Muholland.

It's on the way back down the course that everything suddenly falls into place. For more than an hour Evan and I have been running up the hill from Cahuenga Pass, looking for the corners listed on a small map on the back of a book. Everything is different up here now, so trying to piece together the specifics of the old Mulholland Racecourse isn't easy. By the time we make it to The High Ground, past Beverly Glenn, we're totally confused. Nothing looks like it should.

We turn around and head back through the intersection. Past the Fire Station that serves as a landmark for the start of the upper course. It's still not working. Are these The Ss? A look at a different map later will reveal that a series called The Identicals comes first. Sideways is lost in a series of sweepers, but before we hit Coldwater, The European Straight looms. Nothing at all remains of The Grandstands, and the Sweeper is a little confusing, but all of a sudden, Carl's comes into focus, we're in the middle of it before we realize what it is; like Carl's Jr. (Carl's, only smaller) it's revealed more through feel than sight. Out of Carl's Jr. and Deadman's is the most obvious thing in the world from this direction, a sheer cliff where the road just disappears, yet coming up, it looked and felt just like so many other corners that comprise this, LA's most hallowed stretch of tarmac. And just like that, we're off the course, heading back down to Laurel Canyon.

We're up hear doing research for a project I may talk about later, if I can get it sorted out. We're looking for a piece of Los Angeles' racing heritage that dates all the way back to John Carradine and Gary Cooper in Duesenbergs. What's happened instead is that I've become disgusted with the conditions up here. Mulholland, once a lonely stretch of asphalt atop the Santa Monica Mountains, has become a series of expensive real estate developments where LA's rich can keep a baleful watch over the lower classes from a safe distance. Of course, keeping rich people happy is what the LAPD and the LA city council do best, so the racing that took place up here for nearly sixty years has totally disappeared. In place of a dirt lot filled with modified cars, Mulholland today sports signs that read "No Parking 9pm to 6am." Speed limits are ridiculously low, and the area is totally over patrolled, and it's getting worse by the year.

This is Los Angeles, shouldn't the Police have something better to do in a city of four million people? What the hell happened to the criminal element in this city? When did they go all candy-ass? Why are there so many spare cops? Simple, the criminals are still here, but busting people for trying to drive at a productive speed on Mulholland makes money, arresting drug dealers and child molesters costs money. The end.

Whilst searching the internet for more information, I found these two videos. One is a day-trip to Mulholland for guys with Ferraris. It's led by Chris Banning, a guy famous for spending his youth on Mulholland and surviving the scene. It's a good little vid, though it's sad to watch a bunch of supercars tool around the racecourse at speeds they can achieve in the parking lot of a 7/11.



The second vid unfortunately features the droning of resident LA-4 meathead Paul Moyer. It's a pure exploitation clip, Paul clearly has had a slow week and so he's decided to investigate a new underground scene THAT AT THIS POINT HAS EXISTED ON MULHOLLAND FOR 50 YEARS! It's kind of hard to watch, but like most of these old reports, the damage is done. Now it's just a snapshot of history, interesting for its look at the Mulholland cars and culture it helped to undo rather than for the nonsense being spewed by an ambitious talking head.



Still, I'm left with a sense of hope. In all probability the transverse ranges will be here a fairly long time, longer than even the city of Los Angeles. One day, when the air is again clear, and the mansions of the rich have fallen into the canyons and burned, and the police have lost their authority along with the government they serve, things will begin again. At some point, people will want to look down from the hills on some new creation, and they'll build a road to get up here. For a while it will all be quiet and peaceful, until some kid, in whatever passes for transportation in that far off day, discovers the joy of motoring quickly on a twisty road; the noise will return. Someday, Mulholland will again be built for those who would drive it.

Wiesmann GT MF5 Is Our Kind Of Car.

Looks hard, sounds hard, goes like stink. It's a good short-list of requirements for automotive notoriety. It's not a guarantee of sublime dynamics and entertaining personality, but cars without these factors have little chance these days of turning out engaging and desirable. There was a time when fun could be had a lower velocities, and with a lot less work. But years of tightening legislation and consumer demand for creature comfort have pushed the cheap, light and cheerful end of the automotive entertainment spectrum to the limit of existence. Barring a few hot-hatches, fewer still sold in the US, there's nothing out there that gives Sprite or Mini levels of enjoyment.

Which brings us to the modern day, and specifically, to Wiesmann's interpretation of the state of auto-erotica, circa-2009. The GT MF5 is a car that buys its clothes at the vintage shop downtown, but then goes home and alters them to fit its toned, modern, gym-membership physique. The lines speak of cars dating from the late 30s to the mid 50s; there's some BMW 507, some Jaguar XK120, even some Mercedes 540K. Those lines are rendered in glass-fiber, overlaid with modern aerodynamics including a raised wing at the rear, then draped over an aluminum monocoque chassis which cradles the 5.0-liter V10 from BMW's M5, the whole car set upon gigantic 19" alloys wheels.

