The Last Open Road

by Burt Levy

  "I believe I would," Barry agreed, grinning over the seat back like the Chesire cat. No question my curiosity glands were pumping overtime when we pulled up in front of Colin's warehouse.

  "I reckon this is one trip you'll remember for a rather long time," Colin allowed as Barry unlocked the overhead door. "For a rather long time indeed."

  We drove inside and Barry lowered the steel door behind us. It seemed pitch black after the bright sunlight outside, so Colin flipped on the headlamps. We followed their dancing blob of yellow light between towering rows of sleeping meat trucks, made a tight U-turn with a rubbery screech off the tires, and headed up a bare concrete ramp toward the second floor. "The cars you and Tommy are taking to Elkhart Lake are up here," Colin explained casually, lighting his pipe again.

  "Elkhart Lake?"

  "Righto, Elkhart Lake. Ever heard of it?"

  "Yeah," I said, "sort of."

  "I thought you might. As I said, they're a rather special pair of XK120s."

  Barry was grinning so hard I thought his teeth would shatter. But before he could say a word, we came over the top and there dead ahead, frozen in the headlights, were two of the lowest, sleekest, liquid-smoothest puddles of aluminum ever to rest on a set of wire wheels. One was a green so deep and dark it almost seemed black, and the other was a gleaming silvery-gray. You could tell right off they were Jaguars on account of the grilles and the unmistakable bronze cat-head medallions just above them, but right there any resemblance to the Jaguars I'd known came to a shuddering halt. They were built lower and lighter and hugged tighter to the ground than any ordinary, road-going Jag 120, and you could tell from the low plexiglass windscreens and the slick covers faired in over the headlamps to cheat the wind that these were purpose-built racing cars. A pair of naked exhaust pipes ran down their rocker panels and dumped into a set of "mufflers," that weren't much more than a couple of empty tomato cans stuck on as an afterthought. Like you were really going to drive something like this on the damn highway, right? "Jee-zus, Barry," I gasped, "what the hell are those things?"

  "This," Barry patted the dark green one on its rounded hood, "is a Jagyewhar XK120C. I reckon it's about the best bloody long-distance racer ever built."

  "Indeed it is," Colin chimed in. "No doubt about it. Why, a C-type like this won the twenty-four hours of Le Mans last year . . ."—he paused to suck a little more fire through his pipe—". . . and on its maiden attempt, as well."

  "That really got the attention of the bloody Germans and h'ltalians," Barry beamed, "and they would've made it two in a row this year except the bleedin' new h'erodynamic bodywork wouldn't let enough air to the bloody radiators. Put the whole bleedin' team out before nightfall. But they were bloody well fast enough to get the job done, make no mistake about it."

  "Wow!" I said, looking the cars up and down. The only place I'd seen curves like that before was inside Julie's angora sweater.

  "Now, you must understand," Colin continued, looking me squarely in the eye, "these are the only two Jaguar XK120C competition models in the entire country, and our aim is to have them racing at Elkhart Lake this coming weekend. Tommy will be driving the green one for us, and you" —he stared at me so hard my joints went solid—"are to deliver the silver one into the hands of Mr. Ernesto Julio. He'll be bringing his own driver from California. Do you understand?"

  I nodded, not really sure that I did.

  "We need ter get a little break-in mileage on the drivelines, mate," Barry explained, "and h'its always a good idear ter log a few miles and make certain nothing's about to fall off before yer race the bloody thing."

  "Now, Tommy personally selected you for this trip—Lord only knows why—and I want you to be extremely careful." Colin poked me in the chest with his pipe stem. "I'm sure I need not mention that these cars are not only very expensive, but also totally irreplaceable. Do you understand me, Mr. Palumbo?"

  That I understood.

  "Right, then. Take the Morris back to the shop and we'll meet you there in a bit. And from this moment on, I want you to do absolutely everything and anything Tommy tells you. Is that clear?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "And should you, in any way or for any possible reason, manage to harm one of these automobiles, I want you to remember one simple thing. . . ."

  "What's that?"

  "Make bloody well sure you die in the wreck. It'll be easier that way. . . ."

