We pay tribute to an inspirational car guy and a dear friend of the magazine
Our good friend David Soul has died, aged 80. He is best known for his role as Hutch in the hit TV series Starsky and Hutch, which ran from 1975 to 1979, and for a series of hit records – including two UK No.1 singles.
And yet his work as an actor, musician, director and activist spanned more than 60 years, and is full of surprises. It was a bit of a surprise, for instance, when he rang PC editor Danny Hopkins at the magazine office back in 2013.
‘He was a force of nature, even over the phone. Two minutes in and I was ready to help.’ The help required was with David’s car passion project, to restore Ernest Hemingway’s 1955 Chrysler New Yorker Convertible that David had discovered as a barn find in Cuba. David was a reader of the magazine and thought we could help source parts and expertise, launder kit through the UK (the US embargo forbade trade with communist Cuba) and help get that beautiful car back to the sort of condition it was in when it was Ernest’s drive.
Over the next five years, Danny and PC partnered up with David, working to get various parts and tools sent out to Cuba. PC also imported a load of parts for the New Yorker from the US, then exported it all to Havana. Danny and David made numerous visits to Felixstowe and Gatwick, and David became a regular contributor to the magazine.
‘David and I went on parts-finding jaunts, fundraising evenings and supplier visits, and he even came to the PC workshop a couple of times,’ recalls Danny. ‘We even went to Cuba together to see progress on the car.’
The election of Donald Trump saw the reversal of the liberalised US-Cuba trade rules that had been introduced under the Obama presidency. This stopped the project dead in its tracks and, with David’s health deteriorating and the pandemic, that is sadly where it has stayed. The documentary film about it is also on hold, with the part-restore
