Road & Track - Vol. 10, Night, 2022

everything after dark VOL. 10 N I G H T



Downshift to 2nd, flick steering wheel Gravity goes sideways Forget previously owned cars Praise inventor of asphalt Endorphins throw party Decide to name firstborn “86” Master the drive in the all-new GR86.





12 012 Guiding Light 038 Dark Speed Rather than stifling imagination, generic Le Mans racing legends on mastering the sealed-beam headlights set designers free. 200-mph Mulsanne straight at night. 016 What We Do in the Shadows 058 Night Crawlers The night is trying to kill you. Don’t believe If you thought off-roading was hard us? Take a good look at the numbers. enough, try it when the sun goes down. 018 Red-Orange Glow 070 Fast Times BMW solved nighttime driving with science. The mystery of Japan’s legendary outlaw Then we gave up safety for novelty. racing gang, Team Mid Night. 020 Safe Houses 078 Swarm of Bs Henry Ford’s insidious number two lived in Light pods, assemble! Kicking up mud a castle with hidden tunnels and tigers. with rallying’s most intoxicating formula. 024 The Original Strip 094 The Night Shift For nearly a century, the Sunset Strip has Hitting America’s roads with those who been the spot to see and be seen. work when the sun doesn’t shine. 026 The Origins of Underglow 112 The Physiology of Driving at Night As this Nineties lighting novelty returns, we It may seem mundane, but scientifically dig into underglow’s mysterious beginnings. speaking, it’s almost a miracle. 030 Moon Lighting 118 Daytona after Dark That’s a Rolex? A look at the rose-gold Sleepless dispatches from America’s watch that tracks the phases of the moon. rip-roarin’ daylong exaltation of speed. 032 Dream Catcher From the man behind the dune buggy, a fiberglass sports car to put you to sleep. 034 Enter the Matrix Dissecting Audi’s futuristic LED headlights, finally bound for U.S. roads. COVER BY V I C T O R WA N G

VOL. 10: NIGHT 3 130 Dossier: Mercedes-AMG SL63 Tracing the roots of the quintessential German drop-top to its latest iteration. 144 Sunset Scene The second-gen Acura NSX’s swan song: the 600-horse Type S. 150 Halfway House Can the Flying Spur Hybrid normalize Bentley’s transition to EVs? 154 Illuminated How to install a rally light pod, from soup to nuts to swinging down dusty back roads. 156 R&T Experiences: Rally U Shred rally cars with Road & Track editors at DirtFish, then tour epic Northwest scenery.

CONTRIBUTORS E d i to r i a l Sta f f Victor Wang EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Mike Guy EXECUTIVE EDITOR Daniel Pund WANG GREW CREATIVE DIRECTOR Nathan Schroeder Holly Anderson Ian Allen Aaron Brown DIGITAL DIRECTOR Aaron Brown EDITORS-AT-LARGE A.J. Baime, Travis Okulski A veteran journalist, Ander- Allen lives on the Puget A native of the famously COPY CHIEF Adrienne Girard son has covered college Sound in Washington with car-loving city of New York, PHOTO DIRECTOR Thomas Payne football for Sports Illus- his wife, Claudia, and dog, Road & Track’s digital DEPUTY EDITOR Bob Sorokanich trated, reported from Franklin. He enjoys wood- director is constantly SENIOR EDITORS John Pearley Huffman, Kyle Kinard rattlesnake rodeos for working, welding, repairing surrounded by beat-up old SENIOR REPORTER Chris Perkins ESPN’s Grantland, and outboard motors, and project cars. Brown’s daily REVIEWS EDITOR Mack Hogan contributed to the Golfer’s maintaining the family fleet driver is a problematic STAFF WRITER Brian Silvestro Journal, MTV, and more. She of Toyotas: a 2018 Tacoma, manual-swapped 1991 ASSOCIATE EDITOR Lucas Bell currently writes for Channel a 1992 all-wheel-drive BMW 325i sedan, but for DESIGNER Ronald M. Askew Jr. 6, a storytelling portal she five-speed Previa, and a special occasions he pulls COPY EDITORS Peter Gareffa, Chris Langrill co-founded in 2021, and 1984 two-wheel-drive out his E34 M5 of the same co-hosts the Shutdown pickup. For “The Night Shift” vintage. In this issue, you CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Eddie Alterman, Holly Anderson, Fullcast, a college-football in this issue, Allen traveled can see that Nineties Ross Bentley, Brett Berk, Mike Duff, Peter Egan, show. A Tennessee native to northern Alaska, where supersedan in “Red-Orange Matt Farah, J.R. Hildebrand, Jamie Kitman, and occasional Los Angeles the winter months offer Glow” and read Brown’s Zach Klapman, Ryan Lewis, Brendan McAleer, transplant, she lives in amazing all-day twilight words in “The Night Shift,” Marshall Pruett, Elana Scherr, Bozi Tatarevic, Atlanta with a big dog and a perfect for photography, for which he rode along with Lawrence Ulrich gun. For this issue, Ander- provided you’re okay with ice two New York state troopers son surveyed the scene at in your beard. on highway patrol. CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS & PHOTOGRAPHERS Ian Allen, the Rolex 24 at Daytona John Vincent Ardana, Todd Blubaugh, Dean Bradshaw, through the long, cold night. Brown Bird Design, Zach & Buj, DW Burnett, Huseyin Erturk, Clint Ford, Tom Fowlks, Eddie Guy, Brian Klutch, Victor Krummenacher, Lisa Linke, Tim McDonagh, Sophie Moates, Jeff Newton, Jamey Price, Nicolas Rapp Design, Jeff Stockwell, JJ Sulin, Alex Tehrani, Max Thomsen, Victor Wang, Reuben Wu EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Chip Ganassi (Racing Mogul), Bob Lutz (Viper Creator, Exec), Sam Posey (Painter, Racer), Bobby Rahal (Indy 500 Winner, Team Owner) DIRECTOR OF EDITORIAL OPERATIONS Heather Albano PRODUCTION MANAGER Juli Burke PUBLISHER & CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER Felix DiFilippo VICE PRESIDENT, SALES Cameron Albergo New York GROUP SALES DIRECTOR Kyle Taylor SENIOR SALES DIRECTOR Joe Pennacchio SALES DIRECTOR Shannon Rigby SALES MANAGER Richard Panciocco ASSISTANT Keierra Wiltshire Chicago SALES DIRECTOR Rick Bisbee Detroit GROUP SALES DIRECTOR Samantha Shanahan SALES DIRECTORS Tom Allen, Deb Michael SALES MANAGER Chris Caldwell ASSISTANT Toni Starrs Los Angeles SENIOR SALES DIRECTORS Lisa Lacasse, Lori Mertz, Susie Miller, Anne Rethmeyer SALES DIRECTOR Molly Jolls Hearst Direct Media SALES MANAGER Celia Mollica A d m i n i st rat i o n ADVERTISING SERVICES DIRECTOR Regina Wall P ro d u ct i o n /O p e rat i o n s PRODUCTION MANAGER Chris Hertwig C i rc u lat i o n VP, STRATEGY AND BUSINESS MANAGEMENT Rick Day EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CONSUMER MARKETING William Carter Hearst 300 W. 57th Street, New York, NY 10019 PRESIDENT & CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Steven R. Swartz CHAIRMAN William R. Hearst III EXECUTIVE VICE CHAIRMAN Frank A. Bennack, Jr. CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, HEARST MAGAZINES Mark E. Aldam PRESIDENT, HEARST MAGAZINES GROUP Debi Chirichella Published By Hearst Autos, Inc. PRESIDENT & CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER Nick Matarazzo TREASURER Debi Chirichella CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER Michelle Panzer CHIEF BRAND OFFICER Eddie Alterman EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF FINANCE Paul Neumaier SECRETARY Catherine A. Bostron PUBLISHING CONSULTANTS Gilbert C. Maurer, Mark F. Miller Customer Service CALL: 800-321-1000 EMAIL: [email protected] VISIT: roadandtrack.com/service WRITE: Customer Service Dept., R&T Magazine, PO Box 6000, Harlan, IA 51593