  12: CROSS-COUNTRY BY C-TYPE

  I SHOWED up at Westbridge early the next morning with my toothbrush, spare jeans, three T-shirts, and a few pairs of socks and underwear that I'd picked up over at my mom's house (she always seemed to have a little clean stuff waiting on a kind of haphazard, stock-rotational basis), along with the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball cap I'd picked up at Woolworth's just to aggravate my old man. Like I've said, he was a big Yankees fan. I had all the stuff packed in a white cloth laundry bag on account of the only suitcases we had at my folks' house were a couple of those big old straw-colored jobs you see down by the bus depot, and I sure didn't want all the S.C.M.A. racing types to see me with one of those things. Not to mention they would never fit into the luggage space of a C-type Jaguar (of which there really isn't any as you or I might normally recognize it).

  Barry told me to not even bother starting in on that MG flywheel again since we'd be leaving as soon as Tommy showed up, so I got myself a mug of coffee and kind of sneaked back to straighten things up around that poor TC. I knew they'd have to hand the job over to another mechanic—probably Sylvester—and there isn't a wrench-twister in the world who likes jumping into a project some other knucklehead has torn apart. I mean, you never know what's been done and what hasn't or where to find all the bits and pieces and the inevitable coffee can of nuts-and-bolts hardware you need to screw it back together. And I hated the idea of Sylvester sliding underneath and finding I couldn't even remove a damn flywheel! So I decided to give it one more try, and wouldn't you know, I didn't so much as nudge the ring gear and that stubborn old flywheel fell right off in my hands. Just like that! Stuff like that happens every now and then, but nobody except a seasoned auto mechanic can appreciate what an awesome and mystical experience it is.

  I knew right away this was going to be one very special day.

  Tommy Edwards showed up a few minutes later carrying a small R.A.F. duffel with his helmet and track gear in it and a well-worn leather bag with tooled-in initials for the rest of his stuff. He had me put together a tool kit and a bunch of emergency spares to carry along, and it was tough figuring out exactly what to bring and what to leave behind. I mean, there's nothing in the way of an actual trunk on a C-type (you hardly need your toothbrush or an extra pair of socks when you're rocketing down the Mulsanne straight at Le Mans!) so all the Jaguar designers provided was a little nook-and-cranny space around the spare and a kind of makeshift shelf along the rocker panel plus whatever you could stuff into the footwell. I ultimately settled on a spare for each car, a set of cold racing plugs screwed into the neat little machined aluminum block the Jaguar race shop bolted to the doorsill for exactly that purpose, another set of warm-up plugs, some richer jets and needles for the carbs (not that I really knew when, how, or why I should put them in), a case of 40-weight Castrol down in the passenger-side footwell of both cars, a small scissors jack, a couple blocks of wood, a flashlight, a clipboard, a stopwatch, a spare point set, condenser, distributor cap and rotor, two cans of brake fluid, two oil filter elements, a knockoff hammer, a basic three-eighths-drive socket assortment, a set of British Standard combination wrenches, two tins of gear oil, a tub of wheel-bearing grease, a small, bullet-shaped grease gun, three flat-blade screwdrivers (a regular, a stubby, and a monster), two Phillips-head screwdrivers (regular and stubby only), three sets of pliers (a regular, a needlenose, and a Channel-Lock model), one set of all-purpose Vise Grips, a feeler gauge, a hacksaw, a rat-tail file, and enough bailing wire, rope, twine, and electrical tape to rig a frigate. Barry threw in a spare set of brake shoes—just in
case, you know?—and some miscellaneous engine stuff that came in a box with the green car. For what reason I couldn't imagine, since what was I going to do with a set of crankshaft end-play shims at the damn racetrack?

