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The speedster: Ely Callaway was a big-time businessman. Son Reeves just wanted to play with engines. What's a father to do?
Forbes, June 24, 1991 v147 n13 p128(2)
(Reeves Callaway, founder of Callaway Cars, maker of cars, engines and components)
Jerry Flint
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 1991 Forbes, Inc.
WHAT DO YOU DO when your son just doesn't fit the mold? When he doesn't want an M.B.A. from Harvard or a law degree from Yale? When all he cares about are greasy car motors? Ely Callaway, now 72, once president of Burlington Industries, who went on to found Callaway Vineyards & Winery and Callaway Golf, had to face that situation.
He didn't mind in the least. "I used to interview hundreds every year out of the top business schools," he says. "They didn't know what they wanted. It's rare to find someone at an early age who knows what he wants. Reeves always knew."
"Always" is not too strong. Even when Reeves, his eldest son, was four or five years old, he was driving a motorized go-cart, Ely remembers proudly. Good student, too.
Son Reeves remembers his early life a bit differently: the disastrous effort to connect the lawn mower engine to his tricycle, and getting pushed out of Episcopal prep school after missing chapel and blowing out the headmaster's window with his hot rod's noise. But father and son agree on one particular memory: If Reeves wanted to spend his life working on cars, Ely wouldn't stand in his way. "He had such a desire to be involved with engines and was so good with his hands that I felt he was going to be okay," Ely says.
Ely says too many of his friends have pushed their children into careers. "It's the biggest mistake in the world. Maybe I didn't because my father didn't do that with me. He encouraged me to do whatever I wanted to do as long as I did it well," he says.
The father explains: "What you hope they can find in life is that they be reasonably constructive citizens whose work gives them basic satisfactions, contentment with their role and what they are doing. Not just money, because money doesn't bring you that much anyway."
"I was lucky to have a dad like that," says Reeves. "He never told any of us to do any particular career [Reeves' brother, Nicholas, heads Callaway Editions, a respected art publisher]." The one rule was, get the college education. Everything else was optional.
Reeves, now 43 and living in Old Lyme, Conn., graduated from Amherst College in 1970 with a fine arts degree, "the easiest way for me to go through," he says. After school he was back into cars, racing Formula Vee cars--souped-up Volkswagen Beetles. He almost won the Formula Vee national championship in 1973, but was disqualified in a dispute over modifications made to the engine. He ended up dead broke and took a job as a demonstration driver for BMW. Somewhere along the line, as Reeves puts it, "I figured out I liked engines better than racing." He began repairing and rebuilding cars, Porsches and the like, working to get more punch from the engines.
His break came in 1977 when Car & Driver magazine wrote about a supercharger this self-taught engineer built to give a small BMW more power. Orders poured in, and Reeves suddenly found himself in the turbo-charger business. And besides his fine arts degree, Reeves did it all on his own with nary a penny from his millionaire dad.
What started out as a garage operation is now a small factory, employing 30, in Old Lyme. Reeves' Callaway Advanced Technologies, a division of Callaway cars, designs and builds prototype engines and components, such as the engine for the new Aston Martin Virage. He's a car manufacturer, too, building the Callaway Corvette, a special twin turbo Corvette for General Motors that goes to 191 miles per hour, and 0 to 60 in 4.4 seconds. It starts at $82,000.
Callaway's gorgeous new model, the Speedster--on the cover of Automobile magazine in April and Motor Trend in June--goes into production this summer. The 450hp Speedster, selling for $150,000 fully taxed and optioned, carries a distinct, cut-down windscreen and no roof. So what do you do with no roof if it rains? "Drive another car," laughs Reeves. He plans to build just 50. Otis Chandler of the Los Angeles Times founding family bought the prototype.
Why would anyone want a 191 mph car? Why would anyone want to climb Mount Everest? It's one of those questions: If you have to ask, there's no use trying to answer. The trouble is not many want to climb Mount Everest or own a 191 mph car. Reeves' company is small, with annual sales from $2 million to $5.5 million. And for Reeves, as for everyone else in the car business, this is a down year.
"We have to sell two cars a week to make our monthly nut," he says. Right now that's about what he sells. But money has never been the sole goal of this car buff. His goal is to build a car from the ground up in the tradition of the great coach builders of a half-century ago--Bugatti, Delahaye, Duesenberg.
Reeves has two models in mind. The Grande, as he calls it, would be a luxurious and powerful sedan. The second dream is more difficult: an ultralightweight, powerful yet "responsible" car. It would weigh 60% of today's midsize car, yet "would suck the headlights out of anything on the road," says Reeves, doing 0 to 60 in 4 seconds--and, here comes the responsible part, would stop from 60mph in 100 feet, and get 30 miles to the gallon.
Reeves might just make that goal. Even if he doesn't, he has already done what he wanted with his life--and has been successful in his chosen field. Reeves has two children of his own. What if one of them would rather study law at Yale than build Speedsters? "I'm going to take a lesson from my old man on that one," says Reeves.
