Motorworld (13 page)

Primed, we arrived at a 10,000 square-kilometre farm out towards Ayers Rock where our hosts turned out to be a bunch of men who, at the age of seven, had walked into a hospital and had their brains amputated.

They’d invited us down for the hunt, saying we could stay at the Million Stars Motel, which turned out to be a patch of grass by their chow house. Crawling into my sleeping bag was like doing a lucky dip where the first prize was life. Just what was in there? A snake? A funnel-web spider?

It was a poor night’s sleep for several reasons, chief among which was the enormous thunderstorm which passed by at 2.00 a.m. Then there was the ever-present threat of creepy-crawlies treating my nose as a light snack. And every rustle in the bushes was a large and fierce animal that scientists had believed, until that night, was extinct.

I spent most of the time shining my torch into the void until at 5.00 a.m. we were up, eating beans and clambering
aboard a wide variety of seriously knackered old Toyota off-roaders. One towed a trailer full of spare wheels. ‘On a bad day, we can use maybe 40 tyres,’ said Gun, Denmark’s only camel-catcher.

‘We have Michael Palin coming here next month,’ he added. ‘Do you think he’d mind if we picked him up from the airport dressed as Gumby?’

Probably.

And off we went in search of camels who, it is said, have the intelligence of a nine-year-old child. Like hunting in Britain, therefore, the prey is brighter than the pursuer.

A lot brighter, because at 2.00 p.m. we’d seen diddly squat; no tracks, no shit, nothing. Motorcycle outriders had been to the top of every hill for a better view and each time they’d come back to say we were at the epicentre of a completely camel-free zone.

Except once. After half an hour of waiting, one outrider hadn’t come back and we were concerned. His Australian colleagues didn’t care less, though. ‘What if he’s injured?’ I asked.

‘He’ll crawl home,’ came the reply.

‘But what if he’s dead?’ I went on.

‘Well then it doesn’t matter.’

The conversation dried up because, 200 yards in front, Mr and Mrs Camel had wandered out of the bush with their three children, Janet, Wayne and Paul. And the chase was on.

I made the mistake of leaping into the back of the lead vehicle, a Toyota pickup truck which took off into the scrub at, oh, about 80 or so.

Wherever the camels went, we had to follow and this was a big problem for little old me in the back. I had to stand up, holding on to the rollover bar, which, under the tropical sun, had become hot enough to fry an egg. Within twenty seconds my hands had become fountains. There was blood everywhere.

Then there was the ride, which was bad enough for the first mile when all four tyres were intact, but over the next six miles each one burst. To absorb the bumps, I had to keep my knees bent, which is fine for a few seconds in a stationary room, but in the back of a bucking off-roader which had no tyres, for two hours, it was intolerable.

Worse, though, were the trees. Regularly, our driver headed under a bough which, if I’d been looking the other way, would have taken my head clean off. This was abject misery.

When we finally caught up with the camel, Gun leaped off the Toyota, attached himself to its neck, and wrestled it to the ground. It was barbaric and when I asked why they don’t just use tranquilliser darts, I was told ‘Where’s the fun in that?’

And all we had to show when the chase was over was a manky little bull worth about three quid and half-a-dozen shagged Toyotas.

Which kind of answered my original question. What good is a car in outback Australia? Well for catching camels, it’s vital. And for doing bits and bobs round the ranch, it’s essential.

But as a means of transport, as a device for getting from A to B, it’s no good at all. I was going to say that outback
Australia is the only part of the civilised world where the car doesn’t work. Distance defeats it. But I’ve just thought of something. Outback Australia isn’t civilised.

The plane began its descent into Houston’s international airport and I peered out of the window for my first-ever look at the Lone Star State – Texas. Land of the Free. Home of the Brave.

Oh deary me, I thought, I’m on the wrong jet. The pilot’s gone mad. We’ve been flying around in circles for eleven hours. That’s not Texas. That’s Lincolnshire.

For as far as the eye could see – and from 15,000 feet on a crystal-clear day, that’s a very long way indeed – it was flat, unrelenting and dull beyond even the ken of a party political broadcast speech-writer.

In the next two weeks, I would crisscross what is America’s second-largest state looking for some geological eccentricity, but apart from a miserable little canyon up near Lubbock, there was nothing.

