Driving in London just for fun is as sensible as rollerblading on the autobahn. Enlisting a young fresh-off-the-boat Yank to indulge in such folly should be a felony. Yet there I was, strapped behind a steering wheel located where the glove box should be, with a carload of norteamericanos who had entrusted me with their sightseeing and their lives. As an avid reader of British car magazines who watched BBC documentaries on PBS, I convinced myself that I possessed the knowledge required for such an undertaking. I'd already shown courage under fire, surviving several days as a pedestrian on these streets without being hit, not even once. All we needed now was more petrol, and a bank loan to pay for it.

The driving truths Americans hold to be self-evident are nowhere to be found in the Land of Hope and Glory. English traffic engineers appear blissfully unaware of grid systems and four-way stops. Using street names to navigate can only lead to despair. Someone saw fit to bolt all those placards to the sides of buildings, out of eyeshot where they wouldn’t spoil the view. 

You couldn’t design a street plan like this without a hangover and a sense of humor. That centuries-old monument dedicated to King Somebodyoranother commands your immediate attention. As luck would have it, it’s in the middle of the road, and we’re heading straight for it. This marble relic has no patience for ambiguity. Choose sides. Left or right. NOW. No wonder we’ve been driving only ten minutes, and we’re already lost.

No matter. Losing your bearings doesn’t get much better than this. Stateside rental cars of that era were often shaped like soap bars and didn’t smell nearly as good. But in Old Blighty, even a mundane family saloon like this Ford Sierra could connect with your inner Schumacher.

For a kid raised on Tempos and Festivas, this shade of blue oval was nothing short of a revelation. The 1.6-liter mill wound out in ways that would have left many a bulkier Detroit four-banger for dead. The dash displayed Teutonic earnestness, controls placed where they should be. The shifter was nimble, albeit a bit awkward to an unfamiliar left hand. (Slam your customary shifting hand against the car door enough times, and you figure things out eventually.) While the passengers gawked at old buildings, my heel and toe enjoyed a workout on the roundabouts. This $4 gas was worth every pence.

Urban architecture gave way to suburbia, then to rolling verdant countryside as we barreled southward through Surrey toward West Sussex. The tourist office was kind enough to quarantine the English rain, replacing it with a glorious, warm sun. We’re not in Kansas anymore, and they’ve got the blacktop to prove it: tidy, properly paved tarmac, an invitation to dance. A Crown Vic would have been left flummoxed, but the Sierra remains composed, a willing partner for sharing this music.

We happen upon Arundel, a village known for a well-preserved castle doing double-duty as a tourist trap attraction and family home. (Note to self: Life in a drafty old house with a cover charge is overrated.) At the local café, my order of breakfast tea at 2PM was scandalous enough to unravel decades of Anglo-American diplomacy. At least we still had the car.

Back on the highway, I acquired a newfound appreciation for yellow paint. In the New World, we use it to separate opposing traffic from unplanned encounters. The Brits, however, reserve this shade to demarcate their omnipresent parking restrictions, preferring white striping for virtually everything else. Seemed like a harmless cultural difference, until a large lorry began playing chicken with us in what I could have sworn was my passing lane. With the aid of divine intervention, I hastily found fourth gear, redline and a slot on the left, barely avoiding a nasty rendezvous. One life down, eight to go.

Thankfully, the motorway spared us from further overtaking trauma. The limit was allegedly 70 mph, yet the natives took no notice. The speediest traffic easily surpassed the century mark, as slower members of the species respectfully dived out of the way. I had stumbled upon an exotic land where turn signals, courtesy and lane discipline were ways of life. As the lights of London loomed ahead on the M4, I prayed that I could be granted citizenship and a parking space. 

But alas, that England is one for the history books.  The new Cool Britannia is choking on the gristle of speed cameras, more speed cameras, congestion charges and $8 diesel. At this rate, it’s a matter of time before the Brits will have to pay just to think about driving.

Living in the past is looking like a better bet. It’s much faster there, and I can almost afford it.

Pop quiz, hot shot: What's longer than a Ford Excursion, older than the Beatles' Revolver, blacker than midnight, totally devoid of seatbelts and soon heading to the Czech Republic? The pictures don't lie: a 1965 Buick LeSabre 400. Yes, the lure of a small finder's fee and my irrational obsession for anything with four wheels has once again seen me purchase a hunk of Detroit iron for a mysterious man somewhere north of Prague. Who am I to resist?

Luckily this Buick was being held behind the Orange Curtain, which is only a 30-mile jaunt from my hilly compound near Downtown Los Angeles. As fate would have it, I still have the 1981 C3 Corvette. Cashier's check in glove box, a friend and I decided to set off to retrieve the LeSabre.

First, we decided that he should test out the 'Vette to make sure my driving companion was comfortable with the ‘Vette's thirteen inches of clutch travel and tractor-like controls. He wasn't. So we hopped into the WRX.

Thirty minutes later we were in Irvine staring at nineteen and a half feet of utter darkness, punctuated by chrome and brass. I've seen surf boards smaller than the bumpers. You could stash the entire Gambini family in the trunk. Talk about a back seat; the original wheels were passengers. All four of ‘em. With tires. It seems ludicrous that the LeSabre front seats accommodate as many as the four-door BMW X6-or is that the other way around?

