The CotW Gang Chronicles.
Chapter 1
"Harry. It's Mack," said the voice on the phone when I answered it.
It was Mack, the knife, my buddy from way back when we chased the same pussy* together.
"Hey, whaddya know now," I said. "Long time no see, buddy, what are you doing?"
"You wanna buy a new Spitfire?"
That's Mack - brutal charm, blunt humour, and to the point. And always an edge to him. He's not called the Knife for nothing.
"Dealing in warplanes now, Mack?" I laughed.
He had to be joking as usual.
Or maybe not. One never knew what twist and turns Mack could plunge you into.
He seemed to be gathering his thoughts. I wondered for a moment whether he had actually unboxed some Supermarines from a shady buddy of his and was looking to unload them. This is a guy who dines with princes one day and beggars the next. He knew people. He knew I could afford one.
"What are you doing next Tuesday eve - got any plans?"
"Not that I can't cancel if the world was ending," I said. "What do you have in mind?"
He must have forgotten about the Spitfire.
"You want a Triumph Spitfire, brand-spanking new, sonny, I can get you one," he said abruptly.
I sat up.
What? Triumph Spitfire? Triumph? As in the
car Spitfire?
"Jeebus!" I frowned. "What are you talking about? New?"
He knew I collected fine cars - he has seen my garage, and once even procured a fine, rare El Camino for me in pristine condition.
"Look, I can't talk much. I gotta run. Meet me at Brands Hatch, Tuesday eve."
"Blandshlatch__!" I spluttered trying to organise my tongue around my now thoroughly befuddled wits.
"Yeah. Friend of a friend of a friend of mine recovered a stash of brand new Spitfires from a former Triumph Manager who invested a lot in the cars. Not sure how many cars are there, but he bought a heap of 'em anyway. He's ready to sell now. He lives close to the track, and that's where he has stored these cars - they're '64 Spits. He's running them over in the haulers over to the track - so be there if you want."
"'74 Spits? Brand new?"
"Zero on the odo," he said. "Okay, cya."
"Jeez, Tuesday is tomorrow," I complain. "I'm not in the UK right now."
"Deal with it," he says. And rings off.
Typical Mack. Blunt and edgey at the same time.
I hit the button for my secretary. "Miss Hunnimunni," I said, hoping I didn't sound peevish. I like to sound carelessly powerful when I spoke to her. "I need to file a flight plan."
I was going to have to catch my private red-eye.
Something was on in London - pennants, barricades, hordes of people - and the place was crawling with some hot looking birds, too. Being single and in my forties, I notice these things.
"What's going on?" I asked James, my chauffeur, who had picked me up at the airfield.
"Races, guv'nor," he said, "It's them Tuesday races on. Local league."
We stopped at my flat for a quick cuppa and a few calls before setting off for the Hatch; I also wanted to take my '57 507 for a spin, so I decided to drive myself to the track. Before long I was at Junction 3 of the M25, and following the signposts. Cruising along in the 507 I wondered what Mack had in store at the track.
As I got out of the car at Brands, I noticed Mack at the entrance to the pits, with a bunch of people around him.
Now . . . I got crowdophobia.
Crowds make my skin crawl. I can take one, two, maybe three people at a time. Maybe I'm the unfriendly sort. I don't know.
I started off hesitantly towards the bunch of them. They watched me approach. They looked like attack dogs. I was hoping Mack would walk over, himself, to join me. He waved me over heartily, a gay blade. I could almost hear him call, "Get over here, wimp."
I had to join them.
Where were the cars, I wondered. I looked around but didn't see any haulers. I wanted to select, pay, arrange the shipping, and get the hell back to my cosy office in the sky, with Miss Hunnimunni to speak with about the odd thing to now and then - like 'Can you arrange to have fifty million simoleons deposited into my Swiss account, the secondary one, please, Miss Hunnimunni.' or "I would like some Gouda with the Beluga today, Miss Hunnimunni." - that sort of thing. I live a quiet life, officially.
Okay, I admit I've had a few adventures - but these were freak accidents in my life. Not the kind of thing I would plan to happen.
I suddenly realised there was something weird about the gang of people around him. My skin crawled. They definitely looked like attack dogs. They were all snarling at me, albeit silently, canines bared, eyes glinting ferociously.
I froze.
"Hi" I said, a bit weakly.
Mack introduced us: "Harry, meet the King, that's the Baron, over there's Bruno, the kid's Bill, this is Dr. Ryan . . . ."
"Oh!" I relaxed a bit, forgetting to listen to the names and looking at their faces. "I see."
I took a better look at them. They were smiling, not snarling. Other collectors, huh, I thought.
They looked a bit more human now that I had a better look at them. Kings? Barons? Well, I guessed, these would be the type of people in for deal like this - guys who could afford to shell out half a million for a brand new Spitfre right out of the seventies. This car was about as hip as a car could get. In fact it still is about as hip as a car can get.
I noticed absently, and then with a start, that a couple of these suddenly princely-looking guys were kitted out for the track.
"You guys are . . . uh, are you going to be racing?"
"Yup," said the King.
"Is the Pope Catholic?" Mack asked.
"Yeah, wanna race?" someone else asked.
WTF? I thought. I looked at Mack. "So what's happening here?" I demanded, hoping my raised eyebrows were conveying the necessary disdain.
"Guys are going to race some of those Spits," Mack answered. "Right off the hauler. Pump gas, check the oil, outta here. 5 laps. You pays your money you gets your fun."
"Are you kidding? These are brand new Spitfire 1500s!" I think my voice rose five octaves.
"Suck it up, Harry," said Mack. "In fact, you'll have, to." He turned to the rest. "Let's go boys."
He led me away from the pits, taking my arm and pulling me ahead of the royalty that trailed behind us.
