For politicians, the sphere of the personal shrinks as that of the political swells, until for some, the personal all but disappears. Then, even the choice of car becomes political. During the recent elections, one car loomed so large in the fleets of presidential aspirants that the manufacturer actually touted it as “The Candidates’ Choice” in advertisements that ran in Capitol Hill publications, such as Roll Call. Even more tellingly, the particular vehicle was unique to the left side of the aisle, and all were 2007 models, purchased after election season had begun.

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With apologies to Douglas Adams:

Stress and nervous tension are now serious social problems in all parts of the Galaxy, and it is in order that this situation should not in any way be exacerbated that the following facts will now be revealed in advance.

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I am that oddball of pistonhedonism who has never lusted for speed. In fact, caution genes run in my family. To wit: my parents installed seatbelts in the ‘57 Chevy in 1960, eight years before they became mandatory in new cars. Our ‘65 404 was probably the first Peugeot station wagon in all of France to have rear shoulder belts. My father, an academic economist, showed the men at the factory how to install them. I didn’t get tagged for speeding until I was just shy of 40, and that for doing all of 35 in Rock Creek Park. (Gail Wilensky, the Porsche driving head of Medicare under George H.W. Bush, was hitching a ride downtown with me in my then 16 year old Toyota Corolla with the busted window from a smash & grab, but that’s another story.)

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The Porsche GT3 RS with its wildly painted orange wheels was not going to let me past, despite my flashing headlights of protest. Why should he? I was in a mild-mannered Carrera S, devoid of any go fast wings or air ducts. I resigned myself to trying to gain momentum over him before we entered the Flugplatz, where the wider bit of road would provide a much safer passing zone and keep me from joining the purple Peugeot 206 we had just passed at Hatzenbach in the Armco barriers. I needn’t wait so long, as in my mirror, four “angel-eye” rings glared at me from the nefarious BMW M5 ‘Ring Taxi. I put on my right-turn signal, let her pass, and then squeezed the accelerator in order to whip past the Orange Swedish Porker. Let the games begin, for I was on my 100th lap, and it was time for a joust with Sabine Schmitz in our Deutsche Chariots of Terror.

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It looks like the American taxpayer is going to be stuck with the bill for another unpopular struggle in the sand. This time, however, the “insurgents” don’t stand a chance. General Motors and Bob Lutz have cherrypicked the opponent for their CTS-V track showdown. Not only is Wes Siler a novice-level racetrack driver (and, I would add, a very charming fellow), the C63 AMG is far too short on power and tire to run head-to-head with Cadillac’s supersedan. Mr. Farago has informed me that General Motors will absolutely not permit TTAC to join the party. That’s a shame because I could win this race-that-isn’t. Here’s how.

In a wheel-to-wheel contest, I would take the inside line into Turn Two, abandon all pretense of making a clean pass, track out to the exit curb while matching Lutz’s speed on the brakes, and run the old man into the dirt at eighty miles per hour. Race won. We will assume, however, that this “race” will actually be a single timed lap from a rolling start.

Only a fool would agree to let Bob bring his own CTS-V. At a minimum, such a car would have a competition alignment, a blueprinted engine, and a rather enthusiastically-tuned ECU. Instead, I would insist on bringing a car from random dealer stock and observing GM’s final prep of the vehicle. When the event’s over, it could be returned under the General’s 60-day guarantee.

With a modicum of fairness assured, it would be time to choose and prep TTAC’s challenger. (That’s “challenger” with a small “c”; not only is the big Mopar a two-door and thus ineligible for this particular dog-and-pony show, it wouldn’t stand a chance.) We’re starting behind the eight-ball here, because the CTS-V very probably is faster around most racetracks than any other production sedan sold in this country. We need to come close enough for preparation and ability to close the gap.

We’ll begin by focusing on the three major factors that affect racetrack performance in otherwise similar cars: power-to-weight, tire width, and driveline layout.

The CTS-V generates 556 horsepower to push 4220 pounds, for a power-to-weight ratio of .131 hp/lb. It has exceptionally wide tires for the class at 255/40-19 front and 285/35-19 rear. With just these numbers, we can expect that Mr. Siler’s C63, which has 451 horsepower for 3920 pounds (.115 hp/lb) and tires which are 30mm narrower both front and rear, will find it impossible to keep up. The C63 also has a torque-converter automatic, which absorbs some of the engine’s power.