THERE’S PHOTOGRAPH: HORST DIEKGERDES/TRUNK ARCHIVE

MAGIC IN THE NIGHT PEOPLE HAVE BEEN OBSESSED with darkness and recount the almost mystical experience of for as long as there have been people. Nighttime, racing down the Mulsanne straight during night both literal and metaphorical, is a theme spanning stints at Le Mans (page 038). Contributing editor everything from classic horror cinema to nuclear Lawrence Ulrich indulges in the overlooked joys Armageddon to naughty behavior to the darkest of off-roading after the sun goes down in the new (pun intended) recesses of your mind. Stuff hap- Ford Bronco (page 058). pens at night. We also embed with a variety of people who Most important for the readers of Road & Track, ply their trades by night: highway-patrol cops, a the hours between dusk and dawn are when trucker, the loneliest pizza-delivery guy in Alaska, things get weird. Driving at night is not just a and even a reformed car thief. There’s a special darker version of driving during the day. It means quality to living a nocturnal life behind the wheel less traffic, which means higher speed. It’s after that only the select few who do it can truly under- happy hour, which means more intoxication. Wild stand (page 094). animals forage and hunt at night, which means more bolting deer and—God help you and your As issue themes go, this one was a challenge and vehicle—galloping moose. a bit of a creative risk for our staff that we think really paid off. For the cover, we commissioned a Of course, darkness dramatically limits vision, stunning oil painting of the Toyota GR010 Hybrid which affects reaction time and, should some- exiting the esses at Le Mans. This artwork captures thing unexpectedly bad happen, can hinder rescue the risk and beauty unique to the night. efforts. Plus, people get drowsy—in a CDC study, one in 25 drivers confessed to falling asleep at the Drive safe! wheel in a given month (page 112). Driving at night is complicated, can be dangerous at times, and MIKE GUY should be approached with vigilance. EDITOR-IN-CHIEF On the other hand, there is a special magic that E D I T O R ’ S N O T E R&T VOL. 10 009 can only happen at night. Not the stuff of Sieg- fried and Roy, but the kind that reveals colors in the darkness. In this issue, “Vol. 10: Night,” we go in search of those colors. We patrol the frigid infield of the 2022 Rolex 24 at Daytona (page 118)



PHOTOGRAPH BY R E U B E N W U R&T VOL. 10 011

012 R&T VOL. 10 ON DESIGN GUIDING LIGHT HOWSTEAHLEEGDE-NBEERAIMC HEADLIGHT INSPIRED ICODNEICCADDEESISGONF. BY B O B S O R O K A N I C H PHOTOGRAPH BY Z AC H & B U J



014 R&T VOL. 10 ON DESIGN 1H E A D L A M P ODDITIES THINK OF THE GREATEST designs in American make our car look different?” Stylists of the era A. Sealed-beams had to automotive history. The 1949 “Shoebox” Ford. The managed to give each model a different feel, he stand fully vertical to Carriage Lamps ’57 Chevy. The ’64-½ Mustang. The suicide-door says, despite working with identical lighting tech- light the way, but Lincoln Continental. The muscular Sting Ray and nology. “Designers of old, those regulations pushed Sixties sports cars A holdover from horse- all its forebears. Every one of the Forward Look us,” he says. “We had to be a lot more creative than were made of low, drawn times, the kerosene- Chryslers that flowed from Virgil Exner’s pen. designers have to be today. You wanna slap them in sleek lines. The or oil-fueled carriage lamp The gobsmacking Buick Riviera. The razor-sharp the face and say, ‘C’mon, put some more ideas into Corvette’s answer remained popular on early Eldorado. The jolie laide Avanti. it!’ Just to stick a pair of LEDs in a line isn’t cutting was to simply hide its equine-free rigs. With a it anymore. There’s no beauty to that.” dual 5¾-inchers. lumen output roughly These designs have practically nothing in com- equivalent to that of a Bic mon. You’d never mistake a Buick for a Lincoln, a During America’s sealed-beam era, British and B. The Studebaker lighter (in the high setting), Studebaker for a Chrysler. But take another look mainland European automakers offered a wider Avanti tempered its these regal-looking devices at those faces. They’re all arranged around a ubiq- variety of headlight shapes and sizes in their home sealed-beam were more like decorative uitous, generic piece of mandatory equipment: markets, often with superior lighting perform- upstandingness marker or puddle lamps the circular sealed-beam headlamp. It was a reg- ance. But when those vehicles were imported under raked shields. than pathway illuminators. ulatory necessity—and an unsung motivator that to the U.S., they were slapped with the same old At least the oak tree could pushed designers to unparalleled creative heights. sealed-beams, with varying results. The Volks- C. Glass covers lent see your carriage before wagen Beetle and Jaguar E-type, born with sin- uncharacteristic you ran into it. Starting in 1940, U.S. automakers agreed on the gle round headlamps, looked just fine in U.S. spec grace to the U.S.- –DANIEL PUND round seven-inch sealed-beam as the universal (at least until our government outlawed glass spec lamps on the standard headlight. It made replacing a broken headlight covers in 1968). Most Mercedes cars, Series 1 Jaguar lamp easy, no matter the car’s make or model. After sold at home with large rectangular dual-element E-type. 1957, dual 5¾-inch round lamps were accepted, and lamps, got a clunky conversion to cram circles into in 1975, rectangular headlamps were approved— squares. Never mind what French models looked D. Revolutionary in again, generic sealed-beams. like with their U.S.-mandated spectacles. Some- 1949, the “Shoebox” times a design constraint just leads to constrained Ford looked stodgy by Think of the massive changes in automotive design—especially when it’s tacked on after the the mid-Sixties. But styling from 1940 to 1975. Pontoon fenders gave fact for a foreign market. the seven-inch way to slab sides, which begot Coke-bottle con- sealed-beam hadn’t tours. Taillights went into orbit atop rocket-like The sealed-beam is all but dead now. In 1984, the changed a bit. fins, then crash-landed in chrome bumpers. Every Lincoln Mark VII became the first car sold in the zany contraption for flip-down, pop-up, or hide- U.S. with “aero” headlights, molded plastic lamps B away headlights was an effort to differentiate those unique to that model. Soon nearly every model sold ever-present circular lamps. The most evocative in the U.S. had its own bespoke headlights. car designs we’ll ever see came to life under the iron rule of the round sealed-beam headlight. A boon for creative design? Theoretically, sure. But that freedom seems to have driven designers That’s no coincidence. Creativity thrives under to option paralysis. Automakers flock around the constraint. The golden age of television was trans- same styling trend until one daring model breaks mitted via rabbit ears to 13-inch black-and-white free—then everybody jumps to the new trend. Five screens.Thegreatestmusicof thepastcenturylived years ago, it was headlights stretched nearly to the inside mainstream radio’s three-minute format. A-pillar; today it’s LED accent strips above lights buried low in the bumper. Whatever the next trend I run the concept by legendary designer Frank in headlights is, expect it to be ubiquitous in five Stephenson. In addition to just about every cur- years and replaced entirely in 10. rent McLaren, Stephenson drew the 21st-century Mini and the modern Fiat 500—designs inspired Meanwhile, let’s salute the round sealed-beam. by the era of generic round headlamps. For 35 years, it was the only game in town. Cars were more distinctive, daring, and vivacious thanks to its Is the theory crazy? “Absolutely not,” Stephen- unavoidable presence. son says. The days of the sealed-beam “pretty much forced designers to figure out: How do we

