Darla wants the 'Vette. It is low slung, sleek and black with matching numbers. A gray-bearded country crooner once owned it - she has heard rumors that he used to drive it naked down Sunset, its cockpit spilling over with the immense talent that L.A. has to offer. But more importantly to Darla, it matches her Otter purse and Dammit Jim (her husband's full name, apparently) she wants this 'Vette!
But want means nothing in the cave of desire, and Darla is but one of many lustful suitors. To win the chance to park this bad mama in her hanger, Darla is going to have to dip into the Trust. The call goes out. The auction barker prattles on with a machine gun staccato framed elegantly with the requisite English wit and sensibility while Darla scrambles her accountants to intercept the 1967 L88 Stingray. This one is going to cost a cool mil, if this is her lucky day.
The speculators keep driving up the prices to new levels, and Darla keeps getting outbid by translucent white (clear?) men who wear egg-colored sweaters tied around their necks and gold rimmed bifocals on their sculpted noses. I watch, fascinated by the roar of a hotly contested auction, but slightly terrified by the very distinct possibility that with one unguarded moment, my own arm might jam upwards while leading an unplanned revolt - an unreasonable coup against sanity and fiscal solvency. The children of my children's children quiver in their future cribs.
To mitigate this possibility, I have anchored my arms down with two drinks, a formerly American beer (rhymes with Belguimese carpet bagging national identity thieves) and a whiskey back. In recognition of the scope of this potential problem early on, I had made my waitress swear that she would not let me finish a cocktail without reloading another stone into my catapults. So far so good. With a total of $7.07 in the bank and an empty tank to get home on, I am in no shape to buy a luxury sports car, or even a commemorative T-shirt.
The Russo and Steele automobile auction thunders away deep in the bowels of the Monterey Marriot ballroom. The ceiling is low and the ventilation is non-existent, and all around the upper-upper-class crowd (even the auto journalists, it would seem) the sweet breath of carbon monoxide whispers muted hints of a quiet death. As a professional AV man, I am on a scouting mission. The hotel that I work for is a rival, and my mission is to scope out the swaging, the lighting, the tangles of steel truss that hoist wide screen monitors. But as I enter the heavily guarded ballroom and hear a perfectly preserved 1969 Hemi Cuda fire up its loping big block, that mission gets shelved. Call it a CDD. Corby Deficit Disorder. Few things burn up my task list like a room full of classic muscle cars.
The foggy night has spit me out of its slow dim calm, into a bathhouse scene of chrome and steel, flashing leather and gold. The room throbs. The crowd surges ahead to each vehicle as it thunders out onto the viewing area, their silver hair glinting like sea foam caressing pearl-laden oysters.
Unusually mindful of the flippancy of my upper appendages, I saddle up next to a middle-aged white man who has become engaged, firmly locked in with an auction runner. The runner waves his arms towards the podiums where the barkers spew a stream of conscious patter. The runner jukes and jives, his rear arm raised and his fore arm extended toward the gentlemen's next tome like a football referee who is targeting an offending sinner.
"75, 75, I've got 75, now 80. THIS CAR WILL SELL! The reserve is off! 81 81 81 81 81 82, 82 82 83..." And on and on - a production that is accentuated by roving commentators who man wireless mics and chime in call and response style at selected moments like excitable boy band members. The bidding goes up, the numbers climbing higher on the high-definition monitors, which are fed by a laptop that a bored looking showgirl, complete with sequined prom dress, taps away at with impossibly long nails. My back itches at the sight, but my attention snaps back to the fevered pitch before me.
At the precipice of $100,000, the bidder next to me takes on a worried hesitancy. The runner cajoles him, rubs his shoulders, sooths his worried mind with sweeping gestures towards the prize and sweet talk of quiet time at the wheel. But the bidder has reached his limit, and ignores the beauty before him as it clips the super premium mark.
"Why did you stop there? How did you know the limit?" I ask. He tells me that it is just a feeling that he had, then mutters something about the lighting being too dim to see the detail on the quarter panel trim.
"Was it the number? A hundred grand? Did it spook you?"
"No. No" he laughs. "No. That Cuda is worth $150,000, easy. I could have bought it right up to that price and more if I believed in it. But I don't. I don't know ... It just feels wrong. Like something isn't right."
The Cuda is fired up and maneuvers slowly off the stage, driven by a very lucky teenager. The Bat-mobile follows. It is one of the Michael Keato- era movie cars. The crowd tilts and buzzes.
My neighbor mouths an unlit cigar and cranes his neck to see over the gray tide. Ever curious about the one that got away, I press the question. "Will you buy a car this weekend?"
"Oh, yes," he chuckles. "Several."
"What do you really want? What do you need?" I ask.
He thinks. "Well, there is this item that I would like to find. It's rare, but there is one here. A '70 Chevelle LS-6. SS. Hell of a car. I had one when I was just out of the army. Fast bastard, the LS-6."
He trails off, lost in the memory of a vivid time. Now, years later, he can afford to recreate that feeling. I associate this look with a man who has unexpectedly seen his long-lost love, his original partner in sin. What would such a man pay to spend another night with her, tracing rich smoke tendrils deep into the darkened country roads? What would any man? Or woman.
I glance over at Darla. Her 'Vette went to a developer from Wyoming. Now she wants the Batmobile. You can see it in her exhausted eyes.
Corby Anderson writes Hang Time for the Aspen Daily News from a well-organized garage in Marina, Calif., where his first car, a bitchin' 1972 Chevelle Malibu, awaits an engine transplant.