Given the chance, I would bring a 2010 BMW M5. The Bimmer offers 507 horsepower and a curb weight of 4012 pounds (.126 hp/lb). This is a non-trivial disadvantage, and the situation is worse than it sounds because acceleration above about 100mph is more a function of total horsepower and aero than power-to-weight. Much of Laguna Seca amounts to a series of drag races, and we’ll be playing catch-up.

To stay in the game, we will have to out-handle the Caddy by a significant margin. The M5 has exactly the same tire size as the Cadillac, which helps, and it has BMW’s usual 50/50-ish weight distribution. Still, that’s not enough. With equal drivers, in an equal situation, the CTS-V is still likely to come up on top.

The BMW does have one critical advantage: the SMG transmission. It’s garbage on the street, but around a racetrack, SMG is priceless. Not only does it eliminate shifting mistakes, which is useful in a high-pressure, single-lap situation, it allows us to left-foot brake for the entire track. Left-foot-braking can be worth up to a second a lap, which would go a long way towards fixing our power deficiency.

We can also prepare the car a bit. “Crash bolts” in the M5’s MacPherson struts will give us some camber to address the typical BMW understeer issues. A few minutes with an angle grinder can provide even more. We can put the best possible 140-or-higher treadwear tires on the car. We’ll align the car aggressively with plenty of toe-out in the rear wheels to aid rotation.

All of the above brings us close to winning. The rest has to be done at the track.

We’ll run the car for a few days at Seca and test alignment settings while preparing to drive as close to a perfect lap as possible. On the day of the event, we will load a Traqmate with our best lap and set it to “qualifying mode” to provide continuous real-time comparison with that lap. We will insist that Lutz drives first, which lets us know how hard we’ll have to run compared to our ideal lap. If he’s slow, we can use caution. If he’s fast . . . well, at that point it will be time for me to earn the Raikkonnen-esque salary Mr. Farago pays me.

Anything can happen once the flag waves, but I will say this: a bet on TTAC to win the “CTS-V Challenge” is a better one than the American taxpayer is making on GM.

James Dean was a moderately talented actor. You could say he made his best career move behind the wheel of a Porsche. After his fatal accident, Dean’s “live fast-die young” legend grew to Giant-size, propelling his life (and death) to legendary status. As for the car [not shown], many came to believe that the “Lil’ Bastard” was evil, citing both the actor’s death and the death and injury experienced by those who came into contact with the car or bits thereof. Steven King and Snopes will fill in the blanks on that one. But the truth is that celebrities aren’t that different from you and me. The basic causation for their car crashes is the same as it ever was: human error and a light dusting of equipment limitations or failure.

James Dean’s Porsche 550 Spyder was a limited edition race car. Dean fancied himself a bona-fide race car driver. In March 1955, Dean finished second in the Palm Springs Road Races and in May of that year, he placed third at Bakersfield. Later that month, Dean was running fourth at the Santa Monica Road Races, until he was sidelined with engine failure.

Even if one assumes that Dean had mad motoring skills, he was still destined to wear a toe tag at the end of the day on September 30, 1955. This one had bad driving and the cold reality of physics written all over it.

The lousy driving arrived courtesy a young man named Donald Turnipseed. Turnipseed (who blamed the light in his eye) made a poor judgment call when he turned left just in time to collide with the smaller Porsche’s driver’s side. The large 1950 Ford Custom Tudor coupe had a significant weight and mass advantage over the small race trimmed Porsche 550. To say the least. And state the obvious. The Porsche’s tubular race frame didn’t stand a chance.

The photos of the wreck proved this point. Dean was the unwilling recipient of a steering wheel and dash, while his luckier passenger was ejected from the car. Donald Turnupseed emerged virtually unscathed, outside of the emotional damage of Dean’s death by his boneheaded move.

Speaking of trauma, all of America has a “whoa” moment, when Jayne Mansfield lost her life in a collision with the trailer of a semi  on  June 29, 1967. Her 1966 Buick Electra land barge collided with a fog-obscured trailer. The collision killed all of the front seat occupants, including her dog. Mansfield’s children survived; the rear seat passengers were short enough to escape the trailer’s scythe-like effect.

