then shipped directly by plane to California, USA, where a team of specialists spent nearly 4 years to get 2121 back to her former beauty.
California, USA
Today 2121 appears with all major and prominent events. She receives standing applause, and the gaping spectators pinch their arms on the supernatural beauty. She mainly occurs in circles with elegant, old and wealthy men. In the country which made her a slave and held her in captivity, she once again has found her freedom and happiness ….
Hellerup
Love can be an intolerable burden. Beauty can be dazzling and cause insane actions. In real life, I’ve never seen 2121, but I once flirted with her sister. Only a little hanky-panky. She, too, was only interested in older, filthy rich men. They are all femmes fatales in the family, beautiful and glacially calculating. 2121 in particular. I often consider to buy me a handgun and take her life. Thus, no other man in this world could put his clammy hand on my beautiful 2121 …
