by Ed Bolian
And this CL had definitely accumulated some life experience. The bones were alright but it had clearly received a bit of paint work. The mechanicals of the car were pretty sound, but as happens with complicated cars, the “what you really should do if you’re serious about keeping and DRIVING this thing” list was growing.
We knew that Ed had negotiated some discounted pricing, but even considering that, this was going to get spendy. When we went over the list, Ed said, “I want to be able to drive this across the country without ANY trouble. Do whatever it takes to make that a certainty.”
We all wondered what possible future this newly revived car would have. At this visit, the car was already full of radio gear, tablet computers, GPS screens, jacks, tools, spare wheels, and had 2 huge fuel cells in the trunk. Why the hell someone would muck up a perfectly serviceable CL like this, I had no idea.
Someone muttered, “Maybe we should call Homeland Security” and they were serious. Those of us that knew better could tell that this wasn’t the way one would package fuel if he was actually planning on blowing it up. Then someone said, “I heard he’s doing some kind of gumball thing…”
Now it finally made some sense to me. This guy was cobbling up some kind of servicing vehicle to chase after and care for his customers, some of whom were obviously about to commit some sort of exhibitionistic misallocation of wealth, youth, and hedonism while they still had some of each to spare.
The following is a compilation of the so called “nine-thousand-dollar tune-up” that at least one media account had mentioned. It should have been the “ten to eleven thousand dollar tune up” but of course the “Lamborghini guy” negotiated a substantial discount. I remember thinking that this was a lot of money to invest in a somewhat impractical douche-hoon ambulance on call for people “doing some kind of gumball thing.” If nothing else, he was going a long extra mile trying to take care of and entertain his customers, and it was certainly interesting looking.
Ok, now there was work to do. The work was performed by one of our most respected technicians, the relentless perfectionist, Ralph Mandoeng. Don’t look for Ralph there anymore. He has since defected to Tesla.
On this job, Ralph was managed and assisted by his shop foreman, Mr. Bill Peek. Bill is a legend well known to most of us that work on these things for a living and even to many who don’t. There is no way to overstate the esteem and respect that this man has engendered in so many of us, and I wanted to take this opportunity to thank him for his outsized positive influence on me and so many others. The success of Ed, Dave, and Dan’s excellent adventure owes so very much to Ralph and Bill’s dedication and fastidiousness.
The pre “gumball thing” work performed at RBM of Alpharetta included:
●Automatic transmission fluid/filter change. No abnormal wear particles or debris were found in the transmission fluid pan or filter
●Brake fluid change
●Brake pads and rotors
●The inner elastic bushings of the front axle rear lower control arms (“spring links” in MB jargon) were worn and cracking through. They were replaced.
●4-wheel alignment
●Install 4 Michelin Pilot Super Sport tires - Tires are arguably the most important part of any car. This tire was then, and still is, an overall performance benchmark.
●The left front wheel had a slight bend that was repaired before the new tires were installed.
●A fuel filter replacement was done. It is also a specified maintenance item at every 60,000 miles or 5 years. At 114,106 miles, it was near the end of its service life.
●Coolant flush and pressure test
●Engine air filters
●Cabin air filters
●Replace all light bulbs
●Replace wiper blades
●Replace key batteries
●Oil change - Mobil 1 Formula M 5W-40. This is a version of Mobil 1 that is sold to M-B dealers in the USA. It is labeled to meet only one engine oil specification, that being MB 229.5, which was at the time, and currently still is the highest specification for MB and AMG specified gasoline engine oils. It is essentially the same as the readily available Mobil 1 0W-40 “European Formula” except with 5W base viscosity. While any oil meeting 229.5 is fully up to any possible road use conditions, including the German autobahns, if I had known that these guys were planning an actual full-on Cannonball, I may have suggested the similar MB and Porsche dealer sold Mobil 1 5W-50, or the readily available at parts stores 15W-50 for possible lower oil consumption at speed. Most engines develop an appetite for oil at extended high speeds and loads, and these are no exception. Needing to make oil stops between the fuel stops could knock an average speed down considerably.
●The inoperative windshield washer fluid pump was replaced.
●Replaced the ABC (Active Body Control) high pressure hose/metal line assembly that carries the pressure from the hydraulic pump to the main pressure regulating valve of the system. A gas pressurized diaphragm type pulsation/noise damper was also replaced. This damper protects the system from those same pump pressure pulses.
●Both right side ABC suspension spring struts were replaced due to slight leakage. This was one of the only areas of the preparation where Ed showed any financial restraint. We suggested replacement of all four struts because replacing one of an axle pair on a car that has already developed a strut fault is a little like replacing one shoe. While there can always be more wear and tear on one side relative to the other, it is reasonable to assume that one could expire not long after the other. This small gamble proved to be well played. Other than the high pressure pump developing a nasty noise near the completion of the trip, no ABC related failures occurred.
●ABC hydraulic fluid system was flushed out and filled with new oil.
●The hydraulic ABC oil filter was also replaced.
●The seeping valve cover gaskets were replaced.