The fatalities may have been avoided by slower speeds, but no former or current factory safety equipment would have prevented the Buick’s sudden transformation from hardtop to convertible. The urban myth about decapitation was false, but sudden head trauma certainly ushered Mansfield onto the Silver Screen in the Sky.

Gruesome pictures of the crash scene were so widely disseminated (this before the Internet) that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration soon mandated that all semi truck trailers had to be outfitted with a rear under-ride bar or bumper.

Not even one of the world’s safest automobiles—a Mercedes Benz S280—could save Princess Diana’s life. The Mercedes had every safety feature known to the auto industry, including a state-of-the-art passenger cell, traction control, air bags and braking systems. Once again, the driver was the weakest link.

While Prince Charles may have wished his wife dead several times an hour, the realization of that alleged desire was the simple result of impaired driving. Diana’s chauffeur was drunk and under the influence of pills when the crash occurred. Whether he was being chased or just plain stupid, Henri Paul over-cooked it, colliding with a concrete pillar in a Paris underpass.

Diana’s bodyguard survived the accident, but then he was wearing his seat belt and Princess Diana was not. A simple lesson often neglected in the flurry of conspiracy theories and speculation.

In fact, it’s too bad that the “teachable” moment is often lost (though not in the Mansfield crash) when celebrities die in car accidents. The public often focuses on the facts of the matter, and the star’s violently truncated career, instead of the causation. The truth is that celebrities face the same dangers on the road as you and I, only more so, as they have a tendency to intersect with fast cars, drugs and alcohol abuse. And, of course, hubris. For example . . .

In 1927, dancer and choreographer Isadora Duncan jumped into a friend’s Bugatti. As the driver began their destined-to-short journey, Duncan’s flowing scarf tangled in the car’s open-spoke rear wheel. It pulled taut, snapping her neck. The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes reports Duncan had “waved gaily to her friends, crying ‘Adieu, mes amis! Je vais a la gloire!’” Goodbye, my friends! I go to glory!

[For more of Jim Sutherland's work, please visit mystarcollectorcar.com]

Victor Muller stands about six foot four, with dashing gray hair and glasses. He exudes the energy of a kid after five bags of Pop Rocks. Why shouldn’t he? Muller’s the co-founder of Spyker, one of the sexiest car companies to hit the scene since Lamborghini launched the Miura. Never mind that many collectors consider Spyker’s first gen cars beautifully crafted automobiles with all the chassis rigidity of a tin can. Spyker is the very definition of a boutique automaker, including the fact that they haven’t show a profit for nine years. If you want old school supercar exclusivity, Muller’s your man.

We met-up with Muller at the Spyker “booth” erected on Pebble Beach’s tent row. The stand was the first you’d encounter on an uphill walk from the Lodge—or the last one coming from the parking lot. Spyker parked four cars out front for test drives. The brand also showcased their race car and his latest model (on the stand). There was plenty of action in and around the cars, even though (because?) the booth area was roped off.  While I waited for our interview in the lounge area, Victor finished meetings, caught up with old friends and posed for picture. And then it was our turn.

MCM: How many cars have you manufactured to date?

Muller: We have sold 250. Cars numbered 251, 252 and 253 are out front.

MCM: Give me the helicopter view . . . why this company?

Victor: I was collecting Aston Martins, Ferraris and other sports cars (and still do). I felt there was a need for an exclusive car with old world craftsmanship, like they used to build. This type of car is represented in our five brand pillars: heritage, design, craftsmanship, performance and exclusivity. These are the five core elements that constitute the Spyker brand. The exclusive and the hand-built elements are very important when you compare to the mass-produced sports cars.

MCM: I was just at an interview with Henrik Fisker as he spoke about the Karma. Your thoughts?

Muller: I have tremendous respect for Henrik and what he is doing. He is a fantastic designer and pioneer in building hybrid electric cars.

MCM: What’s your view on Fisker’s manufacturing techniques; farming everything out while only having the overhead of a design, engineering and marketing organization in the U.S.? In a sense, you are both building something exclusive from scratch. Although Henrik plans on 15,000 units.

Muller: Everything is cyclical in manufacturing. This is a trend that I think we are seeing (he motions widely with his arm up and down). Right now we are seeing companies look to the outside to get manufacturing accomplished. But when you are tied to companies outside of your control, you are subjected to their unions and other demand that can impact your production. We will see this change and manufacturing will be brought in-house again to help maintain control.