The net effect is startlingly attractive is a way that's hard to believe from the above description. We've seen Wiesmann's work before on both a GT and a roadster, but this car really does look brilliant. Compact and curvaceous, hunkered and poised; it has attitude in spades, yet, despite some fussy detailing, it keeps a sense of grace and chic that's hard to come by in specialist sports cars. Sure Wiesmann give you the opportunity to screw it all up by allowing the selection of some terrible color and trim options; but all you have to do is tick other boxes on the spec sheet (NOTE: A foregoing the show-car's gloss blue over black wheels, with matching blue piping for the interior is a good place to start.) and you're left with a striking and mostly tasteful (though unmistakeably German) looking car that's constructed to levels of fit and finish that only the Germans ever seem to get right.

And now for the part where it goes like stink. Simply put, when 507bhp worth of V10 meet a chassis that weighs just over 3000 pounds, the affects are going to be explosive. 0-62mph is said to happen in 3.9, and a top speed of 193mph is certainly more than enough performance at the top end. At the same time, the sound produced by the engine makes you wonder how Chrysler can be satisfied with the noise coming out of the backs of Vipers across the country, V10s are as capable of mixing anger and sophistication as any powerplant configuration out there.

As for the handling, well, the only reviews I've been able to find so far are in German, but Wiesmann have built areputation making cars that ride and handle in ways that betray a much great sensitivity than their large wheels and limited suspension travel would suggest. It'd be strange if they somehow lost the plot at this point. Of course, that V10 comes with BMW's 7-speed, paddle-shit gearbox, which automatically (no pun intended) means I'm a little put off. But flabby-paddles are so common these days, and the rest of the MF5's spec is so mouth watering, that, given the funds, I'd still be tempted.

That is, of course, if it were to be offered here. Once again, the legislators have gotten between me and the thing I desire, and once again, it's all for naught. Even though BMW sell thousands of cars with the same engine in the US each year, the Government, and California's C.A.R.B. would require the MF5 to go through all the same tests, and Weismann simply cannot afford to certify the car. US gearheads will once again simply have to appreciate an intrinsically cool car from across an ocean... alas. In any event, here's a short video of what I'll in all likelihood never get to do with the MF5.



And a man talking about the car at length, in German.

Ruf CTR-3 Is Actually A Very Expensive Bird.

This video popped up on Youtube today. It appears to be the crowd over at the hoon-oriented German publication Auto, Motor und Sport doing what they do best. That is to say, smearing the tires of very expensive machinery all over Germany. I can only assume that the irony of dubbing video of a $615K car, who's predecessor was famously though unofficially tagged "Yellow Bird" by the motoring press, with four minutes of guitar solo from the end of Lynard Skynard's epic Free Bird, is lost on the producers of this little gem. And because of the German hard-on for 70s Southern-Rock chord repetition, we're left with none of that turbo-charged flat-six growl! The works of Alois Ruf usually justify their eye-watering price with mouth-watering performance and quality, and this one also happens to look the business. Still, for all it's flash editing, this clip isn't nearly as effective at inducing gearhead salivation as 9ff's 30-seconds worth of their mid-shipped 911 chugging around a parking lot. Germans, who can figure them out?

Ken & Mary's Story.

Today we have an overview of the somewhat famous Ken and Mary ad campaign that ran in Japan for the 1972 Skyline. It's an interesting and, for its time, somewhat innovative series of commercials. There's limited voice over about the car's specifics, and most of the ad is a series of shots of Ken and Mary touring the countryside in their blue 1972 Skyline coupe (it magically morphs into a white sedan in some of the later spots as well as a 2000 GT-S). As such, it's an early example of a "lifestyle" ad, where the product is presented as fitting into a fantasy and becoming an integral part of that life.

Two things kind of irk me. One is that Mary becomes a different, more Japanese woman about half way through the series, the other is that not a single one of the 193 KPGC-110 GT-Rs make an appearance. All in all though it's an enjoyable little watch and the story is actually kind of romantic... it just would have been more romantic with a GT-R. Huh, am I right?

1958 Coup Des Alps, Thank You Shell.

It's a long one, (If you're watching at work, take care to at least look like you're getting something done). But I really would watch this, so sit back and take a moment. It's a film taken by Shell Oil for the 1958 Alpine Rally, and it's a great window into what rally driving used to be like. It's also some of the prettiest motor racing footage I've ever seen (Rallying was done almost entierly on public roads at the time), and features names like Paddy Hopkirk and eventual winner Bernard Consten, as well as enduring gearhead crush object Pat Moss. There's also super-rare in-period footage of a Denzel (an early Porsche rival) which unfortunately comes to grief on one of the Stelvio Pass' less forgiving walls. Of course there's lots of great engine noise, especially from Consten's Alfa SZ.

Really though, it's the footage of Europe in the 1950s that's so captivating. It's amazing how colorful and empty everything looks, a timely look back at a world now completely past.

Hitler Expresses My Views On The Nissan GTR.

Adolf my boy, I couldn't agree with you more... you know, on this one little thing. The whole " Final Solution and the Lebensraum, you're on your own with that stuff.

Aston DB-2 Makes For Sexiest Hill-Climb Special Ever.

Just the thing for a Thursday afternoon pick-me-up, a grainy, hand-held video of an Aston Martin DB-2 being hill-climbed at a rate of speed I still can't quite believe. This thing must have a full-on DB-3S motor in it. It sounds like hell breaking loose too. Enjoy!