by Robert J. Conners. Illustration by John Berkey. Published in Road & Track, August, 1985.

No, that one is not for sale, Both of them are mine. Yes, they’re Warren Johnson models. He was the greatest modeling genius the world ever saw, I allow. Know him? You bet I knew him. Better than anyone else around here. He was a strange one, all right, but I liked him. I sometimes wonder where he is now.

I expect it must have been around April of last year when I saw him for the first time. He was kind of mooching around in front of the store with a big cardboard box under his arm. He’d walk on by, looking in the window like a dog in front of a butcher’s, disappear, then come back. I was setting up a Tyco raceway in the back, so I don’t know how long he was out there.

Finally the door chime rang, and he came in, kind of gliding in cheap sneakers. A big fat guy, the sort who always looks shiny even in the winter. Ban-Lon shirt and greasy jeans; he looked like the fat kid in “Gasoline Alley,” except older and gone baggy. About 40, pink cheeks, curly yellow hair. And with this big cardboard box he carried real carefully.

The store was quiet just then. He put the box down on the counter and stood moving from one foot to another, like he had to go or something. And I asked him if I could help him.

“You, uh …” he said, his voice sounding scared, “you buy models as well as sell them, huh? My friend said you bought them.”

I went over. “Yes, we buy models. But only antiques or very special models. Not your old Revells.”

“This isn’t an old Revell. Do you want to see?”

“Okay, sure. What have you got?”

He took the top off and began to pull out cotton wool from the box. I looked, saw a flash of chrome, and then he reached down very carefully and slowly drew out a model car, a green 1967 Chevy, and put it on the counter in front of me.

It was not a commercial model. It was about 18 in. long, every line correct. Reaching out, I touched the fender with my forefinger, and the car rocked on tiny springs. Tiny coil springs. The model was all metal.

“Nice, huh?” He sounded proud. “All the details work, too. You have to use these tweezers and this needle.” Fumbling the tools from a shirt pocket, he unlatched and opened the Chevy’s door (it gave a high squeak). The seats were of worn vinyl, the driver’s covered with a miniature cool-seat. Reaching in with the long needle, he pressed the horn ring, and a thin blatting came from under the hood. He poked open the miniscule vent window.

“Pretty good model, huh?”

I was trying to keep my voice steady. “Not bad, not bad. Let me look more carefully.” I went and got my 20X magnifier while he stood there shifting from foot to foot.

Now, I think I know model cars as well as anyone around this city. They can be pretty damned nice. The Pochers are beautiful, the Solidos are fine models. I’ve seen those hand-cast and bolted Bugattis from Switzerland-lovely! I’ve seen photos of little Mercers a man builds that actually run. I know the market. But never in my life had I ever seen anything to approach the detail of this little Chevy. The tires were pressurized. The radio antenna went up and down. The doors all opened, the windows all raised and lowered (well, the driver’s side didn’t; broken, he said). All the tiny things were right; the little chrome Impalas were there. The wipers worked, the lights went on and off, it even had tiny rust holes and a bitty ding in the bumper. I mean, it was perfect. It had little casting holes in the back of the steering wheel, for crying out loud.

I tried to be blase. This fella was the greatest modeler in the world and didn’t seem to know it. “Not bad,” I said jokingly, “a little rusty, though.” He looked pained. “That’s for realism,” he said stoutly. “You could repaint it anyhow, couldn’t you? It runs good, real good.”

Staring, I said, “Runs? The motor?”

“Sure. Look.” Reaching carefully in with the tweezers, he turned the microscopic key in the dashboard. A highpitched, whirring sound, then a sharp growl from under the car. “Needs a new muffler,” he explained. “Is it a V-8?” I asked sarcastically. “No, just a six. Watch it go.”

He gingerly set it on the floor, where it was regarded with amazement by a couple of kids who had come in. Reaching in clumsily with an index finger, he moved the automatic transmission lever over; the growl changed. Holding the car back by the edges of the roof, he straightened the steering, then let it go. It crept, about 6 in./sec. down the aisle of the store. The kids were bug-eyed.

Warren (that was the name he told me, Warren Johnson) ran and stopped the car, turned it off, then looked up at me. “Well, are you interested?”

I nodded. “Come on into the office. Bring the car.”

Well, the long and short of it was that I ended up paying him $375 for the Chevy. I told him I had never seen a Chevy so fine and that any time he had any more models like that to come and see me. He was pleased, I was pleased, we shook hands and he twitched out the keys and gave them to me. I asked him how long it had taken to put the Chevy together. He looked confused for a second, then said just a couple months. He had some others under construction now and would show them to me when they were ready. He left then, walking fast.

I looked the car over. God, it was something. A little battery the size of your fingernail, an automatic transmission 3 in. long. Every nut and bolt perfect. There was even a flat spare and a miniature bag of rock salt in the trunk. I put the car in the window with a sign reading “World’s Most Detailed Model” and three days later a man from Cleveland bought it for $1100. When I took it from the window there was a little pool of oil under where the engine had been.

I didn’t see Warren for a few weeks after that, and thought it would take him months more to complete another model—I mean, it should have taken years to put a model like that together. He was a genius, that’s all. That’s what I told myself. Then about three weeks later he came in with two more models.

His clothes were new. He had on a cheap green polyester leisure suit that made him look like a watermelon, and the cardboard box was heavier.

“Hi, boss. I see you sold the Chevy.” His manner was different now; he was confident. I don’t know why he called me boss.

“Right. Got any more?”

“You bet. Can we go in the office?”

He had a Volkswagen Beetle model and a really nifty little old fastback Mustang. The details, everything, were just as perfect and amazing as those on the Chevy had been. He had somehow even duplicated the spare-pressure windshield-washer on the Bug.

“I, uh, have to tell you,” he said, casting his eyes down, “’the VW has a blown engine. Doesn’t run. For realism, y’know?”

“Realism. God, Warren, any more realism and I’ll expect you to produce a little human being out of your pocket and have him drive the cars away.” I was fascinated, tinkering with the 4-speed of the Mustang. “How do you get that weathered-paint look?”

He spoke quickly. “Oh, sanding, and a special paint I mix up myself. Do you want these?” He never seemed to like to talk about his techniques.

“Do you have any more?”

“I have some almost finished and some in the works. How much do you think these are worth? Do you want them?”

I couldn’t help it; I had to ask. “How in the world can you part with them for money after all the work you put in? I would want to keep them forever.”

“These?” He almost laughed. “Just a VW and an old Mustang? They’re nothing. I’ve got others in the works. But I need the money for these.”

Yes, I know. Strange. But not for me to wonder why, like the man says. I made a deal with Warren: I would be his exclusive distributor and he would sell all of his works of art (Who could call them just models? They’re worth tens of thousands today) through me. I gave him a grand on spec for the two he had brought and he promised to return within the month.