Title in hand, I fired up the LeSabre and pointed it in the direction of a gas station. And then stalled. And stalled. And stalled. And stalled seven more times. The seller had warned me that the carburetor was "a little funny." Apparently, I needed to double pump the pedal to mix the fuel and air properly. Trouble is, the throttle is bottom hinged and the seat is so deep and far back that I kept messing up the mix. And stalling.

Finally, I removed my right shoe and got the big black beauty moving. Seventy-five dollars and at least a dozen stalls later, we're off.

Other than bored, alcoholic housewives who celebrate their uniqueness on reality TV, long, wide empty streets that cut straight through what used to be citrus groves are Orange County's defining feature. I pushed the Buick up to an indicated 50 mph and called my friend (who's worriedly following me) to ask how fast we're actually going. "50 mph." Well alright then, we're good to go. Or, as Farago would say, not.

You see, the aforementioned scenario occurred just before I learned that the Buick doesn't have brakes. Well, OK, there are four tired, 43-year-old Detroit drums, but they don't actually stop the car. All they do is ask nicely if the Buick LeSabre feels like slowing down. Sadly, the car's deaf.

So there I was, blissfully unaware of this mechanical deficit, about to make a 90-degree right hand turn. Long story short, apparently curves weren't a feature of American roads when the second generation LeSabre was penned. I now know what it's like to pilot a submarine. I made a mental note to increase braking distances by 1,000 percent and hopped on the freeway, heading towards Disneyland.

Traffic was light. The Buick's tweaked mill (Holley carb, Edelbrock headers) was shockingly capable of motivating nearly two tons of vintage metal up to and past freeway speeds. In fact, with the Super Turbine 400 slushbox in "D" and my foot off the gas, the LeSabre was happy to plod along at 30 mph. A light toe-tap summoned 70 mph; a decidedly comfy cruising speed.

Despite a complete lack of handling and the persistent feeling in my gut that I'm about to die, the Buick was fun. While only sporting two doors, the LeSabre has six window cranks (side quarter vents, window, rear window) and my favorite all time feature: kick-on brights. There was so much cavernous space that I could put my right arm across the back of the seat and not even get kinda close to the passenger door. And of course everybody was staring at me.

My biggest gripe was with the Buick's ride. Sure, the suspension's dropped (and shot), but the tackytastic, uber-low profile tires on massive donks make potholes feel like severe fender benders. I hit two patches of nastiness in a row and was certain I'd been rear-ended. But here's the good news. As soon as this baby hits continental Europe, my Czech benefactor will be ditching the ugly wheels and installing a disk brake kit.

Despite my rep as TTAC's resident treehugger cum racer (go figure), the LeSabre is my kind of car: a machine with genuine American style. Too bad our Ameri-Pesos are only worth seven swizzle sticks, ‘cause this baby's a keeper.

“You’re free to go.” With those hackneyed words, the Goldendale police officer returned my license. They were the very same words I’d heard in my head just a few hours earlier. At one-thirty last Sunday, my older son Ted called: “If you can drop Will [(his brother) here by three, we can take him back with us to Portland for a few days.” Cabin fever was at 103. The ninety minute deadline to pick a destination and pack the xB was just the tonic I needed. Time to head for… (flings open the atlas)… Wenatchee!

That’s literally how long it took to pick the apple capital of Central Washington as the fruit of our road-trip desire. It’s a sparsely populated town in the high desert, with lots of canyons and two-lane highways leading to its unknown charms. Will groaned. “Why don’t you guys go somewhere cool, like Las Vegas?” Let me count the ways…

I guess we’re just kinda’ anti-social; I don’t know how else to explain it (especially to a sixteen year-old). But I find the idea of spending days inside windowless spaces packed with thousands of other folks completely unappealing.

I suppose I could only fall back on that other hackneyed expression “it’s not about the destination; it’s the journey.” If you’ve ever been to Wenatchee, you know that old chestnut still has meaning. But I’m getting ahead of myself here…

Anyway, Wenatchee was just a convenient point on the map some four hundred miles away. That is, if I had stayed on the main roads, which I rarely do. Sharing a road with other drivers is about as enjoyable to me as a shoulder-to-shoulder cocktail party at a dentists’ convention. Driving is strictly a recreational sport for me. It’s why I live in a small city, walk, ride a bike and don’t get on the freeway for weeks on end. I’m spoiled for deserted roads.

The trip started with country roads. I quickly fell into that preferred meditative state of restful alertness.

We took I-84 through the Columbia River Gorge. It’s one of the rare exceptions in the interstate system: it doesn’t detour away from the real scenery. One spectacular waterfall after another spills down the brooding, snow-tinged black basalt ridge overlooking the river. The xB’s popemobile picture windows offered unobstructed viewing pleasure.

By Hood River, I was ready for the solitude of the Washington side. As we crossed the vast waterway on an antique iron bridge, the flying toaster darted side-to-side on the narrow steel grating like a rabid squirrel. Was this some time-tested device to keep the drunks from crossing the state line? I was too busy trying to stay on my half of the empty bridge at fifty to notice the 25mph signs until we were almost across.

