Chapter 43: I Visited Rafael’s Office
Chapter 43: I Visited Rafael’s Office
—The restoration of the Studebaker you commissioned has been completed. You may visit whenever it is convenient for you.—
Just after lunchtime, Ethan received a text message.
It was from Jason, the man he had entrusted with restoring the car.
—I’ll come straight over after work today.—
From the moment he sent his reply until quitting time, Ethan endured the longest six hours of his life.
“Ethan, want to grab a beer after work today—”
“Next time! I can’t today.”
The instant his shift finally ended, Ethan climbed into his Saab 900.
Vroom—
The Saab’s ignition was located in an unusual position beneath the gearshift.
When he inserted the key and turned it smoothly, the engine started with a powerful growl, and the instrument panel lit up in its distinctive green glow.
Still feels great.
He had been driving the Saab for nearly twenty years.
The brand no longer existed, which only made him more attached to it.
Vroooooom—
When he lightly pressed the accelerator, the turbo gauge needle gradually swung toward the yellow zone.
At the same time, the sleek body, reminiscent of an aircraft, began gliding down the road.
Mercedes was often called the king of the highway, but this unusual Swedish machine was no pushover either.
If anything, the Saab might be called the king of midrange acceleration.
Its peculiar surge of power, like a stretched rubber band suddenly released, felt fresh and satisfying every time he drove it.
It was exactly what one would expect from a car built by a company that once manufactured fighter jets.
After driving for nearly an hour, he arrived at Jason’s Second Life Motors.
The moment he turned onto the unpaved road leading to the warehouse entrance, his heart began jolting along with the car.
He hurried out and immediately greeted Jason, who had come to meet him.
“Hello, Jason.”
“Hello, Ethan. You’re early. There’s no need for a long explanation. Take a look at the car first.”
As though he had read Ethan’s mind, Jason stepped aside and cleared the way.
Step, step—
Yet when Ethan finally stood before the car, his pace slowed instead.
Only a few more steps remained before he would meet the dream car he had waited so long to see.
He deliberately lowered his head and approached while staring at the floor.
The image of the car buried beneath barn dust and straw flashed through his mind.
“You can look up now, Ethan.”
Jason’s voice came from behind him.
The instant Ethan raised his gaze as instructed—
“My God…”
Under the workshop’s fluorescent lights, the Studebaker GT Hawk shone with a beauty that seemed almost otherworldly.
Out of habit, Ethan dropped the briefcase he had carried from his car.
“Is this really the same car…?”
His voice trembled faintly.
The original paint, faded to a dull gray, was nowhere to be seen.
In its place, rich, deep silver paint gleamed brilliantly.
The chrome bumper and grille, whose shapes had once barely been visible beneath the dust, now reflected his image like mirrors.
“Look inside too.”
Jason’s confident voice reached him.
Judging by the car’s condition, he had every right to sound that way.
Click—
As though entranced, Ethan opened the door.
“Ah…”
For a moment, tears nearly burst from his eyes.
The Studebaker’s interior was filled with red leather and silver aluminum.
Instead of the stale odor of decay, the fragrance of wax and new leather brushed his nose.
It felt as though he had stepped into an exclusive luxury salon.
It had been twenty years.
Twenty years since he had last sat in the car his grandfather had left him.
The first time Ethan rode in it, he had felt as though he were inside an airplane.
He could still vividly remember the needles in the numerous gauges moving back and forth across the instrument panel.
From that moment onward, Ethan had dreamed of becoming a pilot.
That dream had never come true.
Instead of sitting in an aircraft cockpit, he had ended up behind a desk with a computer monitor.
His disappointment had been brief.
He had comforted himself by asking how many people actually lived out their dreams.
Even so, he had never completely let go of his lingering attachment, which was why he continued driving a Saab made by a company that once built jet aircraft.
“The key is already in the ignition. It’s ready to drive whenever you are.”
Jason’s words, ready to drive, sounded to Ethan like an air traffic controller announcing that he had been cleared for takeoff.
Some people might have found the thought childish.
But at this moment, Ethan truly felt like a pilot preparing for his first flight.
Click—vrooooooom—
The 4.7-liter V8 engine came to life.
The heavy rotational character of the old OHV engine, simpler in design than a modern DOHC engine, reminded him of the rhythmic turning of an aircraft propeller and filled him with excitement.
More than anything, the sight of the needles moving in perfect order across all seven gauges completely captivated both his eyes and his heart.
“May I take it out for a quick drive?”
Ethan hurriedly pulled out a check, handed over the remaining balance, and asked.
“Of course. It’s your car, Ethan. Take it home today. You can leave the Saab parked here.”
“Thank you so much. Then… whew…”
With trembling hands, Ethan shifted into gear.
The moment he released the clutch, the silver car glided toward the road as though taxiing onto a runway.
Arizona’s endless roads beckoned to him.
Now it was time to truly fly.
“Let’s go!”
Vroooooooom!