So we started our business relationship, Warren and me. I sold the VW for $1500 and the Mustang for $2300 to a Ford nut. The week afterward I got a call from a man who had seen the Chevrolet and wondered if I had anymore Johnson models. I took his number.

Two days later Warren mooched in with a yellow Pinto and a pretty Datsun B210 model. The polyester outfit was gone: now he was wearing a wool sportcoat. His nails were clean. “Hot stuff, huh, boss?” he said happily. Hot stuff it was; both models were gone in a week. His cars were getting known around the state and collectors often called me. At one point I just had to tell people I’d put them on a list.

It went like that. He would show up at odd times, and he’d have the damnedest models. Over the next few months he brought in a VW 412, a Sunbeam Alpine, two Plymouth Dusters, and a 1965 Valiant. That sort of car.

Most modelmakers do the classic cars, the Model Ts and the 1955 Chevys, the Cords and Bugattis. That’s what most people want models of. But this fella—the greatest modeler who ever lived, I expect—did only cheap, everyday cars. “I like those cars best,” he said when I asked him about it. “Those are the cars I grew up with.” And he kept on with the Mavericks and Toyota Corollas.

I know: I should have suspected something. In six months he came up with 16 complete model cars, and each one sold for more than $3,000. I put an ad in Model World and selling them was no problem. I kept a third and he got two thirds. My share came to more than $21,000. That’s a lot of money.

Throughout all this Warren kept completely to himself. He never told me where he lived, never gave me a phone number. “You take care of the business end, boss,” he said. “Everything.” He would come into the store at odd intervals with a model or two, talk a little while about prices, pick up his money and leave. He always asked for cashier’s checks. His clothes were much more expensive, I noticed, and one day when he left I saw him drive past a minute later in a gray XJ-S.

As I say, this went on for about half a year. The models sold well, but they were not, never would be, the classic cars that collectors would kill for. I finally figured that I needed to talk with Warren about it. One day after he had brought in a beautifully detailed but sort of ratty 1967 Ford pickup truck model, I sat him down in the office.

“Listen, Warren,” I said, “how long do you want to go on with this pennyante modeling? You can keep making these Checkers and Dodges at three grand a throw forever.”

“Yeah, the money’s pretty good!” he interrupted enthusiastically. I went on. “Or, you can start to make some real money.”

He looked confused. “Real money?”

It was time to give him my big gun. “I got a phone call yesterday from the president of the regional MG club. They’re willing to pay $9500 for one of your models. But it has to be an MG TC. Not another Malibu or Falcon.” He swallowed. “Almost ten grand? For one car?”

“Yes. And that’s peanuts compared to some. We could get more for others. There’ve been several people who wanted to order models, and I’ve had to tell them you were an eccentric genius who only did models of damn fool cars.”

“Ten thousand dollars,” he said wonderingly, and walked out the door in some sort of daze. Three days later he came back with his box: a perfect dark blue 1949 MG TC. You can’t put together a Pocher kit in three days, and this TC was 50 times more detailed.

I should have known then that something wasn’t right. But I expect that the dollar signs were in my eyes too. When the president of the TC Society came to pick up the model, he was flabbergasted. He looked at it for a moment, nudging the fabric of the top with a finger, sliding the side curtains back and forth.

“Unbelievable. Unbelievable.”

As he was making out his check I put the TC into one of the glass display cases I had had made up for Warren’s cars. “Where you going to put this model, Mr. Gallant?” I asked.

“Right in the lobby of my building,” he answered, tearing off the check.

“I’m going to lock this handbrake so it doesn’t roll around during the tr…hmmm, I guess not.” The handbrake lever had no tension; cable broken maybe.

“It broke?” Gallant came over. “Hmmm, no tension,” I said, moving the lever up and down to show him.

“Well, don’t worry about it. Just pack it in shavings or something …” He stopped, looked closely at the car again. “You know, the handbrake on Jack Castine’s car was always loose like that. Same color, too. Last I heard he was selling that car. Maybe your man used it as a model.”

“Might be, might be. Thank you, sir.”

All right, all right. But in all honesty, there was nothing illegal about what I did. The models were all sold legally, I have all the tax records. They were all bought and paid for. I run a clean shop; I sell no airplane glue to kids.

The operation changed for a while after that. Warren Johnson models had gotten so well known that I could name the prices; from middle-income and regional collectors our customers became top-level national and even international people. The days of Gremlins and Galaxies were over: after that MG, Warren let me know he’d accept orders.

“It might take me a little longer, boss,” he said as I made out his bank check for $8,000 (I worked on percent age by then; he got smarter). And he did take longer-he would sometimes be gone for a month before he showed up with what the collector had ordered.  I tell you, those were the glory days. We got orders from all over; for a Z-car, a Jag E-Type, a Lotus Elan, and Warren kept the models rolling in. God, they were lovely. No more misplaced “realism,” no more rust and dings. The models were gems, just gems. The 240Z sold for $13,500, and I heard it just changed hands for $37,000 last week.

But Warren would only take certain orders, nothing too old, nothing too rare. “I always have to get more for the model than the car itself.” he told me once, “it’s a point of pride. If one man built a Pinto, it’d be expensive too.” So I had to turn away the Cord and Duesenberg people, the serious individual collectors. And the number of people with big money who want modern car models is limited.

The day came finally. Warren walked in with a really heart-breaking model of a Mazda RX-7 (the little Wankel engine made a high whining sound) and wanted to know what was next. I had to tell him there were no more orders.

“No more orders? For my cars?” he repeated dumbly, eyes round. “Sure, I’ve got orders,” I replied, “orders for a Bugatti Type 35, a Duesenberg SJ, a boat-tail Auburn, a…”

“All right, all right,” he growled, “you know what I told you about those cars. Too hard to blueprint, too hard to do…” He sounded unconvincing.

“Hard to do?” I made my voice sarcastic. “Look at your detail work on this Mazda. Look at that wheel. Look at those headlights. Hard to do!”

There was a long silence. Then he said slowly, “Do you have any pictures of the Bugatti?”

So we started the third and last phase of our partnership. Two months after that night he brought in the Bug. When the man came to get it, he stood for a second and peered at the little blue car on the counter. Walked closer, looked carefully. Then his back convulsed, and two huge tears trickled from behind his Coke-bottle lenses. “It’s … it’s … the most beautiful thing ….” he said brokenly. I said $25,000.

When Warren brought in the Doozie, I seriously considered stealing it for myself. It was a 1932, chocolate-brown and black, with a long 2-seat Murphy body, gray upholstery, that purring straight-8 engine with the miniature supercharger… I can see it now, twinkling on the counter. That counter there. They tell me that car’s gone now, stolen. I’m not surprised. It went to a private collector then was resold, then stolen. No, I’m not surprised. That model was like the Hope diamond: I wouldn’t be surprised if someone killed for it.

