From the September 1986 Issue of Car and Driver.
Just pulling up to Richard Templer’s driveway is enough to send quivers of anticipation up and down this reporter’s spine. Ordinary suburban houses don’t have wrought-iron gates standing guard against the riffraff. Ferrari dealer Rick Mancuso gives the 400i’s urgent horn a toot, and the formidable barrier parts by remote control.
As we idle up the curving drive, we imagine Robin Leach’s voice-over, thick with champagne and caviar, describing the scene: “This magnificent home, set in an exclusive northwest-Chicago suburb, was built six years ago by Richard and Diane Templer. In one of its many garages sits an American-spec Ferrari Testarossa, and we’ve been invited to borrow the fabulous redhead and drive it to our heart’s content.
“This will be something more than a road test. Please buckle up for a brush with enchantment. And stay tuned as we explore a special place where your every automotive fantasy can be fulfilled, in this installment of . . . “
This is the real version of “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.” Real cars. Real people. Real money. We are about to take a peek behind the Greenback Curtain. We’ll soon see what kind of man owns a 100-grand Ferrari Testarossa.
Before we can ring the bell, the big front door swings open and a trim man in his early forties invites us inside. A couple of kids hover nearby. Richard Templer’s attire suggests that he realized partway through dressing this morning that he wouldn’t be going to the office today. The sleeves of his striped shirt are rolled up, his black dress pants sport fresh creases, and his black loafers are shined for success. A pinkie ring containing a diamond the size of a marble adorns his left hand, and a thin gold chain loops around his neck.
Inside, the V-shaped house seems even larger and more breathtaking than it first appeared. The living room arches three stories skyward. The center of the house is dominated by a four-sided fireplace, its brick chimney towering like a missile ready for liftoff. The rear of the Templers’ residence, mostly glass, looks out on a wooded four-acre back yard. Yes, sports fans, there are people who live like this who never get their names in the papers.
We settle into a couple of designer sofas in one corner of the sunken living room. Templer and Mancuso joke easily. “Rick and I have worked some creative financing together,” says Templer. It’s apparent from the grain of his speech that he came up the hard way. “Hey, Rick, how about that time you kept calling and calling me about that Mondial?” he teases. “You finally got me down there, even though I didn’t want it.”
“And then you bought it, didn’t you?” counters Mancuso.
“Yeah, yeah.”
“You know,” says Mancuso seriously, “Dick has gotten into racing. He sponsored me recently in a Camel Light IMSA car at Sebring.”
The Templers’ daughter, eleven-year-old Jennifer, plops down on the couch and leans warmly into Daddy. “Paul hit me,” she whimpers.
“He did? What’d you do to him?” he asks, putting his arm around her.
“Nothing.” Just then Mom intervenes. Diane Templer, dressed in khaki shorts and a matching blouse with the collar turned up, is very young and very chic.
“How about some croissants?” she offers. “You better. I just made them.”
Over coffee and pastry in the large kitchen, Templer tells us how he came to be a Testarossa owner. “I was always a car nut, but I never owned anything exotic until 1979. I didn’t get my first good car until I got out of the service in 1968. It was a Pontiac Firebird 400. For a while I had a 1976 Corvette that I put a 454 in and drag-raced. I hardly ever completed a full quarter-mile without something breaking.” He and Mancuso both laugh.
Seven years ago, Templer got the Ferrari bug. “I saw one on TV one night and I suddenly wanted it. My first one was a 308. I’ve had a few other exoticars since. Let’s see. I had a couple of Maserati Quattroportes. The paint was bad on both of them—it got all crazed—so I got out of them. That was some catastrophe. I had a 928, and I liked it quite a bit. I also had a Mondial—very nice car, but it was a two-valve, and those were really slow. And then I had the Boxer. Real nice piece.” The Boxer was traded in at Mancuso’s classy Ferrari store, Lake Forest Sports Cars, on the Testarossa you see prancing across these pages.
Templer’s other passion is thoroughbred horses. “I love to play them and just to be around them,” he says. He owns a stable of twelve that race in Chicago and in Florida. “They produce a pretty steady profit,” he adds proudly.
Apparently, everything that Richard Templer touches turns to profit. About all he reveals about his past is that he learned the ropes in his father’s appliance-delivery company as a kid. Today, his ample income is derived from four sources: a truck-trailer leasing enterprise, a warehousing-and-distribution company, a trucking business, and a small company that packages real-estate deals.
Before we leave with Templer and his toy for the drive to our Ann Arbor offices, we ask him to show us the rest of his fleet—but we have to press him. “You already saw the Bronco out front?” he asks. “The rest of them are really just a bunch of beaters.”
In the three-car garage, all he has is a black Mercedes-Benz 500SEC with the full AMG treatment and “Miami Vice” blackout windows. And Diane’s Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit. And a Mercedes 560SL roadster for sunny days. Conspicuous consumption is clearly not an issue in the Templer household.
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Source: Reviews - aranddriver.com