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: NATIONAL MOTOR MUSEUM/HERITAGE IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES; BARRETT-JACKSON VIA GETTY IMAGES; HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES; ARCHIVE PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES. “HEADLAMP ODDITIES” ILLUSTRATIONS BY BROWN BIRD DESIGN. A C D

WHAT WE DO AFTER CONSULTING THE STATS, IT’S CLEAR: THE DARKNESS WANTS US DEAD. Deer 20 25% PERCENTAGE OF FATAL 1* LIKELIHOOD THAT THE CRASHES INVOLVING FORD EXPLORER GREATEST HIDDEN NUMBER OF PROPORTION DRUNK DRIVERS BY USEFUL APPLICATIONS BEHIND YOU IS A COP, THREAT ON A SLEEPLESS HOURS OF DRIVING DONE TIME OF DAY. OF NIGHT-VISION BY TIME OF DAY. HIGH-SPEED IT TAKES TO BE AS AT NIGHT. The overnight is bad, but TECHNOLOGY IN CARS. Life was simpler when BACK ROAD. IMPAIRED AS A The Midnight Rider apparently you’re not In the 22 years since every Crown Vic was Bad news could DRUNK DRIVER. is slacking off. even safe at lunchtime. Cadillac first introduced a police vehicle and be hiding around If you woke up at 6 a.m. in-car night vision, vice versa. that blind bend. and you’re still driving the innovation hasn’t at 2 a.m. the following solved a single problem. morning, your driving is (*showing off) comparable to someone with a blood-alcohol USEFULNESS 26 million concentration of 0.08 OF CRUISE CONTROL, percent, the legal limit. BY TIME. NUMBER OF STREET- Pull over. There’s a particular LIGHTS IN THE U.S. bliss in steady, This is despite large uninterrupted speed. 9 a.m. to noon tracts of states like Utah noon to 3 p.m. and Wyoming where 6 to 9 p.m. ......irrelevant lampposts are about as 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. .... handy 3 to 6 p.m. common as leprechauns 1to 3 a.m. ...set and forget 6 to 9 p.m. (considering how much 9 p.m. to midnightbetter the night sky midnight to 3 a.m.looks out there, we’re 3 to 6 a.m.fine with that). 6 to 9 a.m. 6 p.m. 8 p.m. 10 p.m. midnight 3 a.m. ILLUSTRATION BY N I C O L A S R A P P D E S I G N BY M AC K H O G A N

IN THE SHADOWS INFOGRAPHIC R&T VOL. 10 017 7.9 billion CANS OF RED BULL SOLD IN 2020. We’ll have to raise that number for this year if we’re going to make Denver by morning. PERCEIVED LENGTH 25 minutes LIKELIHOOD OF OF ONE MILE EATING BEEF JERKY BY TIME OF DAY. TOTAL TIME AS A MEAL. Is it just me, or REQUIRED FOR For any meat eater, are those white lines A POTENTIALLY this is a nonzero getting longer? LIFESAVING chance. As the hours POWER NAP. drag on and the next 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. A little shut-eye is roadside McDonald’s all it takes to reduce turns off its fryers, the your odds of going sense of possibility out in the most becomes an inevitability. preventable way. 9 p.m. to midnight SOURCES: AAA FOUNDATION FOR TRAFFIC 328,000 midnight to 3 a.m. 3X SAFETY, THE BOSTON GLOBE, CENTERS 3 to 6 a.m. FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION, NUMBER OF CRASHES HOW MUCH MORE NATIONAL HIGHWAY TRAFFIC SAFETY ANNUALLY IN DANGEROUS IT IS TO 4 p.m. midnight 4 a.m. ADMINISTRATION, NATIONAL SAFETY WHICH DROWSINESS DRIVE AT NIGHT. COUNCIL, RED BULL, SLEEP FOUNDATION. IS A FACTOR. Low visibility, drunks, Remember, these are and drowsiness com- just the ones that can be bine to make dark proved. Tiredness is roads treacherous. hard to ascertain after a Despite the monotony, crash, especially if you’re night is when you no longer conscious. need to be most alert.

RED-ORANGE SOLUNTIGIOTHNHTETDOSRISIMVAIFPNELGRE. IT’S A SHADE FAMILIAR to BMW drivers who 2H E A D L A M P ODDITIES aimed their roundel at the dark horizon in the Eight- ies: the signature red-orange glow emanating from Carbide Lamps the instruments and buttons. What made those old BMW gauges seem perfectly attuned to night This flame-based solution driving? Just ask the 19th-century Czech anato- was a major step forward mist Johann Evangelist Purkinje, who was first to for road illumination, if not describe what became known as the Purkinje effect. for fire safety. Headlamp Imagine the red-tinted war room in a nuclear sub or units on Brass Era cars the glowing orange instruments in a dark airplane were connected via tubes cockpit, and you’ll understand the Purkinje effect’s to canisters mounted on practical application. In near darkness, our vision the running boards. Mixing thrives on that particular wavelength of light. water and calcium-carbide crystals in the canister Broadly speaking, your eyes have two types produced highly flammable of receptors: Rod cells handle low-light envi- acetylene gas, just like in a ronments, and cone cells process brighter light. miner’s headlamp. Boom! That red-orange wavelength sits in a sweet spot, Better living through visible to your low-light rods without saturat- chemistry. ing your bright-light cones. Your dark-adjusted eyes can seamlessly move from the road to red- orange gauges. Conversely, cone cells are highly sensitive to blue, green, and white lighting at night—the Purkinje shift. On a dashboard, these hues force a jarring handoff between your dark- and bright-vision circuits, forcing your eyes to readjust every time you glance at your speedo. That problem manifests inside modern vehi- cles, too, with brands jockeying for screen supremacy, stuffing interiors with ever-larger digital panels. It’s no surprise that a bright foot- wide screen will lead to extra eyestrain. So we’re begging automakers: Downsize the screens and bring back that red-orange glow. For safety, of course, and a tiny bit of nostalgia. BY K Y L E K I N A R D PHOTOGRAPH BY D W B U R N E T T

GLOW NIGHT MOVES R&T VOL. 10 019 A A. Among legendary bahn missiles, you’ll find none better than the BMW M5. This Nineties model, with its smooth straight- six, will run triple-digit speeds all day. And, even better, all night.