What came next? Oh yes, the Model-A. Beautiful little rumble-seat coupe; bright yellow, black fenders. That one was cheap then, only $12,000. I guess Warren figured he could loaf a little; the Duesenberg had gone for $38,000. We were both well off.

We had a long-standing order for an Auburn, and I think he was in the middle of doing it when Mr. Gottschalk came in for the first time. I looked up from a Lionel tank car I was trying to repair and there was this figure in black, all black. His skin looked white and puffy; sort of… in my mind I called him the Pillsbury Doughboy, although he must have been at least 60.

“Are you the agent for Johnson models?” His voice was cold and twangy; real precise.

“Yes, I handle business for Warren Johnson.”

“Then I have a commission for you.” He talked that way; never looking straight at you, speaking as if he’d just eaten sour persimmons.

“I am Sidney Gottschalk. You may have heard of me. Gottschalk Refining, Pretoria, Bern, and Rochester.”

I allowed as how I had.

“I wish a model of a vehicle I own. A 1938 Delahaye with coachwork by Figoni et Falaschi. Can your man build such a model?”

I allowed as how he could. For a large sum of money.

“I am prepared to pay $40,000 if the model is of the quality of the others I have seen.”

I allowed as how it would be. We signed paper. “I will expect to hear from you within three months.”

“You will. I’ll need good quality 8 x 10s of the car from the side, front, rear, top, bottom.”

“My chauffeur will bring them. Good day, sir.”

When Warren showed up with the Auburn, I was appalled. It was beautiful, of course, but then I opened the hood and the engine was a Chevy V-8. Inside the cockpit-the car was an automatic!

“Some~something wrong?” Warren quavered. “”It’s perfect. isn’t it?” I closed my eyes, put my head down on the desk. “What’s wrong?”

“Warren,” I finally moaned, “why in the name of God have you built a model of a modern replicar—a fiberglass Auburn body on a Chevrolet chassis?”

“Re-replicar?” he stammered. “”It isn’t a real…?”

“Oh, cripes,” was all I could say. He didn’t seem to know anything about classic cars at all and instead of a $30,000 model we had a useless piece of miniature junk. Well, not completely. I salvaged something by selling the model to the Indianapolis company that makes the replicar bodies. But it was a big loss.

“Get it right next time, you lunkhead!” I told him. He was plenty sheepish, and promised not to screw up on the Delahaye.

“Jeez, boss, I’ve never seen a car like this around anywhere. Who wants it?” I wished he wouldn’t call me boss.

“Never mind. There are only eight cars like it in the world. Can you do it?” He hesitated. “I guess so… it may take time; couple, three months.”

It was a couple of days later when I was packing up the fake Auburn for shipment and my eye fell on something. I was crumpling up newspapers, and the word “Duesenberg” on a page made me stop and read. It was the Detroit Free Press for about three months before; I don’t know where it had come from. The story was only a column on page 8: VINTAGE AUTO DISAPPEARS.

“Police continued today to investigate the mysterious theft of an antique 1932 Duesenberg roadster from the locked garage of industrialist Fred T. Prianowski early this morning. The brown convertible, more than 16 ft. long, disappeared without the heavily electronically alarmed garage door being opened. ‘The locks weren’t tampered with,’ said Sgt. Thomas Cochrane. ‘A small window was broken, but hardly even big enough to get the bumper out. It just seemed to disappear into thin air.’ The car was valued at more than $100,000.”

No. Really. I don’t know anything. There’s nothing that can be proven. I just sell hobby supplies. I don’t know anything about auto thefts. I threw out the paper and forgot all about it. Just forgot it. Forgot the whole thing.

When Warren finally brought in the Delahaye I didn’t talk much to him. But when I called up Gottschalk to tell him his model was in, he was not excited. His cold voice sounded carved from ice now.

“Three days ago someone forced the door of my storage facility and made off with three cars from my collection, including my Delahaye. Yes, I am aware that we have a contract. My chauffeur will be in to pick up the model.”

He did, the next day. “Mr. Gottschalk is really down in the dumps,” he said, looking over the shiny curves of the body work. “He loved this car better’n any of ‘em. His big Daimler and the gray Caddy got ripped too, but this Delahaye was the only car he drove himself. He’s hell to live with these days. Well nice model. Here’s the check. See you later.” And he went out the door.

Seemed like the chime had hardly stopped ringing when Gottschalk himself was back in, his pasty face now a fiery red. “What have you done with my car?” he shouted, waving a small piece of black rag in front of my face. The model Delahaye was clutched in his other hand; his grip was so tight that the sheet metal of the top was crumpling. “My car!” I couldn’t quiet him down.

“You see this?” He waved the black scrap of cloth. “I drive car last weekend, it’s hot. I take off my coat, put it in the boot. Now in boot of this car, this toy car, my coat! Toy coat! And again I ask, where is my Delahaye??” He was dancing with fury; his eyes were bugging out.

I’ll tell you, that was an afternoon. I got him out finally with the help of the chauffeur, who was an okay guy really, but how do you convince a man that you haven’t magically reduced his most prized possession to a toy?

Warren came back in a couple of days later. I hadn’t had any orders when he last came in with the Delahaye, but he had a big box with him.

“Hey there, boss. No orders yet, huh? Got a couple of new ones here anyhow…” But I decided: No more.

“Hold it, Warren. Don’t take the cover off. I think I know what you’ve got.” He looked at me. “You’ve got two cars. One is English and one is gray.” He turned that color himself. “I thought so,” I said, as he sagged against the counter.

“Now listen, Warren, I want you to go away. Today. Now. I don’t know what it is you’re doing or how you’re doing it, but it’s starting to catch up with you. No, don’t say anything. My advice is to get out of town, out of the state, as fast as you can. I never want to hear from you again. If they ask me what I know I’ll say nothing, and it’ll be the truth. I don’t want to know anything.”

His face looked like a melting candle, and his hand was leaving a big sweaty print on the counter. “So go on,” I said. “Beat it quick. I don’t think you’ve hurt anybody really bad yet. Keep it that way.” And he gulped, and he stammered, and finally said, “Th-thanks.” and he left, running, without the box. And I never saw Warren again.

It was about three weeks later when the four Army guys from Ft. Belvoir came and showed me a photo of a younger, thinner Warren in a corporal’s uniform and said that Johnson wasn’t his real name and wanted to know if I ever saw him with a big suitcase or a backpack or if he ever bought any dry-cell batteries from me. And I told them all I’ve told you. Mostly. And they mumbled about National Security and Good Citizenship and The Research Race, but I didn’t know where Warren was then and finally they went away.

So, no, those aren’t for sale and never will be. I have some nice Tamiyas and Pochers over here. This Alfa’s a honey. But the Daimler and the Cadillac are mine. Warren Johnson models are real collector’s classics now, and those are the last two. No, as far as I know they never caught him.