MCM: You currently get your engine and suspension from outside sources. Are you giving-up control?

Muller: It would be impossible for us to engineer our own engines. The costs are tremendous to build the tooling for such a low volume of cars. The suspension comes from Lotus. They are the experts in handling and the recognized leader. We could not do a better job. The hand-crafted body panels are supplied by both Coventry Prototype Panels from the U.K. and Karmann from Germany. The chassis of the C8 is built from extruded box sections and folded sheet. We would like to take more of the body construction in house. That is our goal for the future.

MCM: Henrik Fisker says “they are an American car company.”

Muller: But they build their cars in Finland.

MCM: My point exactly.

[Victor gives a slight roll-the-eyes as we both chuckle a bit.]

MCM: Are you profitable? How are you financed?

Muller: No, we are not profitable. We are a public company listed on Amsterdam Exchanges with four major shareholders. About 25% of the stock is in the hands of government owned Abu Dhabi investment company Mubadala (which also has 5% of Ferrari). One is Vladimir Antonov, a new shareholder who came in at the end of last year. He’s a Russian banker who is very committed to the company and a keen car collector and financial investor. He has 30% of the stock. Another investment company, Gemini, has 10% and I also have 10%. So collectively, the major shareholders account for 75% of the company’s ownership. The rest is in free float.

MCM: When do expect to be profitable?

Victor: Sometime within the next next year, in 2010 or 2011.

MCM: What can we expect from Spyker in the future? Are you interested in hybrid technology?

Muller: We don’t believe that there will be the infrastructure to support electric cars for some time. What is going to happen if you want to drive through the desert? You are limited by a need to charge the vehicle. We have no plans to move from our current fuel based engines. We do plan to expand the line and are going to be launching an SUV, the D8 Peking-to-Paris . . .

You know, one of the things we are most excited about is our 5th place finish at the 24 Hours de LeMans this year. We finish ahead of all Porsches in our GT2 class. This is great achievement for us and we are really excited about it.

MCM: Congratulations on the fiinish.  Thank you for your time.

[read more of Paul's work at motorcarmarket.com]

This is a tale from my youth, a very confusing period of my life, including the habit of drinking myself into a drunken stupor just for the fun of it, reckless driving of Jack Baruthian proportions, and generally excessive wanton behavior. In short, a day in the life of an average college kid, knee-deep in a period of Sturm-und-Drang. I was young, I was stupid and I had a death wish none of this world. I usually spent more time at the local café than in school, and I was out partying five days a week. I was twenty years old, I went to college, I had an apartment of my own, and I was the proud owner of a car, minus the driving license.

The car was a family hand-me-down, a Volvo P210 Station Wagon, of the 1968 vintage. It had remained in the family for some twenty years (eventually replaced as the family truckster by a certified pre-owned Toyota Hiace van). I was handed the keys on my eighteenth birthday, though the car usually stayed at the family residence. Again, I didn’t have the license to drive it. However, I took some artistic liberty in the use of the car, usually with the excuse that some friends of mine had a driving license. And on those occasions it was proudly parked outside my apartment. None the better for resisting temptations. I couldn’t help myself but to take it for a ride now and then, usually at night.

One night, I was playing games on my Commodore 64 (yes, it was that long ago) when I heard someone knocking at my door. It was my two friends Peter and Paul (names changed to protect the innocent). They asked me If I wasn’t perhaps in the mood for some partying? “Yes, well, of course,” I said. “And who’s gonna be there?” “Well, there’s you,” they replied, “and then the two of us.” “Sure,” I said, “why not.”

Paul wanted to party-crash his parents’ house out in the country. That meant we had to take my Volvo for a ride. Said and done, we arrived at his parents’ house some half an hour later.

It was a big and very flat house with overhanging roofs, built in the bungalow style. It was meant to be some fancy up-scale variant, with lots of white marble and tables of brass and smoked glass. Its moment had come and gone in 1983.

After a couple of hours of ransacking his father’s liquor cabinet, proving a point in a discussion I can’t remember (neither the discussion nor the point), Paul decided to fetch a cross-bow his uncle had in storage at his family’s other place. It seemed like a great idea. On our way out, we took Paul’s parent’s car, a late 70s euro-spec Ford Granada Station Wagon. I have never driven my parents’ car while intoxicated; Paul smiled in a smirky fashion. And we should have known better.