I sort-of passed this first sobriety test, but flunked the next, when I turned unto Hwy 141 instead of 142. Rather than shortcutting across open country towards Yakima, we now plunged headlong into the rapidly darkening wooded wilderness of Mt. Adams. I finally admitted the error of our— OK, my way some twenty miles later. But I really, really hate to retrace my steps.

Sure enough, the map showed an unmarked thread of a road arcing towards our intended general direction.

An hour passed. We hadn’t encountered another car. The narrow blacktop dove down into one deep twisty narrow canyon after another, coming up for air (the road and me too) to shoot across a high plateau, until the next canyon… and so on. Working the xB’s sharp steering, lusty little engine and tightly-spaced gears, an unformed memory from the distant past kept fluttering across my mind, like the owls in the headlights. Suddenly it took shape: an Alfa Gulia sedan from the late sixties.

The boxy and airy body with tall vertical windows, the bus-like rake to the tiller, the rasp in the exhaust, the firm and bouncy ride, the touch of torque steer… the brave little Toyota linked me to the Alfa. O.K, I have a healthy imagination. Anyway, on these remote back roads at night, I was happy enough that my steed originated in Toyota City rather than Milano.

After an hour of night-time Targa Florio driving (without a navigator to call out the distances to the next curve), I wasn’t totally sorry to approach the hamlet of Goldendale (pop. 3760). I coasted down to the general vicinity of the 25mph limit, and rolled half-way through the sleeping town. Again, we never encountered another soul.

Suddenly, flashing lights appeared out of nowhere in my mirror. What the…! Did someone see me hit triple-digits back on the last straight and call it in?

“Good evening sir. Do you know why I stopped you?”

Yes, yes. I was speeding. But deep inside, I hadn’t a clue. 

For some people, climbing into a car, starting it on the first try and driving off with reasonable confidence in actually arriving somewhere is as sacrilegious as getting communion wafers out of a vending machine. These zealots (let’s call them Tinkerers) regard motoring as a religious experience filled with arcane ritual, unfathomable mystery and fervent prayer (or at least frequent blasphemy). To members of The Church of The British Sports Car, there are few better altars than the MGB upon which to sacrifice one’s time and money. But perhaps MGB ownership is not so much automotive-hair-shirt-wearing as it is Guy Fawkes emulation: brilliant plan, ‘orrible execution.

The MGB arrived in 1962 with lightweight unibody construction propelled by literally dozens of horsepowers. It did zero to sixty miles per hour in roughly eleven seconds. It could pull a respectable 9/10ths-of-a-G on the skid pad. And the MGB would hit a top speed of 100mph “without fuss” (early evidence of journalistic pandering).

The MGB’s ever-so-British styling was simple and appealing: long hood, short deck, two seats and a drop-top; keep ‘er low to the ground and add lashings of chrome. Compared to the lead-bottomed behemoths of the time, the ‘B was a frothy delight. My Dad bought a used one. He cheated death when a gravel truck ran a red light and smacked the MGB.

Our bent MGB spent several decades in a bramble-covered barn on a corner of a neighbor’s property while several generations of rodents ate the upholstery. (Marinating a car in a medley of rust, dust and time is an important step in creating a classic/relic.) Dad would periodically check in to see how things were getting on. There was much standing around with arms folded and grand plans that never materialized. It wasn’t until the neighbor decided to knock down the barn that my father was forced to come and shift the corpse.

While the MGB was hauled off to the rack for some chiropractic frame-straightening, Dad cleaned out the garage and tried to find all the errant components of his socket set. I soon learned that automobile restoration is not so much a project with a definite ending point as it is an ongoing process, like self-improvement or, more accurately, continental drift. What other possible reason could there have been for investing several days in painting each engine component a different colour of rust-proof Tremclad?

I seemed to be primarily involved in shining the trouble light on what was, invariably, the wrong bolt. And yet what an education I was receiving! Not in the inner workings of the combustion engine, nor the basics of tool use; I learned the language of automotive repair.

Being of Irish extraction, my father was blessed with the knack for inventive cursing. My young ears soaked-up his best material. To this day, I find no salve as soothing to a crushed fingernail as the ability to earn oneself a few extra years in purgatory with an ingenious epithet.

As the years passed, and perhaps despite my father’s best efforts, the MGB drew nearer completion. And then that fateful day arrived. There was nothing left to do except fire it up. Which couldn’t be done.

“Aha!” cried Dad with barely-disguised glee, “The carburetors must need adjustment.”

Out came the wrenches. There was some last-minute choke-cable difficulty. And then the indignant spluttering gave way to a muffled roar. And that was just Dad. Still, when the bluish smoke had cleared, there she stood: a gleaming, candy-apple red Lazarus, purring as she would have done brand-new in 1967. Then she stalled.

Eventually we got her running rather lumpily. After several test-circuits, my father decided to reward all my hours of semi-incompetent grease-monkey-ism by letting me get a feel for late ‘60s motoring, UK-style.

