For many years Mel Satok put up with my dragging him to car shows and races. Mel, you see, is not a car enthusiast, probably never will be. But he's an architect and (most) architects have good taste in design or they wouldn't be in that business. Much of "The Education of Mel Satok" has consisted of explaining what makes a car attractive and that the beauty is often in the details. Last month those efforts finally paid off. Mel and his wife diana spent the month of February in sunny "Palm Springs, California" and with no encouragement from me (I didn't even know the event was happening) he attended a classic car concours.

Mel then busied himself taking photographs. Not just your basic old car images but very attractive photos, concentrating mostly on those details I'd been showing him. It's as if Mel's architectural instincts and design senses had suddenly found a place in the world of automobiles! Here's one I think you'll like, though my friend hasn't yet realised that pictures need to be accompanied with explanatory notes. Hint: When I take photos of classics, I also shoot the description that appears on a sheet in the window or on a board mounted nearby: no notes, no fumbling with paper and pen. However I had fun browsing my library of car books to identify the subject, "a DeSoto from 1960" when the marque had only one more year to live.