It was two o’clock in the middle of the night. There was no car in sight on the dark back roads of the Swedish countryside. Paul was up front, I was riding shotgun, and Peter was sitting in the back, right behind me.

Not long after we got started, we were lost. Paul decided to turn the car around. While backing the car into an exit, he missed it by several meters, and backed right into a ditch. It took us some time to get the car back up on the road again. If only we’d quit then . . .

Ten minutes later, we were driving on an avenue, with trees on both sides. The last time I looked at the speedometer, we were traveling in excess of 180 kilometers per hour. Suddenly, the avenue of trees made way for some open fields, the pavement made way for a gravel road, and a sharp turn to the right was advancing at an alarming speed. Paul cleared the turn to the right, but he lost control of the car. It made a violent return skid to the left, only to see the car exit the road to the field on the right.

There was a downward inclination of about a meter or so down to the ground,. The car hit a tree, two times, due to it being sideways and inclined. First the car hit the tree with the front left, then it bounced and hit the tree once again, on the left side. The tree made a man-sized indentation—on the side where no one was sitting.

After a moment of silence, we asked ourselves if we were okay. And we were, pretty much. Paul was in shock. Peter had a couple of broken ribs. I somehow managed to be completely unharmed, save a couple of minor scratches.  The big tire jack, formerly placed in the open back, was fifty meters away from the car, out on the field. Had it hit us on our heads on its way out, I wouldn’t have been here telling you this.

Paul, who always had been slightly criminally bent, started meddling the locks with a screwdriver, so it would look like the car had been stolen. And then we began our way back to the house, on foot. An hour later, we arrived back at Paul’s parents’ house. It was four o’clock in the morning, and we were almighty bruised and tired.

Paul immediately woke up his kid brother, who had been at the house all the time, sleeping and unknowing that we had been there before. Paul’s strategy was for us to swiftly move back to my place, making it look like we had never been there at all, with his kid brother as a witness of the non-existent events that had just taken place.

An hour or so later, we were back at my place in town. Kennedy-like, we immediately went to sleep. I crashed on my bed, the sofas were occupied, and the kid brother made use of the spare mattress in my tiny one room apartment.

Nine o’clock sharp, there was a loud knock on the door. I went up and opened the door. “This is the Police,” they said, “are you Mr. So-and-so?” “Yes,” I answered. “Good. We have orders to escort you out of town. Apparently, you have failed to show up at your military training, which was due this morning, and we will see to it that you get there.” “All right,” I said, “let me fetch my contact lenses, and we’ll be on our way.”

While the police waited, I’m sure they had a look around in the room, and I’m equally sure that all my friends were now widely awake, but hiding under their blankets. As I hadn’t cleaned in a very long time, the room was very untidy. Empty wine bottles lying around, records out of their sleeves, someone had puked in the kitchen sink, and there were fresh cigarette marks all over the carpet. It looked like we had partied like there was no tomorrow.

In the ride out of town, one of the plainclothes men asked me who it was in my apartment. “Oh, it was Mr. Paul and Peter so-and-so,” I said. “Yes, well, I thought I’d recognized them,” he replied. “We had a party last night,” I said. “Yes, we could see that,” he retorted dryly. And the rest of the ride they were silent.

As I had failed to show up for my military training five times in a row, in two years time of not making up my mind, I didn’t have to do the usual physical routine or intelligence tests, but had to go straight to the line to see the psychiatrist. I was very thankful for that, as my entire body ached, some tremendously.

After waiting for an hour, I was let into this room with this very nice lady, who looked at my papers and then looked at me and then looked at my papers again. “I can see that you don’t want to do this year in the military,” she smiled, “but what reason should we come up with?” I took that as my cue to tell her the long and tedious story of my life, exaggerating all the points that would make me unfit for my military duty. She slapped me on the wrist and let me go, with the written conclusion that I was “too individually minded to fit in the collective whole of the army.” I was handed my one and only daily wage from the military, some 38 Swedish kronor or about five dollars.

The young cadet in the counter smirked and called me a simulating SOB. I had left my wallet back home, but luckily for me, the bus fair home was 32 kronor. On the way back, I got myself contemplating and tried to grasp the absurdity of life. Back home, on the kitchen counter, there was a gift-wrapped bottle of Gordon’s London Dry Gin and a note from Paul’s girlfriend, thanking me for insisting that all in the car should wear seat belts. I laughed with the most uncanny laughter I’ve ever heard, went straight to my bed and slept for fifteen hours.

