Jon and Mary Shirley collect art. Their collection of postwar contemporary art has landed them on Art News magazine's list of the "World's Top 200 Collectors." They also collect automotive art, focusing on postwar sports cars from Jaguar, Austin Healey, MG, Porsche, and Mercedes-Benz. That is until they discovered Enzo Ferrari's masterpieces.
Today, Jon Shirley's dream garage is a Ferrari-filled fortress, featuring some of the rarest and most gorgeous cars ever made. Not bad for a guy who started out at RadioShack.
VEHICLES INSIDE :
1949 Ferrari 166MM, '54 Ferrari 500 Mondial, '60 Ferrari California Spyder, '53 Ferrari 375MM Coupe, '67 Ferrari 275 GTS/4 NART Spyder, 375MM Scaglietti Coupe, '56 Mercedes 300SL Gullwing, '63 Mercedes 300SL Roadster, and a '55 Porsche 550 Spyder among many others.
Select the STORY tab above for the full story by Stuart Leuthner. PHOTOS at right by William Taylor , from their book, Wheels: A Passion for Collecting Cars 
Jon and Mary Shirley collect art. Their colletion of postwar contemporary art has landed them on Art News magazine's list of the "World's Top 200 Collectors." The couple's home, overlooking Seattle's Lake Washington, features a marvelous gallery space that contains works by Willem de Kooning, Alexander Calder, John Chamberlain, Constantin Brancusi, Henry Moore, Mark di Suvero, Jackson Pollock, and Chuck Close, to name a few. The Shirleys are also important contributors to the Seattle art scene. Jon is currently the chairman of the Seattle Art Museum's board of trustees and serves on a number of committees at the museum. The couple has been among the leading forces behind the Olympic Sculpture Park that opened in 2006. Not only did the Shirleys choose the name for the park, the provided the funds to purchase Alexander Calder's monumental stabile, Eagle, the park's signature piece.
Jon Shirley also collects automotive art. "I started collecteing cars in the late 1980s," he says. "It was not a good time because the car market was very high. After the market collapsed, prices became more reasonable, and I began to collect postwar sports cars - Jaguars, Austin Healeys, MGs, Porsches, Mercedes, things like that."
From the book Wheels: A Passion for Collecting Cars
Although Shirley had owned several Ferraris, it was not until he met Butch Dennison that he began to focus on Enzo's masterpieces.Dennison's company, Dennison International Motorsports, is located in Puyallup, an hour's drive south of Seattle.
"I didn't start off racing," Shirley says. "In 1994, Mary and I were invited to bring our 275GTS/4 NART spyder to Monterey. That was Ferrari's year at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. It was before I became involved with Butch, and I thought it would be a way to start off somewhere in the middle and learn the routine."
The Shirleys ended up taking the car to the Ferrari Nationals, three days before Pebbble Beach. Although they did not win anything, the couple received some positive feedback from the judges. Inspired, Jon and Mary spent the next three days feverishly working on the car, and they were awarded thrird in their class at the concours. "the two of us did all of the work on the car," he says, laughing. "In fact, Mary got fingernail fungus from all the polishing she did on the wire wheels. Third place meant a lot to two rank amateurs."
Since that first show, Shirley's cars have done extremely well. "I think we've had four firsts at Pebble," he says. "We've also won three of the world's most significant Ferrari awards. but, as I became more involved with Butch, vintage racing looked like it might be fun. Butch kind of talked me into it."
Shirley bought a Lotus 18, atteneded racing school, and began to compete in vintage events.
A Ferrari Filled Fortress
Former Microsoft president, Jon Shirley, has assembled one of the most enviable collections of rare motorized masterpieces in the world.
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