The speedometer needle shot upward, and he felt the air flowing past the windows accelerate.
The long hood visible through the windshield resembled the nose of an airplane cutting through the clouds.
He had wanted to become a pilot, but reality had forced him to confine himself among numbers and ledgers.
Yet at this moment, he had become a free bird, flying not over the ground but thirty thousand feet above it.
He operated the toggle switches on the dashboard one by one.
The cool texture beneath his fingertips felt unfamiliar, yet it made his chest swell with emotion.
When he lowered the window, Arizona’s dry evening wind violently tousled his hair.
“Aaaaaah!”
Without caring who might hear him, Ethan let out a cry of exhilaration.
He pressed the accelerator all the way down.
The louder the engine roared, the freer he became from the gravity that had bound him to the earth.
The Studebaker Gran Turismo Hawk.
A silver hawk soared powerfully toward the horizon.
—————
[Restoration Complete]
Vehicle: 1964 Studebaker GT Hawk
Proficiency Enhanced
Coins Acquired: 420
Total Coins: 22,855
—————
A dream, huh…
A man who had dreamed of becoming a pilot had made a car inspired by airplanes his dream car.
So stories like that really do exist in real life.
I fell into thought as I watched Ethan and the Studebaker disappear into the distance.
After standing there for a moment, I folded the restoration check in my hand and slipped it into my pocket.
Eight thousand dollars.
It was the net profit from my first commissioned restoration.
It still feels strange.
The fact that I was restoring cars.
The fact that I could earn money like this from doing it.
Those things felt like dreams to me.
So does living with this little guy.
Wheeet—
“Dusty, let’s go for a walk.”
At my low whistle, Dusty’s ears perked up from where he sat on his cushion, and he came running over excitedly.
“You like walks that much?”
Pant, pant—
After finally calming him down from spinning circles in place, I fastened his leash and headed outside.
Now that October had arrived, the evening air had become fairly cool.
The daytime was still almost as hot as summer, but compared with July and August, it was far more bearable.
Dusty seemed pleased by the changing season too, and lately our walks had grown much longer.
With nowhere to go, no purpose, and no thoughts.
Walking like this was not bad at all.
It was one of the pleasures of walking that I had discovered thanks to Dusty.
Ring-ring-ring—
At that moment, the phone rang, breaking the silence of the quiet wasteland.
“Yes, hello?”
“Hello, Jason!”
“Rafael! It’s been a long time. Have you been well?”
“Yes, and that’s the problem. If I kept waiting for you to call, I thought I might die of old age, so I called first. Have you been busy lately?”
“I just finished restoring the car I was working on, so I’m free now.”
“That works out well. Then would you care to come somewhere with me? I promise it won’t be a waste of your time.”
Rafael made an unusual request.
He had abruptly asked me to go somewhere with him.
However, judging from the personality I had seen so far, he was certainly not the kind of man who said pointless things.
“All right. When are we leaving?”
I answered immediately without much thought.
Whatever it was, I would probably see and learn something by going with him.
When I sold the Corvette C2, he had also mentioned that he had something business-related to discuss with me.
“Bwahaha! You’re answering before you’ve even heard where we’re going? I can never tell whether you’re simply innocent or hiding an old fox inside you. Anyway, meet me at my office in El Paso tomorrow. I’ll text you the address. Oh, and be sure to bring your passport.”
My passport?
His last remark raised questions, but Rafael had already ended the call before I could ask anything.
“Dusty, it looks like we might be going somewhere far away tomorrow.”
As soon as I spoke, the clever little guy hurried toward the Chevy truck.
Then he planted his rear in front of the passenger door and wagged his tail wildly, as though telling me to open it quickly.
Perhaps it was only my imagination, but Dusty was smarter than any puppy I had ever seen.
Still, these occasional foolish actions made me laugh.
“Not today. We’re going tomorrow.”
I gently stroked the head of the confused puppy, who could not understand why I was not opening the door.
Cárdenas Classic Motors
Early the next morning, I arrived at the address Rafael had given me in El Paso, Texas.
This doesn’t look like a simple office.
From the outside, it appeared to be an ordinary sand-beige warehouse building of the kind seen everywhere in Texas.
However, its unexpectedly large size and the expensive-looking sign gave it an unusual presence.
Click—hiss—
When I pressed a small button, the automatic glass doors slid open to either side.
The moment I stepped inside, even the texture of the air against my skin changed.
The harsh, humid heat outside vanished, and pleasantly controlled temperature and humidity enveloped my entire body.
“My God… How many cars are in here?”
But I could not spare any attention for the pleasant temperature.
Inside what had appeared to be a warehouse, more than thirty classic cars stood in orderly rows beneath perfect lighting.
It felt as though I had entered a small automobile museum.
[1970 Dodge Challenger R/T]
[1957 Chevrolet Bel Air]
[1953 Buick Roadmaster]
.
.
.
Nor had he merely filled the space with random cars to make up the numbers.
Every vehicle on display possessed the kind of value that any classic