The Formosa Cafe in West Hollywood reopened recently and as part of the restoration they did a beautiful resetoration on the PE 800 car that is their bar. My first encounter with PE 913 was a sumer night in 1989, before I began dating my wife, and I had a date with a girl who I had been seeing a bit. She suggested Formosa Cafe and we met there for dinner. After we ate, she left for her home and I stayed and decided I would have a drink or two, having no idea that the bar was a Pacific Electric car. I sat on the barstool next to a young man who was rather blitzed already and the two of us drank together and laughed at our lives, as I also realized he was Christian Slater who was the co-star of the movie HEATHERS, which was a big hit at the time. Christian was not yet of legal drinking age, and I was barely so. We bought each other drinks and drank and drank until I looked around and mentioned to him that the bar felt to me like a railroad car. He looked around and shrugged.
Thirty years later I returned (well, I returned a bunch of times since), but thirty years later, this weekend, I returned to see the restored PE car, and I have to say I was blown away, at least on the exterior of the car. I'll need to go back for an interior visit, which I suspect will not involve getting hammered or meeting Christian Slater again, but for the time being, my compliments to the Formosa Cafe owners on this beautiful car.
Not
just heritage schemes, not just commemorative schemes - this album is devoted to some of the world's most interesting paint schemes, past or present.