I’m told it’s a bit deserty over by El Paso in the west but elsewhere it’s a series of completely flat fields broken only, and very occasionally, by the odd corn thingy.

The towns, too, are unremarkable. God only knows what Tony Christie was thinking about when he immortalised the hateful sprawl that is Amarillo. There aren’t even any decent titty bars.

And the most interesting thing we found in Lubbock was the airport car-rental desk. This is the town that gave
the world Buddy Holly and James Dean. But both of them left.

So what of Houston? Well, it’s no better I’m afraid. The skyline, built with oil money I suppose, is impressive in a pointy-type way, but the streets are almost completely devoid of human life.

For our first three nights there we walked the sidewalks at night, looking for bars and restaurants. We wanted action but all we got was a joint whose USP was an owner who encouraged us to throw the pistachio nutshells on the floor.

This is the fourth-biggest city in America. Home of NASA. Epicentre of the world’s breast-implant industry. And, in 1994, provider of more than half the
Playboy
centrefolds.

And there we were in an awful little bar with Ry Cooder doing his best to slide some atmosphere into the joint by giving it some soulfulness on the geetarr.

It wasn’t until the fourth day that we figured it out. All of Houston’s shops, bars and restaurants are underground, linked by a series of walkways that would defeat Ranulph Fiennes. There were people down there who had voted for Lincoln.

It seems that Houston is a hot place – they’ve obviously never been to the middle of Australia – so to keep the shoppers happy, everything is tucked away below ground in air-conditioned splendour.

I hated it, and I hated our hotel which was where everyone in America had arrived for a bridge tournament. I hate bridge too.

But then, as is the way with our
Motorworld
forays to the edges of extremes, we started to meet the people. And a smile started to pucker the corners of my mouth.

First, there was Clyde Puckett, whose pickup truck had just been recognised, officially, as the ugliest in the whole state.

If he were to walk into your house, you would call the police first and the council health inspectors shortly thereafter. He was big, for a kickoff, and to complete the picture he had long hair tied into a pony tail and a beard whose most far-flung extremities reached down to his oft-exposed navel.

But here was a gentleman; a man of God who lived the simple life, way out in the hinterland with nothing but his truck and a dog – it was hard to tell them apart sometimes – for company.

We were there because I wanted to know why Americans in general, and Texans in particular, buy so many pickup trucks.

In order to be tough, and not to tip up when their rear ends are loaded down with ‘stuff’ – you hear that word all the time in Texas – they are burdened with suspension that would be more at home propping up a skyscraper.

Just walk up to a big Yankee pickup and try to make it rock. You might as well try to push the Tower of London over.

This means, of course, that if you hit a small pebble while driving a pickup, your spine will shatter. Your teeth will implode too as the vehicle rears up like an angry beast,
before crashing down again with great vengeance and furious anger.

Of course, while it is up in the air, the wheels will not be on the ground, so you’ll have no steering. But that’s OK because thanks to your snapped back, you’ll have lost the ability to turn the wheel anyhow.

The pickup truck is even more uncomfortable than a horse.

So let’s look at the practicality. Well for sure, there’s a great deal of space in the back for… um, it’s hard to say what really. I mean, once in a while, maybe, you need to take an old sofa to the skip, but would you be prepared to put up with the bone-breaking discomfort on the other 364 days in a year? Certainly, in England we would not.

Especially as the huge rear end means there’s precious little space up front for people. Most are capable of accommodating three alongside one another and some of the bigger versions have elongated cabs to provide space for five – but frankly, bearing in mind the average size of an American, we’re talking two-seaters here.

To move this vast vehicle around, obviously, an equally enormous engine is required and that’s why even the cheapest, most bland and plain models come with 5.0-litre V8s.

These, though, are usually tuned for torque, so that should you wish to spend your days uprooting giant redwoods, you’ll be well equipped. Unfortunately the downside is no power.

When they’re burdened with an automatic gearbox – and nearly all of them are because manuals in the States
are as rare as non-remote-controlled TV sets – you would not believe how slowly they go.

People will tell you they have a ‘lot of pickup’, meaning they can get away from the lights quickly, but that’s nonsense. An Escort diesel would leave even the most potent US doubly for dead.

