I’ve not slept well for five days, on a high, in a fever dream that makes it hard to fall to sleep, then wakes me around 3:30am before returning to a sort of waking slumber until at last, around 6:45am, it’s an acceptable hour to rise, switch on the coffee then gaze at last through the kitchen window upon my captor, my 1967 Rolls Royce Silver Shadow Coupe.
It’s the smell that drew me first upon opening her door, that leathery, woody smell which takes me back to the early 70’s when my dad briefly owned a Daimler, wrecked by a family friend after a few weeks of ownership and never repaired, its worn leather and wooden dash, toggle switches and smell of antique things and of my grandmother’s attic, a smell still contained in the hidden compartment of her bridge table that’s now in our guest room, of an England I’d be extracted from when I was five, my mother and father and sister and I emigrating to now-famous Menlo Park in 1976.
There’s a part of me that’s longed to return to that place. And when I opened that door, that scent wafted to me, and I knew this was serious.
There’s also a part of me that’s long discounted Rolls Royce as more ornament than substance. I’d been told its engine was derived from Buick, its transmission from GM (that much is true), and besides that, the values of these cars in the classic market are so low, relative to comparable Ferraris or even Mercedes of their day, how much worth could there really be?
But then, that smell, its tug undeniable. The vast wooden dash, parquetry and all, like the antiques from my youth, taking me back to the memory of meeting my grandmother’s bridge partner, a widow, in 1977 or thereabouts when visiting from the States. She told me proudly that her deceased husband’s Shadow was still in the garage, would I like to have a look? Heavens yes, and when I did I asked if I could open the door and sit inside, and was told no, I could not, perhaps helping plant the seed which now blooms.
Now in 2021, the seller wanted too much for this magic Shadow, so I set the idea aside, driving other cars, including an ’86 Ferrari Testarossa monospeccio which the seller decided he didn’t want to sell after all; it was everything I’d loved about my 355 Berlinetta plus more cylinders, greater collectability and that incredible look and style. Then an un-restored Shadow Coupe which, while treated sympathetically over the years, was rather worn and lacking luster, but quickly sold for the price I’d initially offered for the magic Shadow still haunting me.
Last Friday morning I was visiting with Charlie Agapiou, the automotive engineer extraordinaire whose expertise propelled the Ford GT40 team to victory against Ferrari, as featured in the 2019 film “Ford V Ferrari”. Charlie has for many years run the pre-eminent vintage Rolls-Royce service garage in Los Angeles, and I wanted his take on the magic Shadow, which I knew he’d worked on over the years — it’s been in LA it’s whole life, and was owned from new by a socialite (whose name is inscribed in the owner’s manual) who died in 2011 at 99, whose close friends included Will Rodgers and Charles Lindbergh, and whose nephew was John McCain — and to chat about the marque overall. As we’re chatting, I get a text, and it’s the seller of the magic Shadow, ready to make a deal after two months of silence. My husband doesn’t believe that coincidence either but it’s the truth.
Certain cars occupy a space in our imagination which outsize their price. My new Shadow is less expensive than my Land Rover Defender by many thousands. But they’re worlds not mere thousands apart.
The first time I drove the Shadow, I thought there must be an issue with the electric seat, as I felt too close to the wheel, placed more or less at my chest, and too upright overall. This is a very upright car, tall and long (sixteen feet!) but quite narrow. To drive this car, one is to sit-up, straight. The rotary switches on the dash are beautifully, delicately tactile, everything sized for your fingertips, clicking and snapping, metal on metal, like the clasp of an expensive watch, like jewelry. The key slides into the centrally-located ignition like a safety deposit box, precisely, slowly, with consideration. Once turned, there’s no sound but a distant sort of “clug-clug” – oh dear, has the battery died, is this old bird on her last leg? – then a distant murmur, the resonance of the engine so slight you’re not quite sure if you’re in business. There’s no tachometer, no objective evidence that the engine is running, the first of many leaps I’ll take before believing that yes, this fifty-four year old car has things well at hand.
The column-mounted gearshift has no mechanical linkage to the transmission: it sends an electrical signal to the actuator, which then places the car in gear. Click down with the effort as you would with the turn stalk into Drive, feather the throttle and you’re underway, a faint “tick-tick-tick” from the beneath the bonnet as the Spirit of Ecstasy rises on the horizon and leads the way. You guide the car rather than precisely steer it, dialing in the basic parameters of where you’d like to go with a finger or two on the wheel, then make little course corrections along the way, I’d imagine as you would piloting a hot air balloon. The ride quality is surreal, not for the way it heads over large crests or into bumps, but rather the way it recovers its composure with hydraulic, damped calm, courtesy of Citroen, from which Rolls Royce licensed its suspension and braking system, which are an inexorable element of the cloud-like, suspended-reality spell the Shadow still casts today.
I love driving fast, and I have a car for that, too, although as cars get so fast, literally painfully, neck-snappingly fast, yet with nowhere to go but the next traffic light, cars which make me slow down are increasingly welcome. Covid has taught me that I don’t actually “need” to go anywhere, let alone quickly. What I need to do is pay attention to where I’m heading, and how I’m getting there.