020 R&T VOL. 10 WEIRDNESS HENRY FORD’SSAFEHOUSES UNION-BUSTING THUG, HARRY BENNETT, BUILT MONUMENTS TO HIS OWN PARANOIA. PHOTOGRAPH BY BETTMANN ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES

HEY SAY A MAN’S HOME IS HIS CASTLE. Few knew this better than Henry Ford’s ruthless henchman, Harry Her- bert Bennett. He built his own castle—along with some other grandiose, fortified monuments to an epic, if not unfounded, paranoia—with the help of another angry worrier, his one and only boss, the man whose Tin Lizzie put America on wheels. A short, scrappy pugilist who’d done a stint in the Navy before joining Ford Motor Company in 1917, Bennett would quickly rise in the firm, becom- ing head of personnel and Ford’s trusted “man of all work.” Over his 30-year tenure, Bennett became Ford’s de facto No. 2, armed with a secretive and ever-broadening remit that would drive Ford’s only son and heir apparent, Edsel, to distraction. A multifaceted character with improbable artis- tic leanings, Bennett will nonetheless forever be remembered for ordering the beatings of UAW president Walter Reuther and dozens of other union organizers and sympathizers on a bridge overlooking Ford’s River Rouge plant in 1937. Com- mitted with the help of Ford’s notorious Service Department—a roster of crooked police, former and future convicts, athletes, and gang mem- bers—the Battle of the Overpass wrote him into the history books. Suffice to say, Bennett, a onetime musicians’ union member himself, didn’t lack for enemies. But as the elder Ford gratefully observed, “Harry gets things done in a hurry.” Given the rough company Bennett kept, and the undying and unsubtle enmity of unionists he’d temporarily thwarted (Ford recognized the UAW BY J A M I E K I T M A N



in 1941), they decided Bennett needed a safe house Like many a prosperous Michigander, Bennett 3H E A D L A M P ODDITIES or two. So in 1930, ground was broken on a Ford- enjoyed weekends and summer holidays at a lodge owned 152-acre plot of wooded land overlooking on a lake. Built with Ford’s money and supplies Woodlite the Huron River between Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor, (many reputedly lifted from ongoing construc- near where Bennett was born in 1892. According tion at the enormous River Rouge plant), Bennett’s Car enthusiasts of the to Ford historian David L. Lewis, PhD, the two men lodge was a doozy, situated on 2385 acres on Lost Twenties and Thirties designed it “with the enthusiasm of boys building Lake in remote central Michigan. Looking from weren’t immune to fashion. a robber lair or pirate’s nest.” a distance like a log cabin, it doubled as a battle That explains the brief station, constructed from concrete sculpted to popularity of Woodlite Part family home, part party palace, and part look like logs and ringed with a moat. Submerged electric headlamps, gems fortress with secret weapons compartments and giant metal spikes offered extra protection against of Art Deco design (even two spiral turrets featuring conspicuous holes for uninvited guests, and the bridge crossing the moat if they look to modern machine guns, the castle offered state-of-the-art was purportedly filled with dynamite that could eyes like the killer from protection, although one night Bennett was shot be detonated remotely. At the end of a hidden Scream). Too bad they at through a large dining-room window anyway. stairway, a bunker below the basement sported didn’t work well. Bombproof underground tunnels, including one inordinately thick concrete in anticipation of the that led to a boathouse for speedy getaways on worst. Meanwhile, an underground window to a the river, had stairs of uneven length and width, swimming pool enabled Bennett and his cronies with the idea that they’d promote falls and injury to furtively admire from their barstools the girls among the unwary, should Bennett be chased down they’d bussed in for a swim. them. Upon descending, visitors found dens hous- ing lions and tigers that were allowed to roam free Purchased by the Boy Scouts in 1964 and oper- on occasion, such as when their deterrent services ated by the organization until 2012, the lodge has might be required. Bennett, an avid horseman and since fallen into disrepair. But visitors report that unabashed dandy fond of Western gear when he many creepy details remain, including secret wasn’t wearing his signature fedora and bow tie, passageways, a basement floor painted red (pre- kept stables as well. sumably to hide blood spills), and, once again, stairs with different widths, pitches, and risers During the Seventies and Eighties, Catherine to foil unfamiliar users. Stark lived in the former Bennett castle, which the Ford family sold to her paternal grandfather in 1948. Edsel Ford died in 1943, having been unable to (Ford executive chair Bill Ford lives across the river dislodge Bennett from his father’s affection. But on a piece of land that was once part of the estate, in one of his first official acts after taking the reins while the “castle” and a much smaller plot belong from old Henry, Edsel’s son Henry Ford II fired Ben- to a couple who prefer to remain anonymous.) Stark nett, who left the castle and lodge, never to return. remembers “amazingly large bedrooms,” “a little His taste for hypersecurity lived on when he relo- village of replicas of famous buildings, like the Cap- cated to the Ford-underwritten S-Star Ranch, built itol in Washington” on the property, and a “the- for him in 1940 in Desert Hot Springs, California. ater house” where Bennett and his friends might Here, Bennett indulged his taste for all things cow- engage in amusements, including tipsy thespian boy and his artistic streak, developing a proclivity performances. “Every room,” she recalls, had “at for painting Western scenes in oils. When he was a least two, if not three ways to get out.” An enormous child, his mother, a painter herself, had enrolled the pink stone fireplace and an elaborately tiled foun- future ruffian in the Detroit Arts Academy. S-Star tain stand out in her memory, as do secret hideouts Ranch had no secret tunnels, but armed security that only those in the know could access—sliding and a commanding elevated location above the bookcases and nondescript panels, for instance, surrounding desert allowed this complicated char- allowed entry to clandestine chambers, including acter to breathe freely. He died in a nursing home more gun repositories and a Roman bath. in 1979. ILLUSTRATION BY J O H N V I N C E N T A R A N D A WEIRDNESS R&T VOL. 10 023

A B 4H E A D L A M P ODDITIES Pilot-Ray What company had the first headlights that pivoted with the steering? Citroën? Tucker? Nope. The feature goes back at least to the Twenties and an L.A. company called Pilot-Ray. Mounted on the frame horns of the era’s best cars, Pilot-Ray auxiliary lights linked directly to the steering system to illuminate corners.

ORIGSTITNRHAIPEL LANDMARK R&T VOL. 10 025 FOR ALMOST A CENTURY, THE SUNSET STRIP HAS BEEN have faded. Ciro’s opened in 1940 with big-name 5H E A D L A M P ODDITIES ONE BIG SHOW. entertainers, an audience of movie stars, and a parking drive filled with Cadillacs, Lincolns, and Lagonda Light Overload THE SUNSET STRIP is a road, not a track. It’s exotic imports. The Sunset Strip has never been almost always congested. There are no daring about cruising; it’s about arriving. There was nothing particu- curves, and the pavement is only so-so. It’s a 1.7- larly advanced about the mile chunk of Sunset Boulevard in what is now the The Strip roared into the Fifties, but the enter- lighting in the Seventies city of West Hollywood. And for nearly a century, tainers were being drawn to Las Vegas and tele- and Eighties Lagonda it’s been an ongoing, moving nightly party. vision. The heyday of the nightclub faded, even if sedan. Without a techno- Clark Gable would arrive in his 300SL to catch a logical breakthrough, Aston “I always thought it was funny when someone show, Lana Turner was in her usual booth at Ciro’s, Martin simply added as pulled up with a really cool Chevelle next to some- and Bobby Darin had a house above the street. many conventional rectan- one who blew all their money on a Countach,” gular incandescent lamps recalls Riki Rachtman, whose rock ’n’ roll adven- Then came rock ’n’ roll. The clubs that had been as could possibly fit on the tures include owning large clubs through the Eight- jacket-and-tie were reborn during the Sixties upon car’s edgy front end. In ies and Nineties and hosting MTV’s Headbangers a wave of rock. The Whisky a Go Go opened in 1964, fact, apart from a tiny Ball. “People would still say, ‘Wow, cool Chevelle.’” and the Doors established themselves as the house vestigial grille, there is no There were Chevelles cruising down in blue-collar band for a while. Legendarily, in 1969, Jim Morri- front end, only headlamps. Van Nuys and Countachs trawling Beverly Hills, but son drove his ’67 Shelby GT500 into a telephone PHOTOGRAPHS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: JULIAN WASSER, ROBERT LANDAU/GETTY IMAGES, COURTESY OF PRIVATE SPHERE/HWY: AN AMERICAN PASTORAL the Strip had—and still has—both. A. January 1964, the pole on Sunset, then stumbled over to the Whisky. Whisky a Go Go The car hasn’t been seen since. Sunset Boulevard starts in downtown Los Ange- opens its doors with les and goes about 22 miles west to the Pacific a Johnny Rivers show. Cars have never been the point of the Sunset Ocean. The Strip was the stretch on unincorpo- Strip. They’re the atmosphere. Singer Sam Cooke’s rated land between the city of Los Angeles and B. SoCal traffic makes 1963 Ferrari 250 GT Berlinetta Lusso was idling at Beverly Hills. Since it was beyond the jurisdiction the Strip maddening the Motel Hacienda when he was shot to death in of both the L.A. and Beverly Hills police, it was to drive—but a top- December 1964. Then the Ferrari became the prop- patrolled (lightly) by the Los Angeles County Sher- tier place to be seen. erty of Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys. “As soon iff’s Department and known as the County Strip. as the rock stars made money,” Rachtman recalls, C. Jim Morrison in the “the first thing they bought was a nice car. It was The County Strip wasn’t wholly lawless, but it ’67 Shelby GT500 he funny to watch Nikki Sixx from Mötley Crüe go was, well, tolerant. In the Twenties, Prohibition called Blue Lady, last from a Corvette to eventually getting a Testarossa.” was enforced in L.A., and Beverly Hills was man- seen outside the sions and movie stars. Meanwhile, the Strip was Whisky. Through new wave and hair bands and grunge on the pre-freeway commute to the studios. Land and a dozen other genres, the Sunset Strip is still there was cheap, a good spot to establish surrep- where careers and culture are born. Today, matte- titious drinking joints. And clandestine casinos. pink Teslas load up in the parking lot between And bordellos. And houses where alternate life- the Roxy Theatre and the Rainbow Bar & Grill as styles were indulged. Lamborghinis and muscle machines rumble past. Maybe there’s a comedian living in his car outside As Prohibition ended, nightclubs along the Strip the Comedy Store—which used to be Ciro’s—like attracted major acts and an audience of stars like Jay Leno allegedly did in his 1955 Buick. The cars James Cagney and a hundred others whose names are all different, and all the places have changed, but the Sunset Strip is still the same. C BY J O H N P E A R L E Y H U F F M A N

