Nevada High Desert Run (Part 2)
The first thing I noticed about this car is that merely getting behind the wheel, you immediately get a feeling that you’ve gained a shade or two of what I'll call "reserved might."
Maybe it’s when the sheer immensity of the vehicle finally clicks as you sink into those slick leather bucket seats. Maybe it’s when the long and deep hood before me terminates into the Mercedes-Benz encircled star emblem--shinning like a pinnacle--no doubt signaling to my brain that there’s a whiff of aristocratic privilege gripped by my filthy proletariat hands. The way the machine carries itself, you just feel that it's powered by an engine born with pedigree, ready to hurl the car into every turn at the whim of my left foot.
Packing a 302HP 3.8L V6, the Merc definitely had the kick when you need it, but let’s be honest: in the day of run-of-the-mill Camaro SS putting down over 420 to the rear wheels, it’s not exactly something to write home about. It doesn’t shout like the American muscle cars I’ve toyed with before, yet neither relegates itself to meekly thrumming along only to howl in tortured agony, like the Japanese or Korean offerings, as you bury the tach into the redline and your fingers strike the flappy-paddles like a crazed gunman.
After getting comfortable with all the Japanese-y Playstation stuff, when I looked out across traffic I slowly began to see nothing but a scray automotive hellscape. Other cars just seemed lesser for some reason--either piddling along aimlessly or darting through traffic in manic haste--in stark contrast to the quiet ease with which I proceeded along during my journey. Maybe that says a lot more about me than it does about the car, so make of that what you will, but there was a definite lack of urgency with this car. It will pull hard if you ask, but it doesn't reward you for it. Rather, one gets the sense from the way the car carries itself that such boorish hooliganism ought to be beneath the station of the kind of people who can afford it.
Along the way I made a quick stop at a the Sourdour Saloon, but not before I wondered what pros and cons the good people of Beatty weighed before they voted a proper Wanker into office.
Schoolyard humor done with, I regarded the Sourdough Saloon once more. It’s a bit of an automotive Mecca, and so far a little known industry secret, but when car manufacturers are testing their latest creations in Death Valley, CA, they use this restaurant in this town as their forward operating base during the day.
For such an honor it is festooned with dollar bills from every tester to have made the pilgrimage thus far.
They put the front end of an older SLK 320 in the restauraunt. How the bloody hell did they fit it through the door? Did they bring it in piece by piece and then assemble it in side?
It was literally covered to the walls in automotive relics: bumpers, shattered parts, logos, you name it.
As a minister of the Latter-Day Motorists, it wouldn’t make much sense if we didn’t submit our own name to this great hall of fame. It's the one in the middle, with the words "latterdaymotorists.org" in cursive that looks like it was written by Quasimodo. I hope it'll still be there when I put the new 650i through it's shakedown run.
After that short break, it was time to get back on the road and cross, due in no small part to a situation I created myself, became the most heartbreaking stretch of road I've ever witnessed...a road that in 2011 damn near killed my will to drive ever again.