Grasping the yacht-sized, somewhat floppy Bakelite wheel, I felt a twinge of unease. I soon discovered that the brakes favoured the Neville Chamberlain approach to forward velocity: they preferred appeasement over action. To avoid becoming a tree-ornament, constant forward planning was required. Still, with the wind in my hair, careening around a blind bend with the narrow tires squealing, I couldn’t help feeling alive; perhaps even going so far as to shout, “I don’t want to die!”

The MGB sleeps in a shed (where else?) waiting for the sunny morning when Dad will begin the pre-flight preparations necessary for taking an autumn blast through the leaves. Wherever he parks it, it will mark its territory with scattered oil patches, like an elderly and incontinent dog.

Should it unexpectedly rain, Dad will find its convertible roof as pointlessly complicated and time-consuming to assemble as the Millennium dome. My mother will need to have the phone nearby if/when an emergency SOS comes through. As for me, I’m off down the pub. On the bus.

When we last left our hero, I was dodging post-wine tasting Buicks and Caddys in a hair-brained sprint to Los Angeles before the sun went down. My steed was a sparkle-blue 1981 Corvette with non-functioning headlights. Until this point, I’d been lollygagging along in the right lane. I assumed that the ‘Vette’s engine would crap-out on me if I gave it the boot. But the fear of getting caught with no lights– and then watching the DEA strip the car to the frame– forced my foot to the firewall.

Chevy small blocks are amazing. Yes, this C3 left the factory with just 190 horses. But the mini mill stumped-up 280 ft-lbs. of torque at 1600 rpm. Sadly, I can't tell you how much of a toll the intervening 27 years exacted on the Corvette’s performance– or how fast I was going. Not because the Nixonian speedometer tops out at 85 mph. Because it wasn't working. Regardless, y'all would have loved the burble.

Amazingly, the Corvette was behaving flawlessly. The engine was strong. Sure, you can get more handling from a photograph of a Miata. But around the gentle twists of Paso Robles, the car was aces. Braking? Not so much. And when you hit 'em the car shot left and then right. But I didn’t need any stinking brakes. I had no intention of stopping.

Suddenly, just north of Santa Barbara the right headlamp popped up. As fate would have it, I had left the lights on. You could almost hear the opening bars from Flight of the Valkyrie. "Come on, come on you little shit," I started screaming at the left lamp. "Pop!" Fifteen long, gut-twisting seconds later it did. Sure, I could have got more illumination sitting on the hood and holding a Zippo, but the lights were up! I was going to make it.

If you've never been through Santa Barbara, there are two things you need to know. 1) Eat at Taqueria Super Rica 2) Don't speed.

I've received six speeding tickets in my life. Three were in Santa Barbara. Case in point: as soon as I passed the sign welcoming me to Goleta (once again travelling at sane speeds) I saw a CHP officer climbing back on his hog and a blue BMW taking off from the shoulder. Then I saw a Highway Patrol car. Then another. I would have been toast. Or tased.

Now that I was back to cruising, I had some neurons to spare to contemplate the C3. What a brilliant little car. How did it know to pop those lights then and there? And maybe those neurons were cooked a little, but I realized what was going on. The Corvette knew.

This was it: the poor thing's swan song. It's death rattle. The last chance the tri-decade dog would have to be flogged California style. Sure, they have roads in Euroland. But 'Vettes — especially C3s – were built for the Golden State. Somehow, like a race horse about to be put out to stud, the Corvette knew. This was its victory lap.

Respect. I like how the Sting Ray makes you feel dangerous. And sleazy. It's akin to driving a van with a waterbed in back. You're a bad element; daughters' mothers know it. I can't even tell you how many times I looked in my rearview and caught a wife in the passenger seat checking me and my 'Vette out. Seriously, they couldn't take their eyes off the long, sleek, blue-speckled phallus.

I stopped at the beach to snap some photos and got mobbed by surfers. I've never heard "Dude!" so many times in my life.

I didn't dare turn the engine off, for fear of losing the headlights, but looking at the C3 nestled next to the Pacific Ocean, the zeitgeist of this machine became clear. It's the 70s, man. Sex couldn't kill you. Cocaine couldn't kill you. Rock and roll would never die, but you could get more coke and sex at the disco. The world has since moved on, but this Corvette? Still super awesome.

Before I got home, I stopped off for some tacos. The locals loved the 'Vette. "Dude, that is a beautiful car." Indeed, it is. The C3’s lines are timeless, as aesthetically spot on as anything from Italy or Britain from the 70s. And light years ahead of Japan and Germany.

In fact, I'm sorry my time with this C3 was so short. The seats are comfortable, the engine can get out of its own way and the looks– to paraphrase Vince Neil– can kill. With just a little TLC I could see owning this 'Vette big time. The C3’s currently parked in an undisclosed location, awaiting the Czech's further instructions. I bet I could make Mexico in a matter of hours.

[Read Pt. 1 of 440 Miles by clicking here.] 