026 R&T VOL. 10 THE ORIGINS THE CURIOUS CASE OF UNDERGLOW BY B R E T T B E R K UNRAVELING THIS SPECTRAL LIGHTING AND ITS MYSTERIOUS (ALLEGED) CREATOR. ILLUSTRATION BY E D D I E G U Y



A 6H E A D L A M P ODDITIES THE SNAKE OF FASHION continues to swallow Peripateticism encompassed other aspects of its own tail. Witness the recent revival of ground- They’s life. “He had the most amazing day-job his- Subaru Passing Lamp effect lighting. Fresh interest in this spectral tory,” says his widow, Nancy Saint-Paul, an attor- underglow, which rose to popularity in the import ney in Galveston, Texas. She recounts his stints as It’s hard to imagine a car tuner scene of the Nineties, can be traced to the fire chief, fountaineer, long-haul truck driver, car as phlegmatic as a 67-hp rising collectibility of that era’s cars. salesman, jewelry maker, art installer, and port Subaru GL wagon doing lecturer on cruise ships, which required “dancing much urgent passing. Still, This would delight the man who claimed a pat- with lonely ladies in his tuxedo.” in the early Eighties, the ent on this lighting source, an inventor known Japanese automaker gave as Andrew Wilson. Though Wilson was far more As for his inventions, many of They’s ideas it and the BRAT quasi-truck famous for his 2004 move to legally change his revolved around safety: clothing with breakaway a dedicated passing light. name to They. sleeves to protect assembly-line workers’ limbs, Flip a switch on the thrusters to help seaplanes land smoothly, a pres- turn-signal stalk, and “‘They do this,’ or ‘They’re to blame for that.’ surized vapor-saturated flame-suppression appa- the Subaru badge on the Who is this ‘they’ everyone talks about?” he said ratus for firefighting. Even the underglow concept grille rises to reveal a in an Associated Press report. “Somebody had to was conceived to create a warning silhouette in third headlamp. take responsibility.” traffic or inclement weather. The absurd renaming story received national But They penned scores of other oddball con- coverage, amplifying They’s claim that he held 14 cepts. Our favorite was one predicated on renew- patents, including for ground-effect lighting. Even able energy. “He was going to somehow make a Wikipedia credits him. But, as often happens, flim- battery out of electric eels, by keeping the cells flammery vanquished fact. alive or something?” Schoonover says. “He wanted me to do a patent, but one day he stuck his hand in “I have no knowledge of any prior application the aquarium and the eels shocked him.” or issued patent to They on the auto ground-effect lighting, and I don’t believe he ever had one,” says His meanderings also apparently included a ten- Benjamin Adler, PhD, an expert Houston patent dency to amble past invoices. “He had a problem lawyer They worked with in recent years. “Nor did he lead me to believe he did.” B We would have liked the chance to interview C They to clarify the historical record. Unfortunately, he died last year. They’s inventiveness did yield patents, though we only found three: two for a removable light- bar cover for first-responder vehicles and one for Shades, plastic sunglasses with integrated visors. These glasses were also mentioned in the AP story, allegedly providing a windfall. “That launched Shades into the light, and I had orders start coming in from everywhere,” They told writer Reid Crea- ger for a 2016 Inventors Digest article. It’s unclear whether this assessment is true. “Shades was neat,” says Donald R. Schoonover, PhD, a veteran Kansas City patent attorney who worked with They in the early Nineties. “But I don’t know how many he sold. He kind of jumped from one thing to the next.” (His co-inventor on the light guard, Nevin Jenkins, refers to They as both “a really bright, smart man” and “a BS artist.”) 028 R&T VOL. 10 THE CURIOUS CASE

A. The lurid splash of underglow, familiar to import enthusiasts who wore puka shells when Dr. Dre reigned supreme. B. One of They’s more successful inven- tions: sunglasses with visors, simply (and aptly) called Shades. C. They (right), formerly known as Andrew Wilson, with the fire-suppression system he patented. PHOTOGRAPHS: JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES; COURTESY OF NANCY SAINT-PAUL; of not paying me,” Schoonover says. “I finally told underglow, we know only that he claimed to have COURTESY OF USPTO him I couldn’t represent him anymore.” Saint-Paul created a novel version in the Eighties, one that attributes this to They’s ADHD and PTSD, which used 12-volt fluorescent bulbs, which were less “made it nearly impossible for him to tend to day- fragile than the neon tubes used previously. “He to-day obligations.” told me that he had the patents, but there was some Chinese manufacturers who got around those pat- They and Saint-Paul met three years ago. Just ents and robbed him,” Saint-Paul says. weeks after a chance encounter at Home Depot, the two married. They added a woodworking and Whether or not They registered the concept, he mechanic shop to Saint-Paul’s home, a labora- definitely built and got use from it. “Every vehicle tory that yielded a plethora of inventions. “When he owned had ground effects,” Saint-Paul says. “I Nancy called me to tell me of his passing, I’d heard still have his BMW i3 with subtle white lights. And from the patent office the day before that one of our golf cart, with hilarious multicolored lights.” his applications had been approved,” says Adler. “Since that time, I’ve gotten two other notices. So His inventiveness even extended to his death. the patent office is recognizing the inventiveness “He joked about a full Viking funeral with a burning of his ideas.” boat,” Saint-Paul says. “His funniest idea, though, was to wheel a barbecue grill into the hospital and Everyone we spoke with described They as tell the providers that he wanted to save on the ingenious, charming, and charismatic. As for the cremation costs.”