“Mr. Randel, we’re here to pick up your car.” Standing in the open doorway was a big man with a rolled up blue work shirt exposing his tanned forearms. I could hear the rumbling of the idling truck out front at the curb. The reality of hearing his words vaporized my vain hope that the whole thing would just go away.

A sick feeling ran through me as soon as I had opened the door and saw him. It was the kind of feeling you get when the nurse interrupts the article about “Future Undersea Kelp Farms” in Popular Science and your vain attempt to distract the butterflies in your stomach, and asks, “Joseph Randel?” She always looks around as if she doesn’t know whether “Joseph Randel” will be escorted in with his mother, or will need help with his walker.

“OK,” I said. There’s no sense arguing with this guy. It’s going to be his way or the highway. He’s just hired to do a job. Several weeks earlier I’d received a letter from the EPA stating that my car’s age limit had recently passed, and that it fell under the Federal Automobile Reclaim Act, meaning that it would be confiscated as scrap and recycled. When I got the letter, what ensued was a fierce internal battle and a verbal review to my wife about all that is wrong with the way things are, how it should be, and how good it used to be. In the weeks that followed, I resigned to the inevitable but maintained futile hope that maybe they’d forget or something.

“The car’s in the garage.” The man in the blue shirt backed away from the doorway to let me by. As I started to walk by him, I picked up a look on the man’s face that told me he was ready for a fight, and that he’d been faced with this kind of situation before. Maybe even that morning already. I tried to give him a reassuring look to disarm him a bit, but his expression never changed. Not much into body language, this one. Stepping over Joey’s riding race car on the walk, I walked slowly around the corner of the house to the garage. The man in the blue shirt waved to his buddy still in the idling truck. I heard the truck come to life, and the transmission catch a square cog just a bit going into reverse. So this was the end. The guys at work at talked about their experiences losing their cars, and now it was my turn. This was going to be worse than I imagined. And I had imagined it pretty bad.

As I leaned over to open the garage door, the man interrupted my movements. “I need you to sign this.” I stood up trying to avoid his eyes. On the clipboard was a three part form with a tear-off lower portion. Dangling from a well-worn string was a very dull pencil. The pencil perfectly matched this guy’s personality.

My hand shook as I grabbed the pencil and quickly started to review the release I was about to sign. Most of it had been obediently filled out by some computer that got its information from some mammoth data base sufficiently programmed to contain information about my car. It seemed to me that was an awfully big system just to ruin my day, not to mention forever changing my free mobility. I was filled with anger, fear, and disgust. Somehow, I was getting flim-flammed.

I skimmed the release. “Penalty…Imprisonment…Fine…EPA…Ozone layer…Pollution…Global Warming…Congestion…Spotted Owl…Vehicle Age…” were a few words that caught my eyes. It was a rerun of the letter the EPA had sent me. I might as well get this over with.

Some words I hadn’t noticed before were on the lower portion of the release. “What is this about a ‘trade-in voucher?’”  I blurted this out before my mind wondered whether this guy could deal with a question—any question.

“That’s ’splained on the back. Hurry up, Mac. We’ve got three more to pick-up before quittin’ time, and it’s almost four now.”

A lecture on tact was in order, but ill-timed at the moment. I turned the form over and read something that I had somehow overlooked before. It said, in small print, that the car could be traded in on an EPA approved ZEV instead of being picked up for scrap, and that it might be worth more as a trade-in. Well, that wouldn’t be hard to imagine. The government wasn’t giving me enough for my car to buy a month’s bus pass.

“It says here that I don’t have to let it go for scrap—I have 30 days to trade it in if I want to. And my 30 days isn’t over yet.” My mind raced forward to another evening of sitting in my car in the garage listening to the car’s stereo.

“Look, Mac, you car is on the list, see? And if I don’t bring it to the yard, I’ve got a lot of ’splaining to do. And I don’t like ’splaining.”

“Well, you can’t have the car. I’ve got one more day. I’m going to trade it in.” Two more days of freedom and independence. Well, sort of. I can’t actually drive the car, with the gasoline tax so high. But it is great knowing that I could if I really wanted to. Maybe I can drive again! Maybe the ZEV’s aren’t so bad after all. I know a guy who has a neighbor who has one, and really likes it.

I signed the voucher, took my copy to give to the dealer, and handed the blue shirt back his clipboard. He gave me a look that is tough to describe. For a moment, I was unsure whether he was going to grab me, or leave. He left. He was not happy. I hoped he wouldn’t be back.

The next morning I called the office and got a personal day off. I grabbed my briefcase along with all the papers, account records, and all kinds of other paperwork, probably unnessesary, I’d spent the night worrying about forgetting. The bus stop was a short walk from home.

Twenty minutes early for the bus. The waiting and anticipation of a new driving experience woke an old memory. I remembered sitting on the front porch anxiously waiting for Dad to come home from work. That was the big day—the day we went to the dealership to pick up the new ’67 Camaro that Dad helped me buy. Where was he? Did something happen? After pacing back and forth wondering if time had stood still, I remember turning to walk into the house to ask Mom if he’d called, when Dad’s ’62 Chevy sedan turned from the street, bounced over the rain gutter dip between the street and the drive, and came to an abrupt halt not twelve feet from me. I wanted to say, “Hi Dad! Boy, am I glad to see you!  Let’s go!” But young men in their late teens are too cool for that. Instead, I stood their silently waiting for Dad to get out of the car. And as he walked by to go into the house, he asked, with a hint of a smile on his face, “You ready?”

A young man’s first new car. Well, this experience will be just as great. I hadn’t been keeping up on the latest models of ZEV’s, but I figured that by now maybe there is some sort of sport model—maybe even a convertible.

The bus arrived. I climbed up the steps, stopped and shoved the pass card into the recorder, then walked back and took a seat. It was a beautiful spring day, with the oaks along the street graciously displaying their new leaves in the breeze.

The ’67 was red of course. It wasn’t the high performance model (I couldn’t afford that), but at least it had a V-8 and a stick. I remember driving down Victoria Avenue between the towering eucalyptus trees during warm summer evenings and hitting those cold pockets of air that settled in the low spots. There was the sweet smell of orange blossoms in the air, and the rumbling of that V8—Mozart to my ears.

The air brakes of the bus startled me, and the noise of the doors opening brought me back to the present. The next stop would be mine.

The EPA New Automobile Distribution Center was in the center of town, in the old McCormick Building. As I rounded the corner, my heart raced in anticipation of my renewed freedom. There was a gray ZEV out front, parked on the street. I stopped and scanned its drab shape. “Must be an older model,” I thought to myself.

There was a ZEV out front. “Must be an older model,” I thought to myself.

