Surviving Is Priceless

I ENJOY AUTOMOBILES of every shape and form, but to me nothing beats driving a classic, being whisked back through time amid the shimmies of aging sheetmetal, the unfamiliar whir of a decades-old engine, and the aroma of sunbaked leather and unfiltered exhaust, all the while straining to pick up the echoes—the words and curses and happy whoops—of all those who’ve held this steering wheel long before I did.

In my three-plus decades in the auto-scribbling biz, I’ve been fortunate enough to drive some truly unforgettable machines: Clark Gable’s 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing, a 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 race car from the original Trans-Am series, the 1969 AstroVette once hurled around Cape Kennedy by Apollo 12 moonwalker Alan Bean, Old Red, the 1964 Meyers Manx dune-buggy prototype—plus so many others I’ll never remember them all.

One car, however, stands above all the rest. I drove it early in my career, in the late 1980s, so the awe factor was multiplied tenfold. But it also had the three elements that make an automobile seem priceless: It was exceptionally rare, of huge historical significance, and worth one helluva lot of money. Before I’d even seen the car in person, it had aged me by a couple of years. I was haunted by the thought of what might happen if I missed a shift or suddenly went crazy and aimed the thing at a brick wall.