It was in Rock Hill, South Carolina, right next to the exit from Interstate 77, that I made one of the great blunders of my career.
April Fools’ Day approaches as I prepare to remove myself from these premises and take up new digs at the world headquarters of the Points and Condenser Preservation Society in Ypsilanti, Michigan, about fifteen minutes from my home.
As of this writing I will be stepping down as Editor-in-Chief of WINDING ROAD Magazine. My new title will be Editor Emeritus. I have been toiling in this vineyard for two years and enjoying every aspect of the project except the regular operations meetings at our corporate headquarters in Austin, Texas. I was not cut out for regular operations meetings.
The Lexus GS460 tells you exactly what sort of car it is the moment you slip it into gear and accelerate down the ramp to merge with the evening rush-hour traffic. It is a swift, luxurious car that genuinely seems to enjoy being driven hard. It attracts admiring glances wherever it’s driven, and will make you grin like a fool on a challenging country road.
We used to see William F. Buckley with some regularity during my second tour of duty at Car and Driver. He had a Manhattan office somewhere around Third Avenue and Thirty-Fourth Street and often ate lunch in a little counter joint nearby.
I introduced myself to him at a Magazine Publishers Association dinner in Detroit, and we had a fifteen-minute conversation about peanut butter. That night he told the best political joke I ever heard, to wit: “Lyndon Johnson was absolutely on top of the world following his 1964 landslide victory. He vowed that he would attend every one of the several Inaugural Balls being thrown by the Democratic faithful.”
“On the appointed night he set out with Ladybird, but she was exhausted after one party and went home to bed. Somewhere along the line that evening he met Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor and invited them to join him for a drink in the Oval Office. A Filipino mess attendant appeared as if by magic and took their drink orders, and when the drinks arrived Lyndon sat in his big chair on one side of the presidential desk and Burton and Taylor sat on the other. Lyndon raised a glass of Bourbon that looked like a Pyrex malted milk can and said, ‘You know, among the three of us, I reckon that we have screwed about every citizen in this great republic!’”
Road & Track’s Belgian correspondent Paul Frère was a damned good journalist and a damned good racing driver—not to be confused with a journalist who either thinks he is or wishes to be a racing driver. He won LeMans in 1960, sharing a Ferrari with fellow Belgian Olivier Gendebien. He entered eleven Formula 1 races between 1952 and 1956, and finished second for Ferrari in his final race, the Belgian GP at Spa Francorchamps. Even after his eightieth birthday he could wiggle himself into a racing car and cut pretty impressive lap times. As a journalist, he was absolutely reliable, and carefully kept every note on every car he had ever tested. He was a total professional and a thoroughly decent guy. He died after a long illness at the end of February.
In Stuttgart, I sat next to Paul at the great farewell dinner Daimler-Benz management threw for Günther Molter, another damned good automotive journalist who was about to retire as head of the Mercedes-Benz press department. As the speeches began, Paul asked me if I’d like him to translate for me. “Oh no,” I replied like an idiot, “I’ll understand enough to get by.” Ten minutes later, Paul was urgently pointing out, sotto voce, that the speaker was saying that the proof of Günther’s professional skills and reputation was that David E. Davis, Jr. had flown all the way from the United States to honor him on his retirement. I was, of course, mortified, and Paul Frère was vastly amused. It was always a bit of a thrill to see him—more so to be recognized by him and even be treated as an equal. He was handsome, always carefully dressed, and seemed to be totally unaware of the awe with which a generation of automotive journalists beheld him.
- David E. Davis, Jr.
Jo Bonnier was a very good journeyman racing driver. He proved himself again and again in various kinds of cars in various kinds of racing, and he was a real gent. We used to meet at a favorite restaurant on Route 97, on the New York side of the Delaware River, on our way back to Manhattan from the U.S. Grand Prix at Watkins Glen. Jo Siffert usually joined us and it was a pleasant ritual.
Road America, at Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, is the most beautiful road racing circuit in the United States. Along with Watkins Glen and Laguna Seca, it can also claim the richest history. Road America was created by a civil engineer named Clif Tufte, and the four-mile circuit was finished in 1955, in time for a Sports Car Club of America National that autumn. There was a flurry of track building at that time, and some notable tracks were created, but Road America has outlasted most of them, and remains the beauty queen of them all.
The Bullitt is arguably the best new Mustang offshoot to come along so far. The other candidate would be the Shelby GT500, but the Shelby is much more heavily breathed upon and the immutable law of hot-rodding has had its effect, id est: “Speed Costs Money: How Fast Do You Want To Go?” The Shelby goes out the door at $42,915. The Bullitt can be yours for $31,075. By the time you read this, Bullitt Mustangs should be appearing in your neighborhood.
One of the best and best attended events clustered around the opening of the North American International Automobile Show was the ICOTY (International Car of the Year) awards evening. I’ve described the ICOTY program in this space in the past, and this year it had some special significance for me. Continue –>
What we have here is the Chevrolet TrailBlazer SS wearing Saab nomenclature. What we don’t have here is a Saab. The TrailBlazer SS is arguably the best of the General Motors SUVs using the GMT360 architecture, but it is simply and emphatically not the starting place for the next great thing from Saab. If GM hasn’t learned the difference between Saabs and light-duty trucks by now, it is never going to learn, and Saab is doomed.
Cadillac has come a long way since the NBA stars and the hip-hop crowd discovered the Escalade and saved that GM division’s bacon. The turnaround was sudden and unexpected. Escalades were turning up in rap videos, and Cadillac dealers were blessed with a whole new clientele overnight.
Report: Volkswagen Working on Driverless Self-Parking System for Production
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Toyota's Prius Passes 1 Million Sold Mark 
