Inside the World's Greatest Classic Car Collections — Part 6: Peter Sachs and His Enchanted World

About an hour by train from New York, the arrival at Stamford unfolds as a refined provincial scene — green everywhere, wrapping around those charming old houses we know from the films. The large gate of Peter Sachs’s property stands wide open, and a road winds into the woods. The house is not yet visible when, on the left, a great barn appears — apparently built of wood, far more reminiscent of a farmhouse than of any garage.

Peter, with his gentle smile and a gracious manner quite unlike what one might expect from a successful man of business, opens a small door that leads inside. Dazzling. Perhaps even more than that: a technician is at work on an Alfa Romeo 8C of an unusual cream-yellow colour. Around it, arranged as if ready to depart at any moment, stand a Mercedes 300 SL in aluminium, the Ferrari 330 TR that won Le Mans in 1962 with Olivier Gendebien and Phil Hill, and a Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa — the magnificent pontoon fender one. Peter, visibly amused, mentions that he drives it often on the roads of Stamford, for the pleasure of hearing that unforgettable V12 with carburettors, and for the joy of the lightness and precision of its steering wheel. In truth, driving it, Peter also recalls the emotions and the happiness of when he himself raced.