A TICK TOCK R&T VOL. 10 031 LMIOGOHNTING THE NAME ROLEX, perhaps the best-known A LITTLE- luxury brand on earth, conjures a certain type of KNOWN GEM watch: a broad, handsome hunk of steel. The steel FROM THE sports Rolex dominates the mindshare of watch BEST-KNOWN enthusiasts, making the Submariner, GMT-Master, WATCHMAKER Explorer, and Daytona some of the world’s most ON EARTH. in-demand commodities. These days at your local A. Rolex Cellini jeweler, you’re more likely to find Hoffa’s corpse 7H E A D L A M P ODDITIES Moonphase in than a steel Rolex—the watches sell before they 18-karat Everose can even go on display. RX-7 Headlight gold, $26,750; Windows rolex.com But if you dig deeper, Rolex has much more to offer. Like the Cellini Moonphase. Patek Philippe is The downside to pop-up credited with first tracking the moon’s phases on a PHOTOGRAPH BY B R I A N K L U T C H headlamps is that if you watch face almost a century ago, and by the Fifties, want to flash your lights to Rolex developed its own version of the complica- pass, you must first wait for tion. That’s real history in the niche of moon-phase the headlamp units to watchmaking. rotate up. In the go-go Eighties, this would never Rolex’s newest version houses a striking white do. So Mazda added to the dial in a rose-gold case. On a subdial at 6 o’clock, FC-generation RX-7 little the moon is indicated by an actual piece of mete- windows in the front orite, cut as thin as a whisker, moving about a deep bumper cover through blue pool of enamel representing the inky night which the headlamps could sky. One look at your wrist tells you the moon’s briefly shine. current phase, even in the middle of the day. So why buy a gold dress watch from Rolex when every hypebeast on Instagram is thirsty for a steel sports model? Well, no Submariner has a chunk of space rock on its dial, and the Cellini line pairs the famous robustness of Rolex with the elegance of the dress-watch form. A subversive Rolex—now that’s real hype. BY K Y L E K I N A R D

032 R&T VOL. 10 A R T I FAC T DREAM CATCHER MATTHEW NGO WAS NOT the first driver of the A. It’s a real sleeper. 8H E A D L A M P Night Racer. He inherited the seat from his cousin Looks like a snooze. Jack Stewart, who took over when Azra Schorr got The only way it’s a little too teenage-cool to sleep in a car-shaped gonna win is in your bed. Schorr, who had the livery swapped from Petty dreams. Just as it blue to McLaren orange, got driving duties from should be. her father, Stuart, who got them from his father, Martyn, who bought the B.F. Meyers & Co. furniture “I just drew it,” says Reed. “I had been out to new for his son back in the early Seventies. Much Riverside for the race, and a few days later, I went like a real race car, the Night Racer has moved from to Solar Plastics in Van Nuys. The McLarens were team to team, always finding an eager young pilot. in the garage next door to Steve McQueen’s cars, But who dreamed it up in the first place? and I had a chance to look them over. So when it came to the bed, I knew that shape so well. I just Anything quirky, charming, and made of fiber- played around with scaling it down, still identifi- glass in the late Sixties invariably leads back to ably a McLaren, still a serious, cool race car—not a Bruce Meyers, who used the stuff to make surf- cartoon. I got a 10-inch Honda racing wheel, a really boards and, most famously, the dune-hopping Mey- neat little aluminum wheel and tire, and took that ers Manx. By 1970, Bruce’s buggies were buried in back to Meyers Manx. We thermoformed wheels cheap knockoffs, leaving him in search of a new and slicks and riveted them to the sides.” venture. “If only we could just make a gorgeous piece of fiberglass and put it in a box and sell it,” Reed doesn’t remember how many Night Racers he said to designer Stewart Reed, who went home, they made. It wasn’t enough to save the company, watched a few Can-Am races, and came back to which went bankrupt in ’71. But he does recall who Meyers with sketches for a child’s bed based on the bought the very first one. “I think it was the 1970 winning cars of Denny Hulme and Bruce McLaren. SEMA Show,” he says. “We had the McLaren race- car bed in our display, and Parnelli Jones comes up ODDITIES and asks if he could buy it. We said, ‘Sure, after the show.’ And you know who slept in it? P.J. Jones!” LED Daytime Running Lights Not to fault Reed’s memory, but we checked with P.J. “We didn’t have one,” he says, “we had two: A pioneer in LED illumina- one for me and one for Page,” his brother. Makes tion, Audi is also responsi- sense—it’s not much of a race with just one car. ble for the LED as brand identifier and fashion statement. It started as a tasteful cluster of LEDs on the 2005 A8 L W12. Next came the light strings on the R8 and S6 and then every other Audi. Soon every carmaker added LED running lights. Finally, the aftermarket applied chintzy flickering LEDs to every remaining Pontiac Grand Am. BY E L A N A S C H E R R PHOTOGRAPH BY J E F F N E W T O N

WHAT CONNECTS BRUCE MEYERS, M LAREN, AND PARNELLI? A BED.

ENTER THE MATRIX RECENT LEGISLATION SHOULD UNLEASH AUDI’S COMPLEX, SPECTACULAR HEADLIGHTS ON AMERICAN ROADS. IF YOU TICK THE BOX for the $3000 Digital E Matrix LED headlights on your new Audi E-Tron Sportback, you’ll get an incredible piece of tech- F nology . . . that you can’t yet use. In 1967, the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Stand- ards (FMVSS) decreed that cars cannot have high- and low-beam headlights operating simul- taneously. This was fine for a time, but headlight technology has evolved significantly since the Sixties. Automakers recently developed head- lights that can block a sliver of their beam, allow- ing oncoming traffic to pass through a dim patch while the rest of the high beam remains active. This reduces glare for other motorists without compro- mising the driver’s view. Europe and other markets enjoy the benefits of these headlights (which are miraculous to behold in action), but the FMVSS still makes them illegal here. Thankfully, the infrastructure bill that President Biden signed into law last year stipulates that the Department of Transportation update the FMVSS to allow these new-generation headlights within two years. Enlightenment, of a sort, should finally reach the U.S. Of all the adaptive headlights on the market, Audi’s Digital Matrix LEDs are perhaps the most advanced, working essentially as monochromatic projectors. They can place markers on the road to indicate tire path, lay down a carpet of light that automatically expands when the vehicle is chang- ing lanes, illuminate pedestrians on the side of the road, and even project animations on a wall. Once the federal standards are updated, Audi hopes to switch on this functionality in the E-Tron Sportback, then expand the technology through- out its lineup. The change won’t only benefit Audi owners—mass adoption of smarter headlights is better for everyone. A. The heart of these B. Texas Instruments D. Near the main Digital F. For now, we Ameri- lamps is what Audi builds the micro- Matrix LED module is cans can at least calls the Digital mirror chip here in a separate LED low enjoy the Digital Matrix LED module. the U.S. beam. Matrix LED’s party An LED light source trick: The lights can aims at a mirror that C. The module has its E. The complete assem- project an animation reflects light onto a own cooling system bly also includes LED of your choice as you tiny chip with 1.3 and a projection lens turn signals with enter or exit the million “micro- that focuses the light daytime running vehicle. mirrors” that can coming off the micro- lights, as well as fog change position to mirrors. lights that double as shape the light beam. cornering lamps. BY C H R I S P E R K I N S

