I Want to Die Like My Great-Uncle

Hugo’s phone rang. It was his old buddy Ben, investment millionaire. Calling to say he would be competing in the Goodwood Revival this year. With his 1962 Jaguar E-Type. It had been a few years since his last entry, that time with the yellow Lamborghini Miura. The Jaguar was in good shape for the race, but a test drive wouldn’t hurt: “Fancy a little spin?” Hugo hesitated: “Hm.” – “That’s not an answer.” – “Okay, but only if you don’t drive like a maniac. Remember that trip in the Countach?” Ben countered: “‘Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.’ – John Wayne.” 

The E-Type screeched to a halt in front of Hugo’s apartment building. Not just any E-Type, but a thoroughbred race car, souped up to the max. A chassis as hard as steel. Ben had beefed up the 3.8-liter six-cylinder engine from 265 hp to 296 hp. Slimmed the weight down to 1,100 kilograms. Removed the door panels and other ballast. Even the standard instruments. Instead, simple toggle switches for fuel pump and ignition. Plastic rear window. Recaro seats. Six-point belts. Roll cage. Fire extinguisher. Perforated pedals. Special coolant for the engine (boiling point of 180 °C). Ben had bought the street-legal race car five years ago for €60,000 at Retro Classics Stuttgart. After the first few meters, flames shot out the back. The carburetor had a leak. He called the car a “wicked thing”. And poured another €40,000 into it. For a little respectability.

Hugo got in and fastened the red harness. After shaking hands, he said, as he always did when sitting down next to Ben in his car: “Remember one thing: I want to die like my great-uncle. Peacefully in his rocking chair. And not screaming like his passenger.” Ben, who was actually a nice guy but could occasionally be a real SOB, always replied, “We’ll see.” It was a ritual they had. Hugo’s words were based on true events. His great-uncle had lived to be eighty-eight and not a day older. The Grim Reaper came for him on his birthday while he was watching his favorite TV show, Unsolved Mysteries, in his rocking chair, shoving one praline after another into his toothless mouth. Heart attack. He had been a salesman for a manufacturer of garden gate hinges all his working life. In the 1960s he drove an Opel Rekord P2 as his company car. He thought he was Wolfgang Graf Berghe von Trips, the German aristocrat and racing driver. But he drove as if he was the first person to do so, and always much too fast.

They set off. The cockpit was so cramped that Ben and Hugo were almost sitting shoulder to shoulder. At low revs, the E-Type coughed and spluttered like a lung patient because of the sharp camshafts. But between 4,000 and 5,500 revolutions, it was pure music. The E-Type roared at the highest fortissimo. As a result, our passengers experienced a piloerection (only the uneducated say goosebumps) that overwhelmed them from head to toe. Soon the temperature inside reached 70 °C. The gearstick and handbrake levers were hot to the touch. You could see shimmering heat rising on the windshield like at midday in Sudan. “That’s perfectly normal. What counts is the machine, everything else is irrelevant,” the driver said. Hugo, who has an equal respect for fast cars, nodded his head in agreement.

“How do you plan to tackle the race at Goodwood?” Hugo asked. “I mean, will you be going easy on the car? Or attack and win?” – “You know me (...)

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