The gray ZEV stood in stark contrast to my red ’67. It had endured a polish job nearly every week. A neighbor told my Dad that I’d rub the paint off at that rate. I remembered driving it to the dealership to gaze through the chain link fence at the new models two weeks before announcement. Owning that new car was like having a season pass to the new car showroom. I figured it gave me the right to sit in all of the new cars, carefully examine the engine compartments, and collect brochures of my favorites.

I shook the cobwebs out of my head, and turned to go inside the showroom. The door latch was stiff, but gave finally with an extra push. It took my eyes a moment to adjust to the dim lights. It didn’t look like a showroom like I remembered. There were no sales banners or literature racks. Just a gray desk and with some matching chairs. There didn’t seem to be anybody around. Past the desks over against the wall on the far side of the room was another gray ZEV, obviously new, just like the one parked on the street. I walked around the desks and over to the car. I stared at its boxy form. “This must be the base model,” I thought.

“Can I help you?” The voice came out of nowhere. I was embarrassed at being obviously startled, so I waited a bit before I turned to face my inquisitor.

“I’m interested in exchanging my car—” I opened my briefcase and started fumbling for the form—“for a new ZEV.” I couldn’t immediately find the form, and glanced up at the “salesman.” He was a short, stocky, middle-aged man wearing a grey suit. There was no excitement in his eyes.

“Please follow me to my office, and we will fill out the appropriate forms.” As he turned to walk away, I could tell that he was heading toward a dark hallway, away from the car.

“Wait! Can you tell me about the car?” He stopped and turned around. The look on his face was partly annoyed, and partly puzzled. “What do you want to know?”

What do I want to know? Well, everything! I want the sales pitch! The specs! Tell me why I should buy one! Overcome my objections! Come on! I’m not here to buy a roll of stamps!

But all that I heard myself say was, “Can you tell me about the engine?” He walked past me back to the rear of the car and opened the deck lid. I followed him and stood gazing into the open cavity. There was a small, molded plastic luggage area toward the rear, and components of some sort over where there should have been a rear axle.

“This ZEV is powered by a fuel cell. Compressed natural gas enters here—” he pointed to some fitting that looked like it belonged on a hay baler in the Henry Ford Museum—“that goes to a reformer. The reformer splits it into hydrogen and carbon dioxide. Hydrogen flows into the cell and reacts there, making electricity. The resulting water is caught in the holding tank over here.

“The electricity that is produced spins up a gimbal-mounted flywheel. It’s the flywheel that actually stores the electricity that powers the car through the transverse electric motor mounted up front. The flywheel gets a power boost through the braking action of the car, extending the range. It’s all precisely computer controlled.” I’ll bet it was. Whatever I was looking at more closely resembled a water heater than what I would expect looking under the hood of an automobile.

“How about performance?” I asked starting to dread what may be coming.

“This ZEV Model 3B Sedan has a range of 175 miles at 55 mph.”

“No, no. That’s not what I mean. I mean what will it do in the quarter? What’s the 0-60 time? What’s the top speed?” This whole experience was not going as planned.

“I’m afraid I don’t quite understand,” he responded. “But you may be interested in the dual front and rear air bags. They are computer coupled with the side door air bags to react either in tandem, or separately in the event of a collision.” His blank stare throughout the duration of his answer told me that my questions were outside of his training envelope.

“Are there any other models to choose from?”

“There is a small van.”

“Does it have the same powerplant as this one?”

“It has a bigger electric motor to compensate for the extra load requirements.” Now we’re getting somewhere!

“So it’s performance is better.”

“The van and the sedan are both computer governed to perform exactly the same whether loaded or empty, so the driver never has to adjust to any changes in vehicle performance.”

It can’t be that bad. It must be that this guy is just dry, and obviously not interested in automobiles.

“Can I drive one?”

“Delivery can take up to 120 days.”

“No, I mean before I decide to buy one.” He looked at me like I had grown another head right before his very eyes.

“Why would you want to do that?” His tone of voice registered an increased level of frustration with that answer, and I believed that he was beginning to doubt my sincerity. “That would be highly unusual.”

“Well, I’d like to determine whether I will like driving the car before I buy it.” I found myself beginning to talk like he did, in a rather stoic, bureaucratic monotone. “Maybe I’ll want to compare it with that of another manufacturer to see if their offering is more to my liking.”

Another puzzled look from my host. After an uncomfortably long pause accompanied by a stare below a furrowed brow, he finally said, “There are only these two models. There aren’t any others. All of the manufacturers produce the same EPA approved units.”

My shocked expression no doubt would be the topic of discussion over dinner that night with his wife and their 1.7 approved children. “Do you mean to tell me that it’s either this rolling plumbing exhibit or the bus?” I was starting to let my frustration and disappointment come to the surface, and he didn’t respond immediately.

“It is highly unusual, but I suppose that you can drive the ZEV out front. It is last year’s model, but they are essentially the same. It belongs to the zone administrator. I has just been serviced, but won’t be picked up until tomorrow.”

The walk through the room around the desks toward the light of day settled me down a bit as I anticipated getting behind the wheel of a car again. My red ’67 had a red interior with bucket seats and a console.

The interior of this car was mouse gray. My “salesman’s” suit matched perfectly. He slid the I.D. card into the dash, and a green light came on. I had the seat adjusted quickly and was looking around for the ignition switch. “How do you start this thing?”

“The fuel cell is spinning up the flywheel. You can go anytime.”

All……right! Maybe it’s one of these “design” things. The car didn’t excite me to look at or sit in, but times have changed. Here we go! I eased on the go pedal on the floor, and the thing moved fairly briskly up to about 25 mph.

My passenger interrupted the experience with a word of caution. “We can only be gone 20 minutes.”

I used that 20 minutes to thoroughly evaluate performance of my new toy. All in all, it did OK. It turned. And stopped. The acceleration was that of a car I used to do deliveries in as a teenager, a ’66 Rambler Ambassador wagon. After about a half-inch push on the go pedal, it became academic how much more you pushed it. It was only going to accelerate at a given rate. As I drove the car, my “salesman” talked about the ins and outs of owning a ZEV. He explained the fueling procedure, maintenance, life expectancy of the fuel cell, and other things that went in one ear and out the other. So what. Putting up with inconveniences of owning an automobile were always easily offset by the thrill of driving and the freedom of being mobile. I didn’t pay much attention to him.

I parked the car where I had started it. I just sat there for a few minutes in silence, and finally remarked, “You don’t see too many of these things on the road.”

The “salesman” ignored my comment and opened the door to get out. I turned my head toward him and asked, “How much are these things, anyway?” His answer was shocking. The price of the car was bad enough, but with the taxes tacked on, it was staggering.

The salesman disappeared inside the building. I slowly emerged from the car and started for the entrance. I turned around and stopped, staring at the ZEV. Again my mind resurrected thoughts of my ’67. I used to wash it and then just sit out and stare at its shape, as if it had been the single work of a master artist. I just couldn’t get enough it. Steve McQueen said in the movie Le Mans, “Racing is life. Everything else is just waiting.” Not driving my car was just like that to me. Oh, there was a time later in life when cars became more practical. But that was merely suppressed love, waiting to be released again at a different time with another car. I wished I still had my ’67.