By most accounts, I’m a good citizen. I work, I pay taxes, I keep my crimes to myself and I call my mother at least once a week. But I have a wild side. Like a vintage race, this part of my personality just begs to be taken out and let loose from time to time. I’m not going to tell you what I spent my first Bush tax rebate on. But I will tell you that when the $600 arrives in June, I will be at a $10/$20 No Limit table. So, when I was contacted by a guy in Prague to transport a 1981 Corvette from Oakland to a container ship in Los Angeles, I jumped at the chance. How could I lose?

It gets worse: The purchaser– whom we’ll call “Bob”– was actually a middle man for another Czech guy. The plan: wire transfer me the money for the merchandise, a one-way plane ticket and a small fee. You haven’t lived until you’re emailed your bank account info to a former communist country. I telephoned the seller to ask if he wanted a money order or a cashier’s check for the ‘Vette. “Cash,” was his not entirely unpredictable answer.

As I was unsure of the feasibility of a big cash withdrawal on a Saturday, I boarded a flight in Burbank with fifty-five $100 bills burning a worry-hole in my pocket.

Aside from a horrific speckled blue paint job, the Vette’s exterior looked ship shape. The interior was in remarkably good condition, too, with just the usual litany of malaise era Detroit bugaboos — shot HVAC, busted electric seats and a sun cracked dash. After handing over the bankroll, the seller fired her up.

As I headed out on the 880 towards the 101, a Led Zeppelin rock block started. Talk about apropos. “Hey hey mama said the way you move, going make you sweat, gonna make you groove!” Man, I was loving this. And felt just like a Jersey pot dealer. Hey, for all I knew, the gas tank was half-filled with smack.

By the time the last few chords of California ended, I was miserable. The turn signal lever had come off in my hand. There was no way to stop the hot air coming out of the vents, which meant I had to keep the windows down. On the freeway. The clutch literally has 14 inches of travel, and someone in the Czech Republic will be rebuilding a Chevy tranny sooner than later. Did I mention that the shocks are completely blown, and that the T-Tops sound as if they’re about to crack over every single road imperfection? Anyway…

My plan was to do the deed during daylight hours on a Saturday. I opted to take the slower, longer and more congested 101 because I’d be better off if the Corvette broke down. I also wanted to stop along the way and take some pretty pictures of the car along the coast, in a vineyard and maybe even parked in a mustard field.

Besides, the wind was a lot less annoying at 65 mph than at 80 mph. Also, why push it? The poor thing’s nearly as old as I am. All of that changed when I got to the Madonna Inn.

Figuring the garishness of the Corvette could only be matched by the surreal boorishness of the Inn, I stopped to snap some photos. And since C3s look so cool with their headlights up, I figured I’d pop ‘em. Only they wouldn’t pop. It was 3:00 pm, the day before daylight savings kicks in. I had 200 miles to go, and the last 30 of those were through Saturday night LA Traffic. I was now racing the sun.

Murliee Martin had been nice enough to check the Corvette out a few weeks before I showed up, so I called him. “There’s no headlights!” I shouted. “OK,” he replied. “You need to build up vacuum pressure. Take it up to 95 mph, shift into second, and let the engine haul you down to 40 mph.”

I’ve heard a lot of bad noises come out of cars in my day, but nothing quite like this. Imagine whacking a dozen circular saw blades with a crowbar. You get the idea, kinda.

I called Murilee back. “Nothing!” I screamed. “It’s probably a fuse,” he said. “You don’t have taillights either.”

So let’s recap: At this point I’m flying through wine country traffic without turn signals, headlights or taillights in a nearly 30-year-old example of the UAW’s finest work that’s titled to some guy in central Europe. And the gas tank’s (probably) stuffed with heroin. Yeah, this was big and dumb.

[Read 400 Miles Part 2 by clicking here . ] 

For me, driving bliss is all about the setting. Give me an empty road, spectacular scenery, good company and the freedom to explore without an itinerary or time constraints, and I’m in Heaven. Sure, a nice set of wheels enhances the pleasure. But if it came down to it, I’d take an inexpensive reliable car and an endless open road over a garage full of under-used toys that never really get off their leash. I knew the basic formula intuitively in my youth.

As previously chronicled, I rambled around the eastern side of the Continental Divide for years in my (free) Corvair and (cheap) VW Beetles. At twenty-two, I almost lost it. Driving a transit bus in Iowa paid a living wage, and I was sorely tempted to follow my cohorts to the car dealers and sign my freedom away. Luckily, I instinctively knew that I needed a different role model. And I found it: my girlfriend’s mother.

After her divorce, Elinor sold the farm, the thoroughbreds and the big ’69 Plymouth Fury that pulled the horse trailer. The former Studebaker dealer– who’d started selling Toyotas out of desperation– had just what she was looking for. It was a Corolla 1600 sedan.

Elinor and the little Toyota hit the road. The wide-open spaces of the southwest beckoned them, and they rambled through the deserts and canyons, eventually settling in San Diego.

When she was ready to reclaim her furniture, we offered to recover it for her in a U-haul truck. And when she rolled-out the welcome mat, I quit my job and made it a one-way trip. Although the San Diego area was gorgeous, too many others were having the same idea. It turned out to be a temporary idyll…

One day, out of the blue, Elinor said, “Let’s go for a drive up north”. Near the end of what was supposed to be a day trip to Redlands, she said “let’s keep going, to Death Valley.”