Never again.

kbb.com presents a top ten automotive list that is to PR what plastic worms are to bass: completely contrived and intermittently irresistible. “Ten Great Cars for 10 Different Jobs” is about vague and non-threatening a compendium as I’ve ever encountered in this genre. And you can’t fault them for adding the word “Different” “Ten Great Cars for the Same Damn Job” just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Oh look! There’s a Ford F-150! Quel surprise! Only this is the Raptor version for bounty hunters who don’t find their man inside a bar or roach-infested apartment, and want to tear the miscreant into pieces and eat him, presumably. ”The kbb.com list is sure to provide thought-provoking transportation options for those in various lines of work.” Me, I’m only in one line of work: automotive truth telling. Well, that and comedy. And you’re in this with me, you bastards. So make the jump for five more ideas for career-appropriate whips. Correct us if we’re wrong. (As if.) As always, we welcome your suggestions.

Coke dealer – Don’t think downmarket; the mostly Bolivian-sourced drug is repackaged for the financially-challenged and sold as something called “crack” (much to the chagrin of the Irish, but then heteros lost the word gay so there you go). Eddy reckons a de-badged, “murdered-out” BMW M3 is the answer to a question neither of us get asked, ever. Fo shizzle. It’s low-key, yet capable of outrunning anything save police radio. I’m good with the keeping it on the down-low approach. I’m thinking a Toyota Corolla XRS. They’re completely invisible, yet the extra performance. . . just kidding. Alternatively, candycaine providers could help society by driving a scissor-doored Chrysler 300C with a Bentley-esque mesh grill and one of those in-car LED displays with a crawl proclaiming “A R E S T M E I A M A C O K E D E E L E R.”

Antique Dealer – Once upon a time, Volvo station wagons were specifically designed by antique dealers, for antique dealers. Members of this profession are not dumb; they know that buying an estate from the dead-brand-walking Swedish brand today would be like paying top dollar for cracked Fiestaware. Eddy says Subaru Outback, but admits that everyone in his Portland locale drives a Subaru Outback—pot dealers, soccer moms, purveyors of Russian Samovars, everyone. (Biggest car joke in Oregon: “meet me at (X). I’m in the green Outback.”) I’ve always wondered why latter day Lovejoys don’t drive something delightfully old and quirky, like a 1957 Pontiac Safari Transcontinental. Probably because they want to get where they’re going the same day that they start going there, and don’t want die in a five-mile-per-hour shunt. So the Subie it is.

Accountant – Like a good pencil pushing number cruncher, you gotta think outside the law. I mean, box. An accountant who drives a Ferrari 430 Spider (as one of kid’s classmate’s father does) is telling the world that they’re successful at helping successful people become successful by helping them avoid paying, uh, you know. Better yet, an accountant who drive the world’s most expensive Italian toy (aside from a high maintenance mistress) says “I’m bulletproof baby. See this Ferrari IRS? Yeah I’m rich. Go on audit me, you bastards. I dare you.” Eddy says slap a company logo on that bad boy, and all the expensive maintenance is a write-off.

Tween Star – So easy to go for the Mercedes SL63 AMG. But the uber-SL’s throttle is way too twitchy for a teen tween queen, without or without an elevated blood alcohol level—as Lindsay Lohan has shown us time and time again. Yes, it’s the safest fuck-off-and-die-mobile money can buy, but is that really the message our highly-esteemed role models want to send to today’s Bratz? And here at TTAC we never, ever do anything nice (well, except for our positive post of the day and Eddy’s screwed that up more than once). Eddy can see Miley Cyrus in a Pepto-Pink LaCrosse; “thanks to a deal signed to attract younger buyers to the Buick brand.” But then they do have exceptional marijuana where Eddy lives [see: above]. Me, I’m with Hayden: Mercedes GL. I know she’s like totally old now, but the GL’s just like an SL only the logo’s WAY bigger and you can take your entourage and stuff and you can see the pop-o-Nazis from MILES away.