I suppose I stood there in a stupor staring at the ZEV longer than I thought. I heard the door to the building open, and the “salesman” emerged. “Mr. Randel, are you coming in to sign the necessary paperwork?”

I thought for a moment. There was a struggle inside that was fighting a losing battle. The conclusion had become obvious. It was over. I turned to him and said, “No, I’m not. This thing is nothing more than a boiler on wheels. It has no soul, no life of its own. Just being able to get around isn’t enough. I’ll just take the bus.”

I got off the bus and started walking back up the street towards my house, dazed, not really paying attention to what was going on around me. I pondered the events of the last day, and sadly compared them with picking up my first new car so many years ago. I just couldn’t believe things had really gotten this bad.

Gradually, the signals coming from my eyes woke up my mind. I saw an arm waving out of the window of the approaching tow truck, and the man in the blue shirt with a smirk on his face hollered at me, “Your wife let me into the garage. See ya later, Mac.” As he passed by, there was my old car on the hook headed for the scrap yard.

© 1994 Gary D. Smith

I don’t exactly remember when I first became suspicious of Grandpa’s ‘39 Dodge pickup, but it was probably in the summer of ‘55 or ‘56. Those were the years right before I got my driver’s license, and Grandpa used to drive me everyday to the summer job I had. The job I found happened to be right across the street from where the hardware store was where Grandpa worked. He’d drive us downtown, then park the truck in the alley right next to the hardware store. The truck would be visible to me all day as I worked in the store front waiting on customers. At first, I hardly noticed the truck there. But later I found myself constantly glancing over to where it was parked to see if it had moved.

When I was old enough to reach the pedals, Grandpa would let me drive the truck out back on the road that went through our property. The truck was not in the best of shape, although it ran OK. There were a few dents, the paint was badly faded, and it had a few exposed rusty spots. The dash had some odd dents in it where something heavy must have flown off the seat and hit it. It was odd to me that some of the glass over the gauges was missing. 

One day Grandpa put a two gallon gas can that he used to fill up his outboard motor into the bed of the truck as we were leaving for work. I didn’t think much of it, but on the way home after work, he stopped at the gas station and filled it up. He left without adding any gas to the truck. I’m not sure why, but that triggered something in my brain and I became aware of the fact that I had never seen my Grandpa put gas in his truck. 

When we got home that evening, Grandpa parked the truck next to the barn where he always parked it. The barn was across the yard from the front of the house, so I could see the truck from any window in the front of the house, and that included my upstairs bedroom window. I kept thinking about it. The only time Grandpa even drove his truck anymore was to work and back. When we went to church, or when he and Dad would go anywhere, they’d always take Dad’s car.

I watched that truck all summer. It never moved from the side of the barn, or from Grandpa’s parking spot next to the hardware store. And if he had managed to move it undetected during the day, I would have noticed it when we got in it to go home after work, because the start-up procedure would be different. When we’d get into the truck in the morning or after work after it had been sitting all day, Grandpa would turn on the ignition, pull out the throttle and choke, and hit the starter button. He’d pump the gas 4 or 5 times while cranking the starter, and the Dodge would finally start. But if we ever stopped on the way to or home from work for any reason, the truck would start right up. Every time I ever went anywhere with Grandpa, that truck was always hard to start.

I couldn’t keep track of the truck when I was at school as well, but the following summer I started watching it again. Several Saturdays we took the truck way down by Barton Lake to go fishing. It must have been 70 or 80 miles down there one way, but I never saw Grandpa fill up the truck with gas. 

It was toward late August that I finally asked Grandpa about it. We were on the way home from work and Grandpa was telling me about his latest solution to a customer’s electrical problem, when I couldn’t stand it anymore. I just had to know.

“Grandpa, how come you never seem to put gas in this truck?” I blurted out.

He gave me a quick, puzzled glance, and then he lifted up his eyebrows, and grinned as a twinkle came to his eyes. Then he turned his attention back to his driving, and explained, “Well, I guess I’ll have to let you in on kind of a strange secret about this old truck,” he started. “When your grandma fell back in ’48, I had to get her to Doc’s in town. We lived pretty far out at our old place then, and the quickest way to get her there was to take her in the truck. So I laid out some quilts on the seat to help soften the ride, helped her into the cab, and off we went. We traveled about 5 miles when I remembered that the tank was almost empty. I looked at the gauge, and it confirmed what I already knew. It would have been better to call for help back at the house and wait, than to run out of gas 20 miles from a phone on the way to town. Now it was too late to turn back, and I knew we didn’t have enough gas to get there. I kept glancing at the gauge, and the needle wasn’t even bouncing. I’d drive a bit and glance at the gauge, and the gauge seemed to enjoy reminding me of the inevitable. Why hadn’t I checked the thing before I left? Too much in a hurry. I kept driving, but there was the gauge, as a grim reminder of my carelessness. Your Grandma was getting pretty uncomfortable by then, and we were still miles from town.

“I don’t know why I did what I did next, but just to keep that gauge from yelling at me, I reached down and just moved the needle to full. I knew it was foolish, but it just made me less distracted. At least the gauge was happy.

“The funny thing was, we somehow got to Doc’s. Grandma’s injury wasn’t real serious, but after Doc fixed her up, I left her to rest up at her sister’s place in town for the night. On the way out of town, I made a beeline for the gas station. Buford came out to see if I wanted to fill it up. But the truck wouldn’t take hardly any gas. Buford asked me why in the world I wanted him to fill it up when it was already full? Just to get the windshield cleaned? I apologized, and drove home. When I came back the next day to pick up your Grandma, the gauge showed half full. I stopped by Buford’s and he filled it. Took half a tank.

“Then I started to experiment. I filled the tank up, drove it around the block, and back into Buford’s. When I pulled in, I pushed the needle to empty. Buford came out, the truck took a full 16 gallons, and when he came over to the window, he said, ‘What happened to all that gas? Must be some leak. Want me to check? I don’t smell no gas, though.’ 

“I got to the point that I’d run the gas down a quarter of a tank, then push the needle up to full. I’ve been doing that for nearly 12 years.”

After high school, I went away to college, then got a job across the state. Grandpa died a few years back, and when I went home last Christmas, I asked Dad about Grandpa’s old truck. “It’s out back, behind the barn. You’ve always liked that truck,” reading my mind. “If you’d like it, it’s yours. Needs some work, though.”