It was hundreds of miles away, and we hadn’t even brought toothbrushes. But why not? And there, on that impulsive drive to Death Valley, in the early evening twilight somewhere north of Shoshone, I found nirvana.

California Highway 127 runs straight as a draftsman’s line for twenty, thirty or more miles at a time, in the broad desert valley between the hulking backbones of the Greenwater and Nopah Ranges. The ribbon of road was utterly deserted on this weekday evening in October.

As we rolled northwards alone on the high seas of the Mojave, the usual cues to gauge time– distance and speed– began to melt away. We sat gazing, mesmerized by the Technicolor sunset unfolding all around us; the naked mountains turning obscene shades of scarlet, ruby and purple.

Imperceptibly, the little Toyota’s speed increased: eighty, eighty-five, ninety and still it crept up. Somewhere north of ninety-five, the Corolla entered warp speed; simultaneously, we were hurtling down the road and yet not moving at all. Everything associated with driving a car was now transcended, and the Corolla became a space probe, guided by the stars that appeared with surreal intensity through the last fading purple glow.

Who knows how long did we floated, all thoughts utterly suspended, until a curve finally brought me back to the reality at hand?

And when conscious thinking resumed (a sudden curve at high speed in a Corolla will do that), my only thoughts were this: I will never live more than a few hours away from the deserts, mountains and canyons of the West. I will always heed the call of the road. And I will always keep a toothbrush, toothpaste, and a change of underwear in the trunk.

For the next couple of days, we roamed through Death Valley, and then headed west. And where Highway 190 crests the Panamint Range, one of the all-time mind-blowing views suddenly appears: the whole Sierra Nevada range, rising like a wall 10,000 feet straight up from the floor of Owens Valley. You’d be hard pressed to find the equal of it in the Himalayas.

I’ve made good on my promise. Even when we had kids, a demanding job and a shiny Mercedes, more than once, a day trip turned into two or three (“I won’t be coming in the office today”). The stash of diapers and dirty underwear I found in the 300E’s spare tire compartment as I was cleaning it out for the last time was the smelly proof, and brought back a flood of memories.

And when the paycheck suddenly ended, I never considered the job offers from Dallas and Chicago. I just moved on to the next level of driving nirvana: Oregon. These days, I’m driving a Corolla in disguise. And I’m still ready to answer the call of the open road. 

Forty years ago, Toyota’s invasion of America (and effectively, the world) began in earnest. In 1968, the newly-minted Corolla was sent stateside to do battle with the perennially best selling VW Beetle. Only two short years later, the Corolla was the second-best selling car globally. By 1975, Toyota surpassed Volkswagen as the top import brand. The Corolla has taken all the global production crowns (1.5 million sold in 2007; over 33 million total). It has been the engine powering Toyota’s rise to the world’s largest carmaker. Has the Corolla achieved immortality, or will it eventually lose its way like its spiritual predecessors, the Model T and VW Beetle?

Toyota’s “little crown” started out a bit under-armed to take on the world. More suitable for the crowded and slow streets of Japan, the first Corolla was tiny, narrow, lightweight (1637lbs), underpowered (60hp) and notoriously under-braked. But its $1660 sticker ($10k inflation adjusted) went a long way to compensate for any limitations.

Toyota’s ambitions were limitless, though. Tatsuo Hasegawa, Corolla’s chief engineer, expressed his lofty (and prophetic) goal: to build “a Corolla for the welfare and happiness around the world.” It’s certainly done wonders for the welfare and happiness of Toyota’s shareholders.

The Corolla was launched with a defining statement: “that quality, reliability and durability could be affordable.” That the statement is as true today as it was then can be credited to Toyota’s never-wavering focus. It is the key to the greatest automotive success story ever.

That defining statement would certainly be applicable to the previous global production record holders, the Model T (16.5 million) and the Beetle (21.5 million).

Yes, well, Henry Ford permanently destroyed his company’s market dominance by refusing to change his beloved T for twenty years. And VW experienced a deep crisis as a result of ten years of dithering about the Beetle’s replacement after its thirty year run. But Toyota committed itself to a rigorous self-renewal program with the Corolla, spitting out a substantially refreshed model every four or five years (ominously stretched to six for the latest U.S. generation).

The Gen2 Corolla (1971-1974) was the breakthrough success. It grew just enough to accommodate four adults in comfort (as it was defined then). In 1971, Car and Driver praised the Corolla for “its spacious and attractive interior, good overall quality and economy” as well as being “fun to drive… as it feels more like a sports car than the others.”

Given Toyota’s unwavering focus, if “fun to drive” had been part of the Corolla’s initial defining statement, we might still be grinning behind the wheel today. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves, because the Corolla was just hinting at fun when C/D tested that 73hp 1200cc four-speed sedan.

In 1971, Toyota introduced the legendary 2T-C engine, a 1600cc hemi-head that spit out 102hp. In the lightweight Corolla (1800lbs), it represented the best dollar/horsepower/weight/fun equation in the land. And when the five-speed SR5 coupe arrived (hand-in-hand with the 1973 energy crisis), the formula overwhelmed Detroit.