President of the United States – Lest we forget, The Commander-in-Chief commands General Motors. So the Prez can commandeer his pick from the entire range of GM models across the company’s eight brands. Oops! Four. No, wait, it IS eight. Hang on; we can’t include Opel, Vauxhall, Holden and Daewoo because American politicians MUST DRIVE AN AMERICAN CAR. Still, that still leaves, what 32 separate models, depending on what you call separate. Anyway, Eddy says Chevrolet Aveo. But he’s just being an asshole. I reckon The Leader of the Free World should drive a Chrysler 300C. Because it’s a free country and he’s free to drive whatever he wants and he’s a man who isn’t afraid to do so no matter how strenuously the green wing of his party protests or how cravenly PC his advisers may be. Oh wait . . .

On September 1, the Collier Collection of Naples, Florida, brought to Lime Rock its 1939 Mercedes-Benz W 154 Grand Prix car. (Yes, Collier’s is a collection, not a museum. Don’t bother looking for a website; visitors by invitation only.) The word from Lime Rock’s PR person: this would be the first time the engine had ever been started on a racetrack in 69 years and 363 days, having last run in anger at a minor street race in Yugoslavia on September 3, 1939, two days after the start of World War II. Two ringers from Stuttgart had been sent to Connecticut to help with this historic ignition, as had the British restorer who’d rebuilt the engine. The Collier guys also planned to run the car on the track briefly, which, it was said, would also be a 70-year first.

Legend has it that this car, the last of the 15 W 154s built, was one of two found in 1945 in Austria by the steamrollering Soviets, who put them on a train to be shipped back to Russia. The cars got as far as Romania, where the troops running the train traded them for liquor, food, local goods and probably a few cute Romanian girls.

I missed that phrase “on a racetrack” in my quick reading of the invitation to attend, so I hustled up in my nearly-as-ancient 911 to see and hear what I figured would be something as momentous as being present at the opening of King Tut’s tomb. Would it start? Would it grenade? Would they need a spritz of snowblower ether to bring it to life?

Well, it was fun but not quite as historic as I’d expected. Turns out the car had actually raced several times well after World War II, the last time in a hillclimb where it wrecked. And when the engine started with a brain-melting bark on the second turn of the crankshaft, it immediately became obvious that Mister W 154 had been run, after an extensive rebuild, plenty long enough to jet and tune its V12’s supercharged carburetors. Just not “on a racetrack.”

While dozens of us crowded around, snapped pictures and generally got in the way, plugs were pulled, a crystal-meth lab’s worth of fuel was poured, the engine was spun to build oil pressure, plugs were replaced (without a torque wrench in sight, by the way; these guys have calibrated wrists). A friend who was with me laughed and said, “I have to go through this every time I start my ’40 Fleet biplane, but nobody’s ever around.”

Came the big moment and instantly the air was filled with unbearable noise and the smell of a model-airplane meet. Emissions? You betcha: little did the tiny village of Lakeville, Connecticut, know that it had briefly become an EPA Superfund site. The engine burns a blend of methyl alcohol, nitrobenzene, acetone and sulphuric ether that would probably burn through concrete.

After five minutes of WHAP . . . WHAP . . . WHAP . . WHAP back and forth to 4,000 rpm (to keep the hot start-up plugs clear), the entire car was gently smoking as restorative paint melted here and there, asbestos wrapping burned off the two tailpipes and glycol began to bubble into the tray under the car.

In go the cold plugs, from a gray wooden box on a cradle fitted to the curve of the car’s cowling and lettered “von Brauchitsch,” who drove it at Belgrade that September day in 1939, starting on the pole and finishing second to Nuvolari in an Auto Union Type D.

The car is pushed to the end of the pit lane while a dozen well-heeled Lime Rock Park Club members wait impatiently for their turn at the track. One of them, trim in his tailored shorts and Ralph Lauren shirt, in an accent that we used to call Locust Valley lockjaw, had earlier asked me, “Are you here for the track day?” I told him, “No, I am a writer, waiting for the Mercedes.” “Yes, I figured,” he said as he eyed my stock Levi’s.

The W 154 did a few racketing but careful laps on its cold, skinny tires, the Mercedes Classic Center factory driver obviously well aware of the I’m-guessing $20 million value of the car. If you want to see this Silver Arrow do it again, go to the 27th Annual Lime Rock Park Vintage Festival this Labor Day weekend. It’ll be there. Bring earplugs. Or watch the video here.