C U TAWAY R&T VOL. 10 035 B C A D ILLUSTRATION BY C L I N T F O R D

—Guy Fieri —Lorenzo, age 11 —Archer, age 7

PHOTOGRAPH BY R E U B E N W U R&T VOL. 10 037

038 R&T VOL. 10 ILLUSTRATIONS BY T I M M c D O N A G H

Dark Speed What’s it like to HAMMER DOWN the fastest, most iconic straightaway in all of racing—in the PITCH-BLACK OF NIGHT? Strap in as we hit the MULSANNE at Le Mans in seven generations of the most DOMINANT RACE CARS of all time. BY A . J . B A I M E AND M I K E D U F F

When Britain Conquered France The TWENTIES were roaring , thanks to W.O. and his Bentley Boys. 1 T HE BENTLEY BOYS and their boss, W.O. Bent- Motor racing has always been more than a sport. ley, were the first to create a dynasty at Le Mans, It was created to spread the gospel of humanity’s winning four straight years starting in 1927. greatest new invention—the automobile—and put The most famous of the Bentley Le Mans entries new mechanical innovations to the test. In 1923, a remains Old Number One, a Speed Six that was Frenchman named Charles Faroux created the 24 one of only a handful of cars to win twice in a row. Hours of Le Mans as the ultimate automotive labo- The name comes from its racing number in 1929, ratory, on a course made of French country roads, the first of its victories. some of which had been used for racing as far back as 1906. Le Mans became the place where, almost What was it like to power Old Number One down every year, usually in June, teams arrived with their the Mulsanne straight in the black of night? The latest cars sporting national colors—red for Italy, headlights of the era used low-wattage bulbs, or green for Britain, blue for France, white and later even carbide lamps, intended more to warn others silver for Germany—for the ultimate test of speed of a car’s presence than to provide meaningful illu- and endurance. Key to winning was night racing, and the heart and soul of the track was the longest straightaway on earth, named for the French vil- lage where it ends, Mulsanne. 040 R&T VOL. 10

1929 Bentley SPEED SIX Old Number One Engine: 6.5-liter I-6 Horsepower: 200 Top speed on Mulsanne: about 125 mph Woolf B A R N AT O mination at speed. Acetylene lighting was set up at in rhythm, with no power steering, no seatbelts, when his headlamps went out as he was hurtling the course’s slowest corners and the main grand- and no safety equipment of any kind, really. down the Mulsanne at 100 mph, and he had to pit stands, while the start/finish straight was electri- to have them replaced. cally lit. But much of a night lap—especially on the In 1929, Old Number One drivers Woolf Barnato Mulsanne—was spent in almost total darkness. and Tim Birkin pulled so far ahead, and Bentley The No. 1 car won, followed by No. 9, No. 10, then Early in the evening, restaurants lining the Mul- dominated this race so completely, that the com- No. 8—all Bentleys. sanne (with tables perilously close to the action) pany’s founder, W.O. Bentley, ordered his men provided some light. But as the crowds thinned to ease off. One driver, Jack Dunfee, became so The Bentley Boys famously drove the race cars around midnight, darkness reigned. Old Number annoyed by the slow pace that he told his boss: “I home after their victories. On British soil, they One’s headlamps, made by Zeiss, could knife into say, W.O., do you want me to get out and push the were received by wild packs of fans celebrating the blackness perhaps a couple dozen feet. Imag- bloody thing? I’ve just stopped and had a drink at Britain’s conquering of France. If not for those ine throttling top speed, overhead cam spinning, the Hippodrome,” a horse-racing track that bor- victories at Le Mans in the Twenties, Bentley prob- four valves per cylinder popping open and closing dered the Mulsanne (apparently, Dunfee wasn’t ably wouldn’t even exist today. Bentley still names joking). His frustration increased later in the night models after sections of the Le Mans track, rolling homages to this triumphant era.

Forza 1958 Ferrari FERRARI How the AMERICAN Phil Hill helped kick off Enzo’s Le Mans DOMINATION. 250 Testa 2 Rossa During the Fifties, an all-out battle between the Brits (Aston Martin,Jaguar), Germans (Mercedes), Engine: 3.0-liter V-12 and Italians (Ferrari, Maserati) translated to sky- Horsepower: 300 rocketing attendance at Le Mans. But in 1955, the Top speed on Mulsanne: race also saw the deadliest crash in motorsport his- 168 mph tory: A French driver launched a Mercedes 300 SLR into the grandstands, killing dozens. Yet speeds kept rising on the Mulsanne, and the Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa’s 1958 victory kicked off Maranello’s historic Le Mans dynasty, with wins in seven of the next eight runnings. Phil HILL “I’d tr y peering over the windscreen, but my goggles got covered with mud and dirt. .. . I tried angling my head back and sighting over the top of the screen with my eyes screwed i n t o s l i t s .”

R&T VOL. 10 043 IT’S BEEN CALLED ONE of the greatest drives of because the 3.7-mile straight made up over 40 It’s hard to overestimate how primitive the all time and the toughest Le Mans in history. The percent of the entire track length. The Mulsanne Testa Rossa was in comparison to modern race 1958 running of the 24-hour classic is a major rea- straight had a blind right-hand kink that drivers cars. While disc brakes were coming into vogue, son why the Mulsanne straight, the California race- took flat out, even though they couldn’t see what Ferrari stuck with drums at Le Mans in 1958. Those car driver Phil Hill, and the Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa was on the other side until they were already there. stoppers faded thanks to wet weather and the Mul- all remain colossal icons in the motoring world. sanne corner, one of the heaviest braking zones in “I’d try peering over the windscreen, but my gog- motorsport. The Testa Rossa’s tires were nearly On the night of June 21, with the clock ticking gles got covered with mud and dirt,” he recalled. “I narrow enough to fit on a modern mountain bike. past 10 p.m., Hill was awoken in the Shell Oil bunk- tried angling my head back and sighting over the While the Italians were known for craftsmanship house behind the pits and told to prepare for his top of the screen with my eyes screwed into slits.” and brute power (Le Mans rules that year limited stint. He’d only recently debuted with the Ferrari Slower cars on the Mulsanne were topping out at Hill’s engine to 3.0 liters, but it had huge lungs— team and was co-driving at Le Mans with Olivier 90 mph while Hill passed them at nearly 160. He no fewer than six Webers), the car’s run-of-the- Gendebien, a Belgian World War II hero. Gende- was “driving so blind,” he could hear some other mill headlights were almost useless. For Hill, that bien was finishing his stint in second place. The cars before he could see them. meant one little slip could end his life. sun had set, and a furious squall had descended on the French countryside. Hill climbed into the Testa Shortly after midnight, Hill overtook the leader Dawn comes early at Le Mans, as the race is Rossa, which had no roof to shield him from the and charged out in front. By 2:30 a.m., he’d built run close to the summer solstice. When daylight pounding rain. He ripped off into the night, shift- a miraculous lap-and-a-half lead, which equates appeared around 4 a.m., with the rain still coming, ing through the four gears only to find the road in to more than 10 miles. He recalled one harrowing the No. 14 Ferrari of Phil Hill and Olivier Gendebien front of him all but invisible. moment: “I was boiling down the Mulsanne, try- had mopped up the competition. Hill became the ing to see through the darkness and the rain, when first American to win Le Mans. “After that race,” Because of the conditions, the race had already suddenly two cars appeared directly in front of he later wrote, “a number of people began to call proved to be a crash fest, with one Jaguar driver me, side by side, doing maybe half my speed and me the regenmeister [rain master] though I’d killed. Hill was chasing another Jaguar for first blocking the whole road. I was too close to use my never driven in the rain to any extent before.” The place, while other D-types and Porsche 718s were brakes, and I couldn’t risk going off the course at American press had a different nickname for him: close behind. He began to peel off laps in the dark- speed. So I just tromped the gas pedal and, some- “Mickey Mantle in a Ferrari.” ness. Outright speed on the Mulsanne was key, how, passed between them.”