  I guess it seems crazy that Tommy Edwards and I took off from the heart of Manhattan on Tuesday, September 2nd, year of Our Lord nineteen hundred and fifty-two, heading for Wisconsin in the latest, fastest, and certainly most overloaded pair of Jaguar automobiles in the Western Hemisphere. The trip was over a thousand miles, and those C-types didn't have much in the way of mufflers, tops, windshields, or heaters. Not that you exactly needed a heater in a Jaguar racing car. Just the opposite, in fact. And I must admit I was nervous as Tommy and me wheeled out into Manhattan street traffic for the very first time. The growling, liquid-silver C felt so taut and eager that it seemed likely to scoot right out from under me if I didn't keep a tight rein on it. A hair-trigger racing clutch didn't help matters, on account of it had exactly two operational modes: totally disengaged and full-squirt forward. It worked like a damn toggle switch, and you'd best have a little room up ahead before you lifted your foot toward the Point of No Return. Plus the C-type's engine was a bit high-strung for city work and would go all soft and fluffy if you lugged it or let it idle too long at stoplights. So you had to do a little judicious foot juggling to keep the C rolling along in mellow harmony with the taxicabs and buses and those damn delivery trucks that could whip out of an alleyway when you least expected it or stop wherever they pleased to unload sixty or seventy dozen ladies' straw hats and matching handbags just in from the sweatshops in Panama. Right in the middle of the street! Then again, that's the way they've always done things in Manhattan, and probably always will. The best I could do was just follow Tommy in the green Jag, trying to keep up and make everything mesh, but not really doing too good a job of it.

  We crossed the George Washington in heavy midday traffic, and I pulled up next to Tommy at a stoplight on the Jersey side and asked if we could maybe take a little side trip over by the Doggie Shake so I could tell Julie where I was going (and incidentally make all the rank-and-file lunch customers choke on their malteds when we cruised up in our C-types!). I'd tried to call her the night before to explain as how I hadn't exactly quit my job at Westbridge, but she was working and there was no way I could get over to see her on account of I had to go over to my folks' house to get clothes and stuff. Ok, so maybe I could have got over there if I'd really wanted to, but the fact is, I thought she might be a little upset about my not quitting Westbridge so I could come back to work at her uncle's gas station, and even more disgusted about my sudden, drop-everything trip to Wisconsin. The good news was her mother didn't hang up on me (for the first time in ages) although she wasn't exactly real friendly, either.

  "Yooda gas station boy, right?" she rasped into the receiver (as if she hadn't been hanging up on me every time I'd called for the past five weeks, right?).

  I allowed as how I was, and kindly asked if perhaps Julie might be at home.

  "She's a-notta home. She's a-work."

  "Well then, I wondered if I might leave her a short message. . . ."

  "Lissen, gas station boy," she hissed through her teeth, "you gotta anything t'say to my Joolie, you teller youself, OK?"

  Then she hung up the phone. Click!

  Still, that conversation represented a real breakthrough in my relationship with Julie's mom. I mean, we were at least talking again, you know?

  Anyhow, Tommy and me cruised up past the Teterboro Airport toward Passaic and stopped in at the Doggie Shake about the time the stragglers from the lunch crowd were finishing off the last of their french fries and they about fell off their stools when we growled up the drive in those two brand-new Jaguar racing cars! Unfortunately, Julie wasn't around, but we decided to fortify ourselves for the trip with a couple cheese-and-mushroom burger baskets and toasted our adventure with a root beer float apiece (which we had to hold in our hands on account of there's no place at all to hook a window tray on a C-type Jaguar). Tommy insisted on treating, and left the girl a whole dollar tip, too, just to make sure word would get back to Julie. And how!

  After lunch we picked up the New Jersey Turnpike near Palisades Park and Tommy motioned me to the side at the tollbooth to ask how I was doing. "Everything shipshape, sport?" he yelled over the burble from the side pipes.

  "Yeah. I guess so. I'm still having a little trouble with the clutch in traffic."

  "You'll get used to it," he laughed. "Here, take this." He tossed me a crumpled cigarette pack with a twenty-dollar bill wadded up inside. "That's for tolls and anything else you might need along the way."

  "Gee whiz, thanks!"

  "Right then," Tommy grinned. "Tally ho!" He revved the green Jag's engine up to about four grand, deftly unloaded the clutch, and rocketed away with wheel smoke churning off the tires.

