Robert Redford, an absolutely legendary actor, director, and activist, passed away at his home in Utah. He was 89. You’ll find plenty of obituaries on entertainment sites and mainstream media pages today, but we wanted to acknowledge him by resurfacing a cute story about him and longtime friend Paul Newman pranking each other, over a period of years, with an undrivable Porsche.
Paul Newman was famously into pretty serious racing for many years. The beginning of his driving obsession is said to have started at a Bondurant driving school. Apparently, after that, he talked about cars so much that his buddy Redford (with whom he shared a lot of time on and off the clock) started getting annoyed. And on Newman’s 50th birthday, Redford acquired a wrecked Porsche to be dropped off at his house with a gift bow on it.
Unfortunately, I can’t find exactly what year or model the car was—that detail didn’t make it into any of the retellings I’ve found online. (There are some references to the car being “found in Connecticut,” but that’s the only specific note I’ve seen about the Porsche).
Redford was into cars, too. His 1964 Porsche 904 GTS sold for seven figures at a Bonhams auction in Paris a few years ago.
Redford recounted how the rest of the prank played out in some interviews following Newman’s passing in 2008. Here’s an excerpt from an Observer article getting into it:
“Mostly I’ll miss the fun we had. We played lots of pranks on each other. I used to race cars, and after he took this rare Porsche I owned for a drive, he began to get into racing. He had incredible reflexes, and he got really good, but he talked so much about it that I got sick of it. So I had a beaten-up Porsche shell delivered to his porch for his 50th birthday. He never said anything, but not long after, I found a crate of molten metal delivered to the living room of my (rented) house. It dented the floor. I then had it turned into a really ugly sculpture and dropped into his garden. To this day, neither one of us has ever mentioned it.”
I wonder what happened to that sculpture?
If you’re looking for a Redford classic to revisit, I strongly recommend Jeremiah Johnson, especially as the weather starts to cool off. Though, of course, you could spend weeks celebrating his cinema catalog because he was so prolific. Rest in peace, Mr. Redford.
Got any Robert Redford movie recommendations? Drop them in the comments or email me at andrew.collins@thedrive.com.
Automotive journalist since 2013, Andrew primarily coordinates features, sponsored content, and multi-departmental initiatives at The Drive.
