Peter Ustinov exiting a English taxi... what a fantastic raconteur, and Aston Martin fan

For a wonderful romp that I've adored since 1975 or 76, watch Blackbeard's Ghost. It co-stars Dean Jones, the beautiful Suzanne Pleshette, and of course, my favorite Disney actor and inventor of the T Bucket, Norm Grabowski. It's on Disney + if you've got that. He also voiced Prince John in Disney's Robin Hood

And with David Niven in the paddock with an Aston Martin

Peter Ustinov was a two-time Academy Award-winning film actor, 3 time Emmy winner, a director, writer, journalist and raconteur fluent in Russian, French, Italian and German, and also was a native English speaker.

 His father was a MI5 agent for British intelligence before the war, he warned the government seven months in advance of Hitler's intention to invade Czechoslovakia. He was of one quarter Polish Jewish, one half Russian, one eighth African Ethiopian, and one eighth German, descent, while his mother was one of Russian Imperial Theatre's finest artists who emigrated and made a career as theatre an film set designer of one half Russian, one quarter Italian, one eighth French, and one eighth German, ancestry.

At age 18, he was on the London stage, by 21, he had two plays running in the West End.

In 1960 came his best film acting as Batiatus, the self-disparaging slave dealer in Stanley Kubrick's film Spartacus. Fellow actors still analyse the almost throwaway technique of understatement with which he upstaged Laurence Olivier during that player's prime and held his own with Charles Laughton, a grand master of underplayed idiosyncracy. It won him an Oscar for best supporting actor

From 1942-46 Ustinov served as a private soldier with the British Army's Royal Sussex Regiment. He was batman for David Niven and the two became lifelong friends. Ustinov spent most of his service working with the Army Cinema Unit, where he was involved in making recruitment films, wrote plays and appeared in three films as an actor. At that time he co-wrote and acted in The Way Ahead (1944) (aka "The Immortal Battalion").

His first car was a £200 Fiat Topolino, but as his acting career progressed he bought exotica such as an 11.3 litre V12 Hispano-Suiza

Bernard Cahier recounted the story of Peter Ustinov’s first Hispano. Cahier had been asked by Ustinov’s wife to find a great Hispano as a birthday present for the actor’s 40th birthday. Cahier, who had the best possible connections in the car world, found a great and very huge J12 Limousine with coachwork by Binder for his friend. The surprise present was a great success and Ustinov was almost crying when he saw the car in front of his home, he couldn’t believe his eyes, he had been dreaming of owning a Hispano for so long.

and a pre-war Delage which had the following instruction stamped on the engine, in French; If you use oil which is too heavy, many bad things will happen to you. Other classic cars owned by Ustinov included an Alfa Romeo Giulietta, an Aston Martin DB2/4, an AC which he toured Norway in, an Alvis Speed Twenty and a special-bodied Jowett Jupiter.

he loved cars so much, he made this album, which due to his fluency in so many languages, and his comedic acting excellence, he voiced all by himself.

Bernard Cahier wrote that Ustinov was completely crazy about cars, as well as car racing; he attended many races and was a good friend of many racing drivers such as Fangio, Moss and Collins.

Those energetic engines noises are him, sounding like a beatboxer being plagued by mosquitoes. Vintage F1 fans will identify the protagonists; Jose Julio Fandango (Juan Manual Fangio), Girling Foss (Stitling Moss) and Bill Dill (Phil Hill). There’s a thorough character assassination of Mercedes’ legendary team boss Alfred Neubauer, too. The nationalities of the teams are beautifully parodied; The French are suffering from industrial action and are running their car on cognac, the Germans are highly secretive and complain about everything, the Italians overly excitable and the Brits slightly shambolic. The American car has been lightened to better perform by fitting a slightly smaller clock. Fandango speaks only via a translator, all voiced by the brilliant Ustinov himself.





https://www.motorpunk.co.uk/articles/peter-ustinov-unlikely-entertaining-petrolhead-audio/
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001811/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm
https://voxsartoria.com/page/325
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/mar/30/broadcasting.artsobituaries
https://crankhandleblog.com/stories-2/the-stolen-ustinov-hispano-1/

thank you Phil!

At the end of the 80's, the car was parked in a car box rented but the box was sold ! In 1989, Ustinov's friends in charge of the car called a locksmith to open the box! It was empty! The car had been sold in 1986 to a collector and has been found in a restorer work shop!

 At court the new owner asked Ustinov to prove he was the owner (in France we have got registration card and a registration card for antiques. Ustinov had the original registration card, the new owner had a registration card for antiques. (it is easy to obtain for wrecks, it is delivered by the Federation Française des Véhicules d'Époque).

 The court asked Ustinov why he has not taken care of this car for many years and he lost the trial !