●The crankcase vapor separator chambers on the tops of the valve covers were resealed.
●The spark plugs and wires replaced.
●There is a wound/woven fiber reinforced flexible rubber joint disc at each end of the driveshaft. The rear disc was showing some wear and crack formation, so we replaced it. The front disc on these cars usually shows deterioration sooner than the rear disc, yet it was in perfect condition, so it was safe to assume that it was recently replaced.
●The expired original motor mounts were replaced.
●The original battery from the 46th week of 2003 was still fitted. We replaced it.
●The most favorable of the removed tires and Ed supplied an additional wheel that we used to create an non-speed-limited spare.
●And everyone can breathe easier, because, yes, the Georgia state emission inspection required for renewal of the license and registration was passed.
The completed vehicle left our shop, and neither I nor anyone else had another thought about it.
Not that you should care, but here’s why I love this. Maybe some of it resonates for you, too. I hope so.
I grew up in a small town where all acceptable recreational activities ended in “-ball.” For reasons that I still don’t fully understand, and certainly didn’t choose, I didn’t fit in. I was the geeky kid that took my dad’s power tools and my mom’s appliances apart. Later I could put them back together, too.
I was fortunate enough to be raised in a time when my rampant ADD wasn’t simply medicated away and I became attracted to order as an antidote to the chaos in my head. Not social order, but mechanical order. As a young child I had two obsessions. I loved fans. The big window fans that were ubiquitous before even the poorest among us became wealthy enough to have air conditioning were the best. My grandparents had the best one, their belt driven type being more interesting and making better sounds than the direct drive one we had at home, which was still, quite literally to me, awesome. The love of fans beget the second obsession.
I was around three or four ye
ars old when this happened, and I remember this like it was an hour ago. My dad picked me up and held me over the open engine compartment of his 1959 Impala coupe to show me that the car’s engine also had a fan. A nice big noisy fan! And with belts! Cars, places, motion, fans, fun!
From that day, I was obsessed with cars. To paraphrase another Cannonballer, "cars became the monocle through which I viewed the world." My mother would bribe me to go to school by offering to buy another quart of oil to add to my collection after I got back home. I was lucky enough to ride in the trifecta of the 260, 289, and 427 Shelby/AC Cobras. God bless America, and save the queen while you’re at it. The guy with the 260 powered car actually gave the best rides. He thought nothing of driving it sideways in the rain while somehow never spilling the open bottle of Iron City that he kept wedged between his legs. If my mom had known, she would have beaten the both of us comprehensively senseless.
The car became my vision of a better future, and by extension, even my present got a little better. From the time I could read, I devoured everything automotive related that I could. This was the sixties, and the “muscle car” era was in full flower. I was also fortunate enough to have a service station at the corner entrance to our neighborhood, and this station was the “hangout” for many of the local hot-rodders, street racers, bikers and motorcyclists (yes, there’s usually a difference). I got to sit in, ride in, and “help” wash, wax and fix just about every American muscle car, ’62, through ’69, and even a few of those odd ball fancy “furrin” cars.
And some of those were where it coalesced for me, this combination of order and precision along with visions of freedom and fun, the adult and the juvenile seemingly integrated without conflict. I became fascinated with the deliberateness of German cars, and the most deliberate of all German cars were those from Mercedes-Benz. I admired their fearless embrace of complexity, especially since it was usually tempered with just enough practicality to actually work most of the time. I loved how nearly everything had a purpose and could be explained. I liked that modern materials and manufacturing methods were not eschewed in the superficial service of tradition, yet this company had a pedigree without peer. Still later I got to appreciate that unlike with some other engineering heavy makes, little of that heavy engineering was needed to mollify those characteristics that were the inevitable result of overall bad design. To have this precision, order, practicality and excellence marshalled to serve the ideal of unlimited operation at top speed? Well, at least for me, it just didn’t get any better.
What could have seemed better was the spirit of the times. The malaise that gave the era its name was really starting to take hold. Though short in reality, the years that I had left to stay in school felt like a death sentence. The political and intellectual war against private transportation had recently started anew, but in that dismal zeitgeist, it was fashionably fresh and unquestioned. The future of private motoring was going to be bleak, and an armada of technocrats and authoritarians was hell-bent on creating that reality. The same people that couldn’t make a single show about animals without attempting to convince everyone watching that they were somehow personally responsible for killing them all were now going after the device of my obsession. This was personal now, dammit!
Too young to protest myself, I absolutely rejoiced and reveled in the exploits of Brock Yates and his Cannonball Baker Sea to Shining Sea Memorial Trophy Dash. A lot of name for such a simple idea: drive across this country as fast as you can “without so much as messing up anyone’s hair.”
Much is made about the flouting of the law in this questionable exercise, but the people that think that’s what it’s all about are the same people that think racing fans enjoy watching accidents. How fast is too fast? Any answer is hopelessly arbitrary.
Why do we drive so slowly here in the land of the free where everyone is supposedly so pressed for time that vacations are minimal? My personal opinion is that speed limits (and driving standards) are kept so ridiculously low so that the hapless American motorist can remain an endless source of revenue to be used for anything other than supporting your right to go wherever the hell you want, whenever you want, and often to projects aimed precisely against those rights.
