The Red Car
The best 45 cents I ever spent.

How long have you been an enthusiast?

Not just for BMWs, but for all sporting cars, and the style of driving they encourage?

The catalyst that first lit the fires of sports car passion in my life was a little book called The Red Car. As an 8th-grader in 1967, I ordered my 45-cent paperback reprint of Don Stanford’s 1954 novel through Scholastic Book Services. SBS enabled millions of kids back in the 1960s and 70s (and still today) to buy paperback books at school for minimal cost. The aim, of course, was to foster a love of reading and learning. Worked for me.

The Red Car is the story of young Hap Adams, a teenage boy who lives on a small ranch just outside the little silver mining town of Bullet, Colorado. A crashed red MG-TC is hauled to the town’s garage, run by mechanic and former European driver Frenchy Lascelle; the car and its resurrection open the door to a whole new world for Hap and his friends. Although the novel was written for young people, author Stanford skillfully captured the essence of both the cars and the new style of driving they brought to America. And what a period for such a story! The early 50s were a mecca for the classic MGs, Austin-Healeys and Porsches we revere today. Here’s a taste:

"The battered, racy-looking foreign car rested in Frenchy Lascelle's garage, waiting to be hauled away for scrap. It was little and low and fire-engine red, and its front has been smashed in when the driver failed to make one of those hairpin mountain turns; but it was the only car Hap Adams wanted. There was something about the clean, sweeping line of the body, the beautifully engineered motor, and the look of aliveness of this M.G. that excited Hap's imagination and made him determined to own it and set it running again."

After Hap buys the car for $50 and rebuilds it with Frenchy’s help, a driving lesson introduced Hap (and me) to the timeless technique of what is now called the ‘traction circle’. I used it many a time with gusto as a teen driving the family Beetle.

“I do not drive now,” Frenchy said curtly, motioning Hap back into his seat, “you drive, Happy. I tell you something, and you will try it. Do not brake on a curve. Do not shift on a curve. Do not do anything on a curve, except steer and feed fuel to your engine so it will give you the torque to go around and come out. Only when your engine is delivering power, torque, is your car under control on a curve; if you must brake, you have no control. And if you go into your curve too fast, then you must brake. So you slow before your curve, entendu?”

“I knew that,” Hap said sheepishly. “I figured that out the other day. I - just got mixed up, I guess.”

“One does not get mixed up when driving a car,” Frenchy said, unsmiling. “Now: slow before you enter a curve, to a speed a little slower than you can maintain in the middle of the curve. That is so you can use more power, gradually, in the curve, so you will have torque to keep you on the road, accelerating. And always go into a curve in the gear you will use coming out! The time to brake and the time to shift gears, both are before the curve, Happy! Now, you will try again”. . .

“To his surprise and delight, he found that he was all at once, doing it right. The little red car swooped growling around curve after curve, squatting close to the road and digging herself in, muttering in protest as he slowed her before each curve, and screaming her challenge as she surged out of it.”

Strong stuff for a 13-year-old with dreams of one day learning to drive. I never forgot the technique; today it works just as well for my 633CSi as it did for Hap’s MG.

So what became of Hap and Frenchy? They entered the red TC in a road race organized by SCCA types from Denver through the streets of Bullet, and won an exciting 2nd in their class with Hap heroically reaching back to hold a battered rear fender off a tire for the last few laps with his bare hands. Wow.

Today, The Red Car is highly sought-after on the used book market. Corpus Christi Caller Times columnist Brooks Peterson last year searched the Internet for a copy, and found several - for a price.

“Lessee here: I could choose among three examples. There's a ‘reading copy’ . . . for $180. There's a ‘very good ex-library’ edition . . . for $234. But of course your serious nostalgist won't settle for such scruffy stuff. He/she will go straight for the ‘very good hardcover in a very good unclipped dust jacket’ . . . for $360.”

“No wonder I've never been able to find a copy of The Red Car in those secondhand shops. They must have a special vault for 'em at Fort Knox.”

“Are you out there, Don Stanford? I certainly hope so. You need to grab hold of this phenomenon and persuade somebody to run off some reprints. But don't worry: I don't blame you. On the contrary: You've enriched the lives of any number of (former) American teen-agers. I may not have the book, but I do have the MG, and isn't that what matters?”

“I suspect Frenchy would approve.”

Nice ending. For what it’s worth, I found several paperback copies available on-line in the $40-75 range. Of course, I’ve kept mine all these years and, for many reasons, wouldn’t part with it for any price.

As for my own ending, I have both the book and the BMW. Who would have thought that 45 cents so long ago would turn out to be such a good investment? -Rick Sparks

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