And when it comes to top speed, forget it. The pickup truck doesn’t have one. And nor would your car if it had the aerodynamic properties of a wardrobe.

Needless to say, they chew fuel too, which is just one more small reason in a sea of big ones to give the very idea of a pickup truck the sort of berth you’d give a bear whose cubs you’d just trodden on.

Explain this one then. In Texas in 1994, 21,000 people bought a Ford Taurus, which is the bestselling car in America. It’s a sort of cross between a Mondeo and a Granada, but that’s not really important just now. Remember the sales figure – 21,000.

In the very same period, 110,000 Texans bought a Ford pickup truck. In Texas, pickup trucks outsell cars five to one. The people there are very obviously as mad as it’s possible to be without being incarcerated somewhere.

Clyde Puckett was not mad. He had a truck because he hauls ‘stuff’ for people… but he was the only one.

Down at the Broken Spoke ‘dancing and dining’ Bar, the car park was chock-full of pickups which, very obviously, had never hauled anything more arduous than the odd six-pack.

Inside, the customers told us that pickup trucks are safer, more convenient, more practical and better-looking than
a car. But it’s more than that. A truck is as much a part of the Texan uniform as a ten-gallon hat.

Suitably equipped with an electric-blue Ford F150, I headed out to meet a few more of these strangely daft people.

And happened upon Bill Clement. Bill runs a sort of Battersea Dogs Home for knackered Chevvies, picking out the best and restoring them. He has many, some of which he sells, and some of which live in his warehouse.

Dull so far, until he tells you that his favourite models are those which bear the high-performance SS insignia. ‘They were not too popular among non-Third Reich enthusiasts,’ he says, while sitting at his desk playing with a German helmet from WW2.

His desk, in actual fact, is the front end of a 1955 Chevvy but I was a little more bothered about the list of ‘nigger names’ he’d just plunged into my sweaty paw. ‘What’s your daughter called?’ he barked.

‘Er… Emily,’ I stuttered.

‘Nice name,’ he said. ‘Means something, unlike any of the names you’ll find on that list.’

‘What does Emily mean?’ I asked.

‘Oh, stuff,’ he replied.

Getting to see Bill hadn’t been especially easy as a large sign above his door made it perfectly plain who was welcome and who was not.

It went something like this: ‘No bargain hunters, bleeding hearts, bullshitters, credit, cheques, computers, collegiates, deadbeats, drunks, daydreamers, non-Chevvy drivers, estimates, Fords, girlfriends, honking, metric,
politicians, peddlers, refunds, solicitors, sympathy, vacationers, wives or whiners.’

Things he liked included profanity, chauvinism, bitching, cash, impatience, bad attitudes, NRA members, sloppy appearance and bigotry. Another sign on the office window advised visitors to ‘speak English or get the fuck out’.

I was allowed in even though I was considered a ‘crapass limey’, from the same country as the ‘godawful’ Rolling Stones and the ‘gall bladder of rock and roll’ John Lennon.

I tried to show an interest in his impressive collection of cars but his assistant, Bob, was much, much more absorbing.

Bob was a large man who had bought a pair of jeans when he was not quite so large. However, rather than diet or throw them away, he had simply done them up under his arse, letting his shirt tails protect his modesty.

That was fine until he bent over. It was quite a sight, Bob’s butt. It’s a
Motorworld
moment.

Bill was talking. Did I want to take a drive in his stunningly restored El Camino SS, a 7.4-litre 430-bhp machine that was actually built at GM’s Arlington plant in Texas?

Well not if Bob’s been driving it, I thought, but voicing such a thought seemed rude, so off I went. ‘Just don’t take it through Niggertown,’ called Bill, usefully, as I roared off.

It was a great car – well pickup actually – with exhausts that sounded better than any Fender Strat. It didn’t handle and looked like it was on a day-release from the seventies
but I adored the pre-political correctness turn of speed. As Bill’s T-shirt said, ‘If you haven’t seen God, you’re not going fast enough.’

When I took it back, I asked if Bill was worried about his cars being stolen. ‘No sir,’ came the reply. ‘If a nigger tries to come in here, we have the right in Texas to vigorously defend our property, up to and including killing him.