Later that day I went to check out the truck. I opened the door, and looked inside. What a neat old truck. I looked at the gauges, and the gas gauge was on empty. I went around to the other side, and took off the gas cap. I stuck my nose into the filler pipe, and took a wiff. Nothing. “Well, maybe I was imagining things. It’s just an old truck,” I thought to myself. I got back into the cab and sat behind the wheel where I used to sit as a kid. The glass on the gas gauge was still broken. I don’t know why, and I know it was silly, but I reached over and moved the needle to full. I sat there for a bit, and found my heart rate had increased. I couldn’t restrain myself from getting out and walking around to the gas filler. “This is ridiculous,” I scolded myself. I reached down, unscrewed the cap, and smelled gas.

© 2000 Gary D. Smith

The rush hour commute downtown could be worse—I’m usually ahead of the main stampede. With all of the construction it still can take nearly an hour. If I’m not in my car and backing out of the garage by 6:00 it could take an extra 30 minutes. But compared to the rest of my systemized life, the commute to work had become the high point of my day.

The stuff dreams are made of.

My commute started to become an obsession. A good trip in would make my day. But it could be ruined by getting stuck in traffic on the best part of the course. I mean trip. The best part was a long sweeper interrupted by a short straight and a tunnel as it changes directions to merge up with the other freeway. I drove to work. Everybody else was commuting. 

I’m not talking about dangerous speed on the edge of control, or anything. But many cars today already perform reasonably well, and a decent handling car can be made better with a set of big sway bars, lowering springs, and some ZR’s. That along with an attitude are all it takes to make the most out of the trip in.

Now freeways have a life of their own. The cars seem to move in groups, and the gaps between them can prove to be, well, an opportunity to get ahead of the pack, or to hang back and pace yourself to get set up for the interchange ramp.

Most of the time the traffic moves pretty good, and I enjoy the drive. Rush hour is great because everybody is driving too fast as it is, and for the most part, people up that early are pretty well behaved and predictable out there. It’s not NASCAR or anything, but not bad. Sometime you see a DPS cruiser, but not too often. It seems as if they gave up on rush hour. 

Once in a while I come across a kindred spirit who helps make the trip in a better. You know; an enthusiast who’s pushing it a bit and still driving by the rules. No tailgating or weaving, but knows how to take a line through the fast ramps or when to double clutch in a tunnel to make the most of the exhaust echo. There are some days where you seem to pair up, and it makes the trip pretty cool, maybe even exciting for a few brief moments. You never actually acknowledge this commuting competitor. It’s just understood that somehow you’re hooked up. 

I got to the point that I looked forward to driving to work. I started to live for that properly timed, but totally unnecessary, double clutch downshift and the simultaneous exhaust bark just coming into that big sweeper. When I was a kid I thought Autotopia at Disneyland was the ultimate rush. The freeways are Autopia enlarged to super scale built with zillions of taxpayer dollars solely for my personal entertainment. Is this great or what?

The commute to work is usually a solitary experience. Unless it’s unbearably hot, I roll down the windows and leave the air off. My favorite radio station is WOFF because I’d rather hear the exhaust, monitor mechanicals, and be alone with my thoughts. I’m into this driving thing. 

But as the months rolled by I found myself becoming anxious on two fronts. One source of frustrations was my car. As I pushed my car harder, its modest underpinnings would either frustrate or sometimes even scare me. I added what modifications I could afford and those things that were available, but I was limited as to how much was practically possible. Then the other problem was traffic. It was always there. At first I was thrilled to get a clear shot at a good corner once a week, but I wanted more, and began to try to plan a considerable amount of timing in an attempt to find myself at the right place at the right moment. But it seemed like there was always some big dumb sedan or a truck that ruined everything.

Now I like cars, and like to really keep my eyes pealed in traffic. I can’t afford to not know what’s around me. So I often see some beautiful machinery out there. Most of the time a guy in a really potent machine is just tooling down the freeway with a phone stuck in his ear, just not paying much attention. Sometimes I wonder why on earth someone would buy a such a machine and not drive the thing. But like I said before, once in a while you come across a kindred spirit. And that’s where this story gets interesting.

This particular day was not the best. I misjudged a light, and found my self in the middle of a pack that I couldn’t get through, so I never got properly set up for the big interchange ramp with the two big sweepers and a short tunnel. Oh, there is one off ramp I know of where there is a stretch of single lane, with no access, that must be nearly a half mile long before you eventually come to another ramp, or up to the surface street. Why, I’ve had it up to…but I digress.

Anyway, I spot in front of the pack of traffic I’m stuck in this white ’66 Mustang Fastback. I’ve never seen it before. I can see he almost catches the pack ahead of me, but then takes the interchange ramp to the east. Going pretty good, too. I have to take the ramp to the west.

A couple of days later I’m surprised to see him again. This time he comes out of nowhere and is carefully but methodically moving through traffic, not really speeding so you’d notice. As I catch a glimpse of this Mustang that found a hole and is pulling away, it’s unmistakably a Shelby. Wow. Don’t see those too often. Not a car you’d do a commute in. By the time I get through the pack of cars myself, the Shelby is too far ahead to consider catching, but I managed to gain a little ground on him, enough to stay with him as there were no cars between us. So he’s maybe 25 car lengths ahead, and clearly planning to take the east bound exchange just like the other day. I start to back off and change lanes to get to the west bound ramp, but then decide just to stick with him through the ramp, just to see if I can gain ground through a great left hand sweeper that goes that way. I might be a few minutes late to work, but if I catch the lights right, maybe no more than five minutes. 

So I took the ramp a bit faster than I usually do. My heart’s pounding. “This is stupid,“ I said to myself, but keep up the pace anyway. I lost site of him as he gets past the apex of the sweeper and disappears behind the concrete support. Just before I hit the apex, I’m on the binders and downshift to scrub off enough speed to keep myself between the lines going through the turn. Then emerging from the turn I’m back on the gas hard, and have a clear view of the remainder of the ramp, and the eastbound fast lane ahead of me. But as I crested the ramp and enter the freeway itself, the Shelby is nowhere in sight. It’s like it vanished; I couldn’t imagine where it could have gone—there just are no opportunities between the merging ramp and the nearest exit almost 1/4 mile a way to get off. I was quite puzzled as I took that exit to turn around and head to work.

A week went by and I saw no sign of the Shelby, so I gave up hoping. Meanwhile, the driving gloves came that I’d ordered, along with a new set of Bilsteins. The shocks gave me a little more control through that big sweeper, and the gloves just made me feel more like a professional. A professional what, I’m not sure.

That following Thursday the Shelby appeared from my right blind spot and startled me with a horrendous roar as he sailed by. I was surprised by the fact that I never saw him come up from behind, but even more surprised to realize that the car had open pipes. Open pipes! There was definitely a pipe appearing from just in front of the left rear tire, with no doubt a matching one on the other side. How in the world could he get away with that? I was able to change lanes and get behind him as we broke free of the pack.  I could see a full roll bar in the car, and then it dawned on me that the back window was curved in at the top with an opening to let air escape from the interior. Only the race cars had plexiglas windows like that! But I didn’t have time to think about it too long. 