Forbes, June 24, 1991 v147 n13 p128(2)
(Reeves Callaway, founder of Callaway Cars, maker of cars, engines and components)
Jerry Flint
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 1991 Forbes, Inc.
WHAT DO YOU DO when your son just doesn't fit the mold? When he doesn't want an M.B.A. from Harvard or a law degree from Yale? When all he cares about are greasy car motors? Ely Callaway, now 72, once president of Burlington Industries, who went on to found Callaway Vineyards & Winery and Callaway Golf, had to face that situation.
He didn't mind in the least. "I used to interview hundreds every year out of the top business schools," he says. "They didn't know what they wanted. It's rare to find someone at an early age who knows what he wants. Reeves always knew."
"Always" is not too strong. Even when Reeves, his eldest son, was four or five years old, he was driving a motorized go-cart, Ely remembers proudly. Good student, too.
Son Reeves remembers his early life a bit differently: the disastrous effort to connect the lawn mower engine to his tricycle, and getting pushed out of Episcopal prep school after missing chapel and blowing out the headmaster's window with his hot rod's noise. But father and son agree on one particular memory: If Reeves wanted to spend his life working on cars, Ely wouldn't stand in his way. "He had such a desire to be involved with engines and was so good with his hands that I felt he was going to be okay," Ely says.
Ely says too many of his friends have pushed their children into careers. "It's the biggest mistake in the world. Maybe I didn't because my father didn't do that with me. He encouraged me to do whatever I wanted to do as long as I did it well," he says.
The father explains: "What you hope they can find in life is that they be reasonably constructive citizens whose work gives them basic satisfactions, contentment with their role and what they are doing. Not just money, because money doesn't bring you that much anyway."
"I was lucky to have a dad like that," says Reeves. "He never told any of us to do any particular career [Reeves' brother, Nicholas, heads Callaway Editions, a respected art publisher]." The one rule was, get the college education. Everything else was optional.
Reeves, now 43 and living in Old Lyme, Conn., graduated from Amherst College in 1970 with a fine arts degree, "the easiest way for me to go through," he says. After school he was back into cars, racing Formula Vee cars--souped-up Volkswagen Beetles. He almost won the Formula Vee national championship in 1973, but was disqualified in a dispute over modifications made to the engine. He ended up dead broke and took a job as a demonstration driver for BMW. Somewhere along the line, as Reeves puts it, "I figured out I liked engines better than racing." He began repairing and rebuilding cars, Porsches and the like, working to get more punch from the engines.
His break came in 1977 when Car & Driver magazine wrote about a supercharger this self-taught engineer built to give a small BMW more power. Orders poured in, and Reeves suddenly found himself in the turbo-charger business. And besides his fine arts degree, Reeves did it all on his own with nary a penny from his millionaire dad.
What started out as a garage operation is now a small factory, employing 30, in Old Lyme. Reeves' Callaway Advanced Technologies, a division of Callaway cars, designs and builds prototype engines and components, such as the engine for the new Aston Martin Virage. He's a car manufacturer, too, building the Callaway Corvette, a special twin turbo Corvette for General Motors that goes to 191 miles per hour, and 0 to 60 in 4.4 seconds. It starts at $82,000.
Callaway's gorgeous new model, the Speedster--on the cover of Automobile magazine in April and Motor Trend in June--goes into production this summer. The 450hp Speedster, selling for $150,000 fully taxed and optioned, carries a distinct, cut-down windscreen and no roof. So what do you do with no roof if it rains? "Drive another car," laughs Reeves. He plans to build just 50. Otis Chandler of the Los Angeles Times founding family bought the prototype.
Why would anyone want a 191 mph car? Why would anyone want to climb Mount Everest? It's one of those questions: If you have to ask, there's no use trying to answer. The trouble is not many want to climb Mount Everest or own a 191 mph car. Reeves' company is small, with annual sales from $2 million to $5.5 million. And for Reeves, as for everyone else in the car business, this is a down year.
"We have to sell two cars a week to make our monthly nut," he says. Right now that's about what he sells. But money has never been the sole goal of this car buff. His goal is to build a car from the ground up in the tradition of the great coach builders of a half-century ago--Bugatti, Delahaye, Duesenberg.
Reeves has two models in mind. The Grande, as he calls it, would be a luxurious and powerful sedan. The second dream is more difficult: an ultralightweight, powerful yet "responsible" car. It would weigh 60% of today's midsize car, yet "would suck the headlights out of anything on the road," says Reeves, doing 0 to 60 in 4 seconds--and, here comes the responsible part, would stop from 60mph in 100 feet, and get 30 miles to the gallon.
Reeves might just make that goal. Even if he doesn't, he has already done what he wanted with his life--and has been successful in his chosen field. Reeves has two children of his own. What if one of them would rather study law at Yale than build Speedsters? "I'm going to take a lesson from my old man on that one," says Reeves.