We toil in a world that wants to make sure that everyone and everything lives forever as it also deliberately works to deprive us of any joy that could possibly make that life worth living. We are sanitized, pasteurized, processed, surveyed, droned, and surveilled. We have “trigger words” now, the entire concept implying that a person having heard one has no power over his response to it. Everyone needs a “safe space.” Young people are told that they can’t possibly have any control over what becomes of their individual lives while simultaneously being taught that they are somehow in control of the weather. And the poor things seem to readily accept both.
Nurse Ratched is here with your pills! Yum yum! Down the hatch. You little darlings all be good, now. No wonder they are so miserable. We have actually allowed our breath to be classified as a “regulatable pollutant.” The bumper stickers that used to say “Question authority!” now sheepishly plead for hope and some spare change. People act as if second-hand smoke from a car window four lengths ahead of them is poisoning them to the marrow while thinking nothing of subjecting themselves to an evening of debauchery that would have made Caligula wretch.
The leader of our ostensibly-still-free world somehow thought that it was ok to be seen riding a bicycle in one of those ridiculous foam rubber safety hats! What the hell was he thinking would happen after the world saw that?
I can’t believe how much this decade is feeling like the 1970s. Our betters tell us that lackluster is the “new normal” but as I write this we see daily changes in this attitude. It seems that radical chic is chic again. The children of the sixties have even managed to bring back the street riots that they always seemed to feel so sentimental about. I’m feeling sentimental, too. There’s a new Cannonball record!
I don’t remember the exact date or time I heard about the Cannonball record being shattered by Ed, Dave, and Dan; but it wasn’t long afterwards. I can only report accurately my reaction to it. Please excuse my (by now you can tell…) irrational exuberance, but I was just reveling in a tsunami of positive emotion.
I felt younger. I felt vindicated. A cosmic wrong seemed to have been righted. Some larger part of our, or at least my universe was vibrating at a sweeter frequency. This was no mere rich idiot “gumball thing.” These guys did a full-on Cannonball! And Hosanna in the Highest, they did the holiest of holies, the Red Ball to Portofino run! I swear I could hear the pealing of bells. The backside of this recently reincarnated cultural revolution of joyless nanny-ism had just been given a rough, unlubricated finger.
The Cannonball record, that most revered celebration of personal transportation freedom, the ultimate American road trip had been broken and set probably insurmountably high by people I really like. And best of all for me, they did it in a Mercedes-Benz! For a marque fanatic like me, that’s the home team winning the championship. You always knew they were the best, and now, finally, affirmation.
For at least that moment, everything was right in my world. To have been involved, even in such an innocent and tangential way has been an endless source of delight and inspiration. Thanks for listening, to my carrying-on, and thanks to Ed, Dave, and Dan. If it couldn’t have been me, I’m so glad it was them.
Chapter 13
The Co-Driver Draft
The problem remained that I did not have anyone to go with me. Chris was still out but he was willing to help scout for us through Ohio. Adam was ready at the controls on the home front as an eye-in-the-sky and third party witness but imminent paternity still kept him out of the car. Forrest got called away to blow things up in Arizona for the government. Taylor remained neck deep in work with the new job. It was September and it was definitely now or next year. It may have been now or never.
It was time to move on to plan G or whatever letter I
was on at that point. I had met a guy named Doug Demuro a few years prior. He went to Emory University, very close to Georgia Tech, and was a serious car enthusiast. He shared a bond with me and with most of my customers where we spend an absolutely absurd portion of our income on four wheeled pursuits. He had owned multiple interesting sports cars and was never bashful about using them in interesting ways.
At the time Doug had a fantastically rare Mercedes Benz E63 AMG Wagon. He came along with us on a couple of our spirited North Georgia Mountain drives. On one recent drive he had said without solicitation, “I almost didn’t come today. I was trying to get someone to come up to New York with me, buy a BMW 335i at Carmax, drive it to LA, break Alex Roy’s record, and then return the BMW at a Carmax out there under their five day test drive policy.”
Blank stare.
“Funny you should mention that. We need to have a conversation this week.” Doug had worked for Porsche previously but was now carving a successful path as a pseudo-freelance automotive journalist. His wit, experiences, and intellect were carving out a great space with several online publishers.
Ed, meet Ed taking a slightly different path in life.
I called him later in the week and filled him in on where I was with the project. He was impressed. In his mind the overkill prepping strategy had been unnecessary but the more we talked, the more, “Yeah I guess you do need that,” responses he gave. I told him that I thought my co-driver was going to flake out and I would like him to go with me. His initial response was very positive. He said that he needed to clear it with the main journalistic outlets he worked for because he was concerned they might not be able to list him on their policies if he became known for having done this. Such a misfortune would keep him from being able to do his job testing the cars and writing pun filled anecdotes about them. I probably should have heard that and checked to see if I would have the same issue but I didn’t. If I am truly honest with myself, losing my job was on the table of acceptable sacrifices to make this work.