Still Flying First Class on Pan Am
November 16, 2009 | Uncategorized
The dictionary defines obsession as a compulsive preoccupation with something. If you want to learn more on the subject you don’t have to go online or to your local library. Just go to Anthony Toth’s garage.
Toth has an obsession with Pan Am World Airways. He’s so obsessed with the old carrier — once synonymous with service, class and jet-setting — that he’s built a replica of a Pan Am 747 first-class cabin in the garage of his condo. And it’s an exact replica, complete with the old red-and-blue reclining seats, overhead luggage bins (originals according to The Wall Street Journal), swizzle sticks and napkins, a coffee maker with the old Pan Am logo, snacks sealed in Pan Am wrappers, even a curved red-carpeted staircase to the upper deck.
The 42-year-old Toth is global sales director of United Airlines which, unfortunately, has come close to joining Pan Am in oblivion in recent years. He estimates he’s already spent about $50,000 on the project which likely has made him the subject of a lot of conversations in his Rendondo Beach, CA neighborhood.
Toth’s fixation with Pan Am began in the 1970s when as a child he would travel every summer with his parents to see relatives in Italy and Hungary. On those trips he would collect all sorts of airline memorabilia — “trash” to the cabin crew — including coasters, paper meal tray liners, etc. He also would shoot rolls of film documenting the plane’s interior and once even lugged aboard a tape recorder (in those pre-digital times a big boxy thing) and put his earphones next to the microphone to record the music selection to bring back home.
Today he spends his vacations roaming the “airplane boneyard” out in the Mojave Desert where old aircraft are gutted for parts.
As for authenticity, he’s only succumbed to one modern convenience: back in the garage he has added a flat panel TV in the cabin, so he can watch movies sitting in his first-class seat. Wearing Pan Am headphones while snacking off his vintage Pan Am china, of course.
Photo by Brian L. Frank
Jim Ferri
