To my friends in the New Yorker and Imperial communities,

I am choking back tears as I write this. Many of you, especially on the New Yorker side, probably remember frequent contributor Christopher Rhinehart from West Palm Beach, Florida. He was the proud owner of the Vintage Red Sunfire 1976 NYB St Regis that appeared in the recent Collectible Automobile magazine article on NYBs, as well as a 1977 Town & Country and an Inca Gold 1975 Imperial. He and I were both so happy to get our cars into the magazine, since we both squeaked in at the last minute with our respective east-coast and west-coast photo shoots.

He sent me the build sheet for his Imperial to decode for him back in April, and as is so typical of me, it took me a few months to set aside an evening to make a project of it. I sent the results to him about a month ago, pleased that I was able to translate nearly all of it for him, hopeful that he would be happy to finally receive it, and relieved to have made good on my promise. It seemed odd that he did not acknowledge it right away, but I assumed he had taken a summer vacation away from his email and that I would hear back from him eventually. He had mentioned some summer plans during one of our offline email conversations about work, architecture and the rest of the stuff that makes up life.

Recently I began to worry. A true gentleman, Christopher would never have let so much time go by without a cheerful acknowledgement, even of such a belated effort. And since he had a BlackBerry, I thought it was unlikely he would stay offline for so long, so I looked up the last time he posted to either list (it was July 14th on the New Yorker list). I began to search online for news, fearing what I would find.

This is what I found, from the Palm Beach Post, submitted by his family:

CHRISTOPHER J. RHINEHART, a resident of West Palm Beach, died suddenly Monday, July 17, of natural causes. He was 45 years old. He was born on October 29, 1960, to Burdette A and Nancy Rhinehart in Jamestown, New York. Christopher graduated from Jamestown High School in 1978 and from the University of Buffalo with a degree in architecture in 1982. He worked for the Philip Johnson architecture firm in New York City, and for 10 years in Atlanta, Georgia for various firms, most recently he was employed at GAS architecture firm in Palm Beach. Christopher is survived by his mother, Nancy Wise of Belleair Bluffs, FL; sister, Martha Neff of Waterford, CT; nephew Zachary and niece Laura Neff.

I do not know what natural causes take a 45-year-old from us. I do know that we have lost a good friend, one of those people whose good nature and generous spirit transcended the online world and made you feel like you had met in person many times, and a member of this special community who are New Yorker and Imperial enthusiasts on the outside, but more often than not friends on the inside.

I thought the lists should know that we have lost one of our own. I would imagine the most meaningful tribute to Christopher would be to enjoy our cars, continue to be generous to each other, and to be thankful for every mile of life's journey that we are lucky enough to spend with good friends by our side, whether in the passenger seat or in our hearts.

Chris in LA

http://www.newyorkeronline.org/membercars/74-78/christopherrhinehart/1976NYB/index.htm
http://www.imperialclub.com/Yr/1976/Christopher/index.htm