  "All right," I said to the shell-shocked kid in the mirror, "like the man said: Tally ho!" and left my own two bucks' worth of Dunlop's best on the concrete.

  We were on our way!

  On the turnpike, the C-type really came into her own, running along at an effortless 75 or 80 without breaking a sweat. Why, you could even take your hands off the wheel and she'd still track like she was on rails! I'd never driven anything like that in my life, and comparing it to a standard-issue XK120 was like comparing an XK120 to a Nash or Henry J. It was that much faster and lower and tighter and lighter on its feet. And the Jersey Turnpike was a really fantastic stretch of road for a car like that, what with four lanes and a posted limit of 55. But you could see pretty far ahead so there wasn't much worry about cops as long as you kept your eyes peeled. Plus everybody we passed—and we were passing everybody!—looked at us like those Jaguars were two flying saucers freshly swooped down from outer space! Kids plastered themselves against the back windows of bullet-nosed Studebakers and puffy women in flower-print sundresses occupying the front seats of Buick Roadmasters craned their eyeballs around their husbands' profiles to get a better look. Sometimes they'd even hazard a sneaky wave. And the husbands never noticed, on account of they were too damn busy gaping at us themselves. Why, some of them got so mesmerized they veered clear off the edge of the pavement or drifted perilously close to the divider median. To tell the truth, it was downright intoxicating, and it even got worse when Tommy decided to "blow the carbon out" a few miles south of Elizabeth. I heard him downshift to third at about 75 and watched the rear end squat as he buried the gas and the green Jag instantly howled off into the distance. Why, there was nothing I could do except drop down to third myself and floor the throttle. I mean, what choice did I have? A few seconds later we were weaving through light traffic at over 100, and I'd be a damned liar if I didn't admit we were up over 120—two miles a minute! —before we hit the redline in third and upshifted to top! I had my fingers wrapped around that fancy wood-rim wheel in a white-knuckled death grip, praying on one hand that Tommy'd ease off and hoping in another devilish corner of my brain that he'd keep his foot hard in it all the way up to Wisconsin! I finally chickened out around 130 or so, and no question that was as fast as I'd ever gone in my life. But old Tommy kept the pedal down clear through 5500 in top, which worked out to roughly 145 miles an hour. Give or take a few. On the blessed New Jersey Turnpike, for gosh sakes! In the middle of an ordinary, lunch-bucket Tuesday afternoon.

  Well, so much for "taking it easy on the cars."

  The 1952 edition of the Rand McNally Road Atlas will tell you it's precisely 88 miles from New York to Philadelphia, and that it should furthermore take you about three hours at a reasonable and proper rate of travel. But Tommy and me were hauling into the northern outskirts of Philly a full hour ahead of the advertised Rand McNally numbers— and that's only because Tommy had to ease off and wait for me a bunch of times because I got nervous as hell at anything much over 90. Especially in traffic! But Tommy didn't think a thing of it. "Bloody great road, isn't it?" he hollered over the exhaust as we pulled up to a stoplight i
n Elkins Park. "But the one coming up is even better. You'll see.

  Sure enough, we picked up the Pennsylvania Turnpike at Conshohocken, and that turned out to be the most fantastic stretch of highway I'd ever seen. Of course, it helped that I was wheeling a C-type Jaguar! It started off like the Jersey Turnpike—except that the speed limit was 70 miles an hour. SEVENTY MILES AN HOUR! I couldn't believe it! And of course Tommy automatically added another 40 or 50 whenever he thought we could get away with it. But he'd always slow it down a few notches when we came up on traffic. "No need to frighten the populace, sport," he told me later. "It's impolite."

  We flew past King of Prussia and New Centerville and Valley Forge in quick succession, and that last one got me thinking about how we once fought a bunch of Englishmen like Tommy for the right to run this country—beat them out of it, too—and now here I was, some wise-ass gas station kid from Passaic, following an actual British fighter pilot on some kind of modern English commando raid on these same United States, ripping through the historic gut of our country in a brand-new Jaguar racing car that made the size, weight, speed, and handling capabilities of your average American road barge absolutely laughable by comparison.