American on normal highways.” Exactly what the Mulsanne Beauty straight was. The FLYING Ford that made 200 mph From the cockpit at night, in clear weather, you’d de rigueur on the MULSANNE. make the right-hander at Tertre Rouge, squeeze on the throttle, and feel your brain smush against 3 “THE MULSANNE STRAIGHT, if you’vegotagood the back of your skull. Bruce McLaren, who won Le car, is a place to use the superiority that you’ve got,” Mans in 1966 in the GT40, described the straight Competition is the impetus for innovation. Which, says Richard Attwood, a Le Mans champ and one this way: “Driving at night, once you’re accus- in racing, translates to rising speed. Consider that of the few still-living drivers of the original GT40 tomed to it, you find that the very high speed is the Ferrari 250 P that won Le Mans in 1963 maxed at the Circuit de la Sarthe. “You used all of the Mul- much safer than during the hours of daylight. The out at around 180 mph on the Mulsanne. Three sanne straight. We never eased off, unless it was main danger at Le Mans was the little cars with a years later, at the height of the Ford-Ferrari war, raining or there was any sort of danger. Once you top speed around 90 mph that were cruising nearly the GT40 routinely cracked 200 mph. The advance- started on the Mulsanne, you went flat out.” 100 mph slower than we were, but in the darkness ments in top speed made the Mulsanne all the more they couldn’t help but see our lights coming up important to victory. And even more dangerous. When Ford set out to create the GT40, engineers behind, and they stayed out of our way.” aimed to build the first racing car that could con- sistently top 200 mph. According to the original So much has been written about the GT40, but engineering paper on the GT40, “with the excep- one narrative that doesn’t get a lot of play is the tion of land-speed-record cars, no vehicle had been story of how this car, in the spring of 1966, became developed to travel at speeds in excess of 200 mph the most highly developed technical marvel in the history of racing up to that time. Key to the effort was investment in parts that would make it a killer on the Mulsanne at night. Take the windshield wipers—critical because it often rained at night. Engineers used blades from a Boeing 707 aircraft, mounted on a DC motor that drove them from 105 to 114 wipes per minute, with 30 ounces of pressure on the glass. All light bulbs—high-intensity quartz-iodine units—came from heavy-duty-truck bins. Lights mounted on 1966 Ford GT40 Engine: 7.0-liter V-8 Horsepower: 485 Top speed on Mulsanne: 220 mph 044 R&T VOL. 10

the sides of the GT40 for identification purposes Richard often got ripped off by trackside straw bales. Engi- neers designed the circuitry so every wire was the AT T WO O D shortest it could be for weight savings and less voltage leakage. The wires could withstand temps “The Mulsanne straight, if you’ve got up to 275 degrees. a good car, is a place to use Consider that the greatest threat to all of these systems, from the engineers’ point of view, was t he sup eri or it y tha t y ou’v e got .” vibration. Then think about what that could also do to a driver’s focus after hours and hours of rac- ing, in the dark, at over 200 mph on the Mulsanne. Now let us set a scene. It’s not long after mid- night on June 19, 1966, and Carroll Shelby is pacing with members of Ford management in a dimly lit corridor leading from the Le Mans grandstands to the paddock. They could hear the pounding rain outside. As one man present remembered, they paced “like expectant fathers in a hospi- tal waiting room.” Ken Miles is leading in the No. 1 GT40. A Ford man comes down the corridor with a clipboard to update Shelby on Miles’s lap times. He is clocking 3:39, which is faster than he was told to go during the opening laps, which meant he was running near or at top speed on the Mulsanne—at night, in the wet. “The old man is really running in that rain,” Shelby said of Miles. You know what happens next. If you don’t, watch the movie. Or better yet, read the book.

Le Mans, In preparation for the clash with Ferrari at ing—to annotate a map of the track. Pic- Annotated Le Mans in 1966, Ford engineers asked tured here are their findings: speed, tach, two GT40 drivers—Phil Hill, who’d won and gear for each driver. Notice the top by PHIL HILL the F1 world championship in a Ferrari speed and revs for both on the Mulsanne: and five years earlier, and Ken Miles, who’d 220 mph at 6250 rpm, the highest tach done the most GT40 development driv- reading of anywhere on the circuit. KEN MILES MAP SOURCE: THE FORD GT: NEW VEHICLE ENGINEERING AND TECHNICAL HISTORY OF THE GT-40, PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY OF AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERS TRACKING 1923 1932 MAP ILLUSTRATIONS BY BROWN BIRD DESIGN Changes The Circuit de la Sarthe’s 100-year history is defined by a series of attempts to restrain ever-increasing speed. 046 R&T VOL. 10

Light-Duty TRUCK I N F R A N C E , black cats are lucky, and never S.E.V. Marchal logo sat proudly on top, but the cen- Today the Marchal name survives as a shadow luckier than when found leading the way at the terpiece was up front. No fewer than 18 headlights of its former glory, licensed to a boutique Japa- 24 Hours of Le Mans. The black cat is the logo of were mounted in the huge grille, ready to light up nese company producing yellow-hued lights for Marchal headlights, which have adorned the faces the Circuit de la Sarthe like a stadium track. Honda motorcycles and vintage Datsuns. The HY of race-winning Ferraris and Porsches. Like the van also survives and can be found at the Museé Le Mans 24-hour race, Marchal was founded in The HY was not just clever advertising but des 24 Heures du Mans, a short distance from 1923 in France. As we know, night driving is in the also a working truck. Parked just off the Mul- the Mulsanne straight. There it sits, one of a few Le Mans DNA, and competition to sell headlights sanne straight during night practices, it served commercial vehicles tucked among thoroughbred to the teams was nearly as tough as the race itself. as a mobile outpost for Marchal’s technicians to race cars. At night, a passing security guard might So, to promote its business, in 1964, Marchal com- adjust lighting to suit racers’ demands. Later the shine a flashlight over the shapes of sleeping rac- missioned a truly outrageous truck: the Marchal company broadened the scope of these efforts to ing machines. And all through the place, pairs of Citroën H-Van. ordinary customers, dispatching a fleet of Citroën cats’-eyes glitter in the dark. —BRENDAN McALEER vans with headlight-adjustment kits. It was based on a Citroën HY, a front-wheel-drive van offering the utilitarian charm of a Quonset hut parked on a Traction Avant. Ordinarily constructed from thin steel panels corrugated for strength, the HY was a common sight on postwar French streets, delivering baguettes, wheels of brie, or possibly hot new camshafts for a rally-prepped Renault Alpine. Also a relatively common sight was the use of the HY as a rolling billboard. Small companies might hire a sign maker to paint the HY’s sides; more ambitious efforts were popular enough to keep a small coachbuilding industry humming along. One of the largest of these shops was Carros- serie Le Bastard. Just as French black cats are lucky, Le Bastard is not the pejorative that English speakers might expect. Le Bastard could point to a near-century-long tradition of coachbuilding excellence, from ambulances used in the Tour de France to a wild, befinned truck advertising Bic pens. It was Carrosserie Le Bastard that Marchal hired to create the bizarre creature you see here. The Marchal van featured smoothed bodywork and glass side panels showing Marchal wipers, spark plugs, and other accessories. A bright red 1972 1990 Present

The Porsche Dynasty Climb in the MIGHTY ground-effect 956 from Stuttgart. DEREK Bell “I remember the Mulsanne at night as a feeling of loneliness, like you’re in a cocoon. You’re watching the revs creeping up fraction by fraction and just sailing into the night.” 048 R&T VOL. 10