Confronted with bloated, emasculated, fuel-gulping 4,000lb “intermediate” coupes with opera-windowed padded tops and fake wire-wheel hubcaps, buyers voted with their feet and Toyota sales exploded. The Corolla SR-5 was the perfect antidote to seventies malaise.

Gen3 and Gen4 Corollas refined and consolidated the rear wheel-drive (RWD) era up until 1984. The Corolla’s durability became legendary; outside of the rust-belt, they’re still a common sight on the streets, earning their keep. But sportiness increasingly took a back seat, especially with the switch to front wheel-drive with the 1985 models.

The exceptional gifted exception to FWD dullness was the AE86 RWD GT-S coupe, with 124hp. It was the last of the old narrow, light RWD formula. Pistonheads still seek it today for its drifting potential.

U.S.-bound Corollas since 1985 have stayed true to the original concept, except that ride quality increasingly displaced any lingering hint of sportiness. But as the Corolla increasingly became a global commodity, it had to adapt, especially in Europe.

To compete against the class-leading Golf, the European Corolla took on Germanic attributes. (The current version has even dropped the Corolla moniker for Auris.) Its angular Golf-esque hatchback body doesn’t share a single panel with U.S. Corollas, and sports Toyota’s advanced diesel engines and a sophisticated multi-link rear suspension. It’s the equivalent of the euro Focus to our notoriously white-bread version.

The Auris clearly represents one point of departure from the old formula. The automobile market is becoming ever more stratified, in America. The Corolla-based Matrix is a reflection of the trend; Scion also provides in-house competition.

Undoubtedly, the Corolla formula still has legs, here and abroad. But the MINI’s effect on the small car market may turn out to be game-changing, where style and image trump dowdy practicality. The Corolla took the world by storm, but fashion is a fickle creature. Toyota’s fight for dominance must move in a different direction.

The Buick Roadmaster Estate Wagon was God's gift to Perry Como fans, the last of the great all-American trucksters. It was also my gift to the family for last year's Christmas road trip. I figured I’d nix my penchant for narrow European wagons to forestall the cantankerous habits of our two darling creatures. They needed space. We needed space… and boy, did this car have space!

The plan was to put my kids in the third seat, which was nearly a mile away from the Roadmaster’s front seats. Of course, I’d forgotten one important detail: no child tethers in the way back. So, there was to be no parole for Mom and Dad. On the positive side, by the time we were ready to take the Woody out of port, my wife had taken one look across her endless prow (the car’s) and decided that I would be the sole captain of the good ship Roadmaster. 

Back in the day, the Roadmaster was an automotive mastodon. When the big Buick appeared in the late 90’s, large, bulbous, body-on-frame rear, wheel-drive wagons were about as fashionable as plaid pants and pipe tobacco. SUV's, minivans and four-door pickups were all vying for the title of the all-American family vehicle. The Buick and its sister cars gathered dust in GM showrooms, lonely and unloved. Not even an LT1 small block V8 (transplanted from the Chevy Corvette) could save these siblings from instant obscurity. By 1997, the Roadmaster had gone the way of peckerwood golf clubs. It was, literally, history.

But what a piece of history. If ever a car represented the great American “living room on wheels” style, it was the Roadmaster. Its leather seats are thick and comfortable enough to turn the most aggressive pistonhead into a laid back Lay-Z-Boy. It came with electric everything, of course. The wood trim is made from a real tree, and the controls make iDrive seem like what it is (a ridiculously complex piece of equipment of dubious utility). You won't find steering wheel buttons, and the GPS is a Rand-McNally map moldering in the glove box, but didn’t someone say “space is the ultimate luxury?” Or was it something about screaming?  

Anyway, the Roadmaster’s a packrat’s dream. Big or small, short or tall, there's plenty of space for it. The Buick’s rear glass window (close to the size of a solarium) slides up and down and the tailgate swings out or lowers. The fold down second row seats liberates a good hectare of cargo space. In fact, there's more space in the back of a Roadmaster than entire small cars of its era. If the roof were high enough, a Geo Metro would fit inside.

When it comes to driving dynamics, the Roadmaster was built for drivers who understand both the metaphorical and literal meaning of staying on the straight and narrow. The 350 V8 and four-speed automatic will cruise all day at 85 to 90 mph, and never even see 2500 rpm.

Finally there's the issue of exterior aesthetics. Contrary to what the modern day sewing circles and soccer contingents say, a woody wagon is indeed a beautiful thing to behold. Forget all those anodyne crossovers, minivans, SUVs and CUVs. The Roadmaster is American. And not just a 'me-too' American. A feel good, "I dig all things America!" American.

Maybe that’s why people smile at the Roadmaster, give it a thumbs up, and even mouth out the loving words (with and without irony) “Nice Woody!” A well-kept woody wagon is the equivalent of a well-lighted Christmas display during the holiday season. My kids fell in love with all the attention they got from the passer-by's, which helped keep things on even keel during our sojourn. While my wife used the words "cold dead hands" when I asked if she would ever be willing to exchange her Volvo for the Buick, it’s not an inconceivable choice.

IF you're willing to do without an LT1 engine, Buick Roadmaster wagons are reasonably priced. Taxis and police cars from that era were blessed with interchangeable parts; there were literally millions of parts for this powertrain combination, and they were all built to last. A car like the Roadmaster would in fact be the perfect cheap car for the long haul– if only you lived near an oil well.

Most owners of modern day trucks and trucklets won't be fazed by the Roadmaster's penchant for petrol. Still, as a daily commuter over long distances, as a vehicle that you have to, at some point park, the big Buick is all kinds of wrong. A Woody Roadmaster wagon is best for road trips, Home Depot runs and weekend rides with the family. It will give you a hankering for old cassette tapes and Norman Rockwell paintings. It's Americana incarnate.

What eye-candy poster was pinned up on your bedroom wall when you were thirteen? A black Lamborghini Countach sprouting numerous spoilers? Farah Fawcett-Majors with blindingly-white teeth? Metallica? KISS? What I gazed lovingly upon– whilst sprawled across my bed– was a giant detailed cross-sectional drawing of a Chrysler hemi engine. Thus was the spell that the mythical engine had on me.

I spent days painstakingly making the icon myself, recreating an image from a library book unto the large poster board with nothing more than a ruler, pencil and magic marker. It was my masterpiece, my Mona Lisa. I had finally and fully unveiled the mystery beneath those giant valve covers. The hemispherical combustion chambers, complex valve train and gracefully curving ports were revealed in graphic detail, as explicitly on display as Miss April in the Playboy centerfold under my mattress.

In earlier years, I would peer endlessly into any open engine compartment. Although largely ignorant of the actual thermodynamic differences, I had intuited a distinct pecking order for the distinctive cylinder head configurations: flathead, conventional overhead valve (OHV) and hemi-head. Flatheads spoke old-school; big rectangular lumps of cast iron, almost lost in the depths of the deep engine compartments of the times. And once having seen that slab of a flathead cylinder head removed, the torturous path afforded the intake and exhaust gases was obviously inferior.

The usual OHV configuration– with valves lined up side-by-side under their narrow valve covers– spoke of modernity, efficiency and the ability to make decent power in Detroit’s postwar generation of V8s. But one glance at those huge wide valve covers perched on Chrysler’s FirePower hemi V8 inspired awe. I instantly knew that it was designed for one thing, and one thing only: power.

With valves canted some 60 degrees, they could be bigger. Intake and exhaust ports were both a straight shot into their respective manifolds, dramatically improving breathing. I knew Chrysler hadn’t invented the hemi. The 1912 Peugeot grand prix engine had them (as well as DOHC and four valves per cylinder). Hemis were common in Europe, and used on the Miller/Offenhauser racing engines. But Chrysler was the first to adapt them to the sedate, slow-revving Yank tank engine bays.

Starting with a mild 180hp in 1951, Chrysler quickly began to develop the hemi’s potential, and soon dominated the horsepower war of the fifties. The crowning glory was the 1955 Chrysler 300, the first production vehicle to sport the eponymous amount of horsepower. It would top 130mph straight off the showroom floor. The 1957 300C’s 390hp represented a doubling of power in just six years– and then some. It was a milestone. An instant classic.

Hot rodders knew a winner when they saw it. The hemi quickly became the ticket on the drag strip. With a giant blower forcing a nitro mixture into massaged hemi heads, thousands of horsepower could be extracted. That seemed miraculous to me, given that our elderly neighbor’s 1956 Windsor generated all of 225p. No wonder I stared reverently as he burbled down the street at 20mph; I knew the awesome potential that was waiting to be unleashed under that long hood.

Unfortunately, the hemi’s capabilities carried a penalty. The complicated engine was expensive to build, and heavy. By 1958, Chrysler pulled the plug.  The company developed a completely new hemi– the 426 — for NASCAR racing in 1964. It was never intended as a production engine; Chrysler was forced to adapt it for civilian use when NASCAR threatened to ban it otherwise. The hemi was reincarnated, in even more mythical form.

Although 426 hemis terrorized the stock car circuits and drag strips, they were not exactly common on the street. But thanks to my first job at fifteen, pumping extra-high-octane Sunoco 260 gas, I had regular close encounters of the hemi kind with a Plymouth GTX.

I couldn’t wait to pop the hood to gaze reverentially on that huge orange and crackle-black icon. As an ex-altar boy, my instinct was to genuflect, especially when that heady incense of hot oil and crankcase vapors hit my nostrils. I felt privileged to check its vital fluids, and eventually, screwed up the courage to ask if I could check the air filter. The owner obliged, even though he knew it was just a ruse to see the two enormous four-barrel Carter carburetors in their naked splendor.

Tempus fugit. Those days of heady hemi horsepower are long gone. You know it’s a different age when Chrysler files a trademark on the hemi name– boldly emblazoning it on cars and trucks with oversized HEMI badges– even though the engine powering them isn’t really a hemi (it’s more accurately a “pent-roof”). It’s no wonder the wonder’s gone, genuine hemis are notoriously “dirty” but it’s sad nonetheless. That thing got a hemi? Not really, no.