"Look, there is a string attached to this," he began as we strolled towards the offices. I groaned. I should have known better than to trust Mack. I suddenly foresaw a spontaneous run across Europe. I couldn't do that anymore. Every moment I was away from my quiet, cosy little office I was losing a few millions here, a couple more there. Or rather - I was not so much losing as failing to gain.
"This guy is a bit of an eccentric," continued Mack as we approached the offices. "He stipulates that we must hold a race for him as part of the deal. A
real race. No sandbagging."
I stopped in my tracks. "
What?"
Bruno slammed into me, caught surprised by my sudden halt, and everybody behind him accordioned.
Mack tugged me on, and we unsorted ourselves.
"Listen, don't mess this up. Just shut up and do what he says. It took me months to arrange this. He's giving us the cars at the price it was going for at the time. In the sixties. We're getting brand-new cars at the sixties price."
I swung round to face him, shocked, and the gang behind slammed into us again. I thought I heard an Irish oath from somewhere in the rear.
But as we stumbled ahead, Mack could say no more because the door to the office we were approaching opened and a silver haired, sprightly-looking sprite in a suit, that must have cost a bit more than an arm and a leg, stood there grinning at us.
"Meet Lord March, boys, " said Mack expansively with a broad smile as he introduced us.
Turned out that the Lord was a petrol-head and did stuff like this. In any case the story was that he had invested in these cars through the former Triumph manager and stored them away. Now he wanted to stage a race with a bunch of them at Brands, the only requisite for competition being that we paid for the cars. No race, no deal.
This was a strange situation indeed. The others were already marching behind the Lord into the depths of the offices, and I followed suit.
Soon we were looking at the catalogs and picking out the colours we wanted. Lord March had the cars stored a few miles away, and would have them trucked down as soon as we made our selection.
Meanwhile, those of us who were not suited up were supposed to do so right away.
I asked if I could buy two Spits - there was no problem. Someone wanted to know if we could have any accessories, or quick mods fitted before the race. The Lord refused.
Mack sided with him: "If you can't drive stock, you can't drive tuned," he chided those of us who wanted it. "Now suck it up and deal with it."
Finally, seeing the disapointment on the faces of some of us, Lord march relented, and pulled out some other catalogs.
"I can fit you gentlemen with new wheels," he said. "And that's about all I want modified on these cars when you race them, gentlemen."
I couldn't believe all this. Buying new cars, and rare ones at that, and taking them out right away to trade paint.
Everything was a bit of a whirl after that. I managed to procure a track suit, and was suited and sweating in no time. When the haulers trundled in we were terribly excited of course, watching the cars being unloaded, taking possesion of the vehicle that we had selected, walking around it, starting it up - this car was really a hidden gem, a well-kept secret when it came to an in-your-face fun mobile.
I had ordered one in red - and was chagrined to see three other 'reds' unloaded. I wanted my car to stand out.
Mack had got a classic white, and so had Junior.
The guy from Ireland had ordered a bright yellow with even brighter green wheels; there would be no excuse for not seeing him on the track. His car definitely stood out. And Jack (Mack had hinted that he was former CIA) had selected a suspicious-looking blue.
Lord March had arranged for us to take a few practise spins before the race, and I set off in the Spitfire. I have to confess, that even being the owner of close to 500 cars, and having driven many more, I hadn't ever driven the Spitfire 1500. This was the bigger engine. The Spit was based upon the old Herald - the sports version of it, but the Spit had a personality of its own. This was the car you would throw an overnight bag in, take the top down, and go toodling around the countryside, preferably countryside liberally littered with cows, farmhouses, and hordes of likely places to picnic at. With suitable company of course.
Not that it wouldn't look good flying around the streets of London, either.
This car had a certain style, a certain understated class that only went with the most impeccable breeding.
There was no flamboyancy about the car - it said, 'I look classy, because I
am classy.' Small as it was, the curves and angles were iconic.
I realised soon enough that this car had huge potential. I suddenly saw the sense in what Mack was saying: If you don't know what the car
would do, then you can't potentialise what the car
could do.
A lap around the hatch, and I was actually looking forward to racing this thing. There was a certain amount of swing-ability to this car, a certain amount of eagerness to get up and go, that challenges one to push its limits.
This was a car that dared you to take your foot off the throttle. This was a WOT machine. You kept your foot down and swung the car in the direction you wanted it to go, never mind how fast you swung it, this car would follow like a puppy who had its leash jerked.
'Corner me,' it said. 'Don't lift.'
Finally we were ready to race. Lord March dropped the checkers and we were off - 5 laps at Brands Hatch in brand-new Spitfire 1500s. Full throttle.
It was great race.
There were battles all around the track.
I was amazed by the skill shown by the rest of the guys; these guys were obviously not just collectors they seemed to actually know how to command a good line at the track. It was a good race and Lord March was thrilled.
After the race we gathered, for drinks, in a clump at the pits to discuss what we felt and this young guy walks up to us and asks whether we would like to buy some pics. Then he pulls out a tablet and shows some of the pictures he had taken of us racing. In next to no time currency had changed hands and we were clutching flash-drives full of pics. He even provided the drives, and charged 20 quid for a hundred pics. That was a good deal - and I think he made a pile of cash, too. Another young entrepreneur on his way to becoming a millionaire, I guessed.
When we were arranging to ship the cars out, Mack suddenly gets off the phone he had been busy on and asks us whether we would like to join the races on in London. He had managed to buy some time from the organisers and so if we wished it . . .
There was a resounding 'Yes.' We kept our suits on.
I was going to have a lot to tell Miss Hunnimunni during lunch when I got back.
Here are some of the pics snapped by the young lad at the track:
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https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/threads/jenkins-the-gran-turismo-cat.240737/ )