Except for a few stragglers, we were about 1/8 mile from the next big pack of cars when I detect a puff of smoke as he downshifts and pulls away. I don’t know what’s going on, but this is great. Then the same thing happens as before. He takes the east interchange ramp and disappears as I emerge from the ramp. Well, not quite the same thing. This time I nearly plowed off the ramp going through the fast left hand sweeper. 

I had a hard day at work that day. Several meetings, and they didn’t go too well. I just couldn’t focus; I kept thinking about that Shelby. I got home and parked the car in my garage. As I walked into the house, I tried to put the pieces together, but nothing made any sense. One thing for sure, though. My daily ride would never be a match for that Shelby. I stopped pondering how there could be a full race Shelby Mustang out on the public highways at all.

The next morning I was half asleep when I walked into my garage through the side door. The first thing that hit me was the color blue. My car isn’t blue, but faded silver. I could see the top of a medium blue metallic coupe. As I walked around some boxes that blocked the full view of the car, what was in my garage was a older Corvette coupe. ’60s something. I looked inside the open driver’s window into a dark interior and saw the opener where I’d left it, except that it was in the wrong car. I pushed the opener and walked to the back. This car had my plate on it. It also had a row of holes between the twin tail lights. This was one of Duntov’s five Grand Sport Corvettes. It’s worth a fortune, and it’s sitting in my garage with my plate on it. 

There are times for trying to get to the bottom of things and figure out the why’s. This wasn’t one of them. I had no idea how the car came to be in my garage, or the possible consequences to what I was about to do, but I opened the door and climbed in. There was a key in the ignition and a row of switches in the center of the instrument panel. Ignition, fuel pump, oil cooler, roof number light, and engine fan. I turned on the ignition, then switched on the fuel pump. It came to life. Zounds. I pumped the gas once, and turned the key. It didn’t start right off, and I had to fool with it a bit, but I didn’t flood it. When it started, I thought the garage was going to explode. I buckled up the harness, and as I looked around a bit, there were some ear plugs on the passenger seat. How thoughtful.

I found reverse, and backed the car out of the garage, making enough noise if not to raise the dead, surely at least to rouse my meddlesome, nearly dead next door neighbor. She’s has eleven cats and is really into opera. But she never emerged from her house as I backed the car into the street. I hit the garage door remote. 

This is unbelievable. What am I doing? I don’t know how to drive a race car.

I carefully drove up to the first stop at the end of the street tying to make keep the engine speed to a minimum trying to keep a lid on the sound level, although I doubted it made much difference. I fully expected to see people in bathrobes running up to me from every surrounding house holding their hands over their ears and yelling as if I could hear them, but they never appeared. But I couldn’t think of that now. I had too much to deal with trying to keep the cold race car from stalling, wondering how I was ever going to get the brake pads hot enough so they’d realize what they were for, and deal with that clutch. I’ve driven heavier clutches, but this one was on the stiff side.

The on ramp was only a mile away, but I had to get through a couple of busy intersections to get there. I pulled up behind a car waiting at the light and had to keep blipping the throttle to keep it from stalling. The water temperature was coming up, so I switched on the fan. Fuel. Do I have fuel? Full tank. It’s a good thing. The nearest place I knew of to get racing gas was clear across town.

A car pulled up to right, windows up, and the driver was putting the finishing touches on her face while waiting for the light to change. She never looked over. Well, lots of drivers are totally indifferent to their surroundings, but I would have thought the noise this car was making would be enough to drown out any premium sound system no matter how thick the glass was. The plug wires were probably solid core and put out so much EM interference that every radio and cell phone within a couple hundred yards of me must be going berserk. But nobody seemed to be paying any attention.

The light changed and I eased away. As luck would have it, the next light is red, too. But to make matters worse, there is a city cop waiting to turn left. He’s going to have to pass right next to me when he gets the green arrow. I’m dead. His light changed, he completed his turn, but never looked my way. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m starting to feel invisible. I’m kinda liking this.

Finally I got to my on ramp, and lag a bit behind the guy in front of me so I can get on it just a little. I mean, I’ve got to get the feel of this car. Still in first, I gave it a little gas, and the car started to spool up like it’s going to launch, the rear tires started to spin, and the car started to go sideways. Whoa. Easy. Back off. 

Once on the freeway, I found myself in the fast lane being tailgated by a Prelude just at the front of a pack, about thirty car lengths from the guy in front of me going about 75. The Corvette is just kind of laughing at the speed. This car is all business. And it feels great.

I’m in front of a pack of cars, with the Prelude still behind me. The next group of cars is way ahead, farther ahead than I’ve ever seen. There must be a half a mile of space ahead. This is so cool I can’t believe it.

And then there it was. The Shelby. He came up on my right side fast and changed into my lane right in front of me pulling away fast. This is it. I downshifted into second and eased on the throttle. The revs came up fast and I shifted into third. No power shifts; I don’t want to break the tires loose.

And then there it was. The Shelby.

The Shelby took the good line and used up all three lanes of freeway getting set up for the off ramp that was coming up fast. He had pulled ahead, but I was starting to hold the distance between us. I followed his lead and took the same line through the lanes. We were really moving. 

He took the eastbound ramp just like before, but this time it would be different. He tapped the brakes and downshifted. I hit the ramp in fourth starting to feel comfortable in the car, then down shifted to scrub off some speed and get set up for the first jog in the interchange. It was apparent that I had gained on him.

He almost disappeared round the first sweeper leading up to the short straight, but not quite. I downshifted into second as I entered the first sweeper to get set up for the straight. I hit the apex and hit the throttle a little too hard. That mistake introduced a bit too much oversteer and the back end started to come around. I eased off a bit but kept the power coming to keep the car pointed in the right direction. I think they call that a power slide. Anyway, when I got into the short straight I was within sight of the Shelby and gaining ground. 

The second left hand sweeper ended in a rise and onto the fast lane of the other freeway. I jabbed third gear and the Corvette responded instantly. Before the Mustang started to back off for the second turn, I had definitely gained considerably, and knew I could take him given the opportunity.

The Shelby downshifted as he entered into the sweeper. Then the ramp went uphill heading for the crest. I was in hot pursuit. I had never imagined going through this interchange at this speed. It was unbelievable. As he crested the ramp, he disappeared from view. A moment later going over the crest the freeway was spread out before me, but the Shelby was gone.

“George! What are you doing? You took the wrong ramp. We’re all going to be late for work. Again. What’s gotten into you? Maybe you should drive to work by yourself. This happens every time you drive.” The other two in the car murmered in disgust.

“Sorry. I’ll get off and turn around. I just wasn’t paying attention.”

I had a hard day at work that day. Several meetings, and they didn’t go too well. I just couldn’t focus; I kept thinking about that Shelby.

© 2009 Gary D. Smith