$34,000
Sold
sold
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Description
The metal racing car with painted white enamel finish with Shirley Temple's name on each side, red leather upholstered seat, hood ornament, horn, brake handle, and a unique round license plate from Fox Studios at the front. Excellent condition with restoration to finish. Included are several photographs of Shirley Temple driving the car; in one, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson is seen riding the back fender. Ranking at the top of Shirley's childhood possessions - and memories - was her model racing car, a gift to her in 1936 from "Uncle Billy Robinson" (Bojangles). In her 1988 autobiography Child Star, Shirley wrote "painted pure white with a red leather seat and chrome hood ornament of a leaping antelope, it was powered by a one-cylinder unmuffled lawn-mower motor...On my first solo run of studio grounds, Uncle Billy crouched on the back, showed me how to start, and we leaped forward. Veering into a nearby Fox publicist, I snagged a long tear in his trousers. My first traffic accident." Eventually the studio ordered the car removed to her own home where Shirley was "restricted to racing a circle around her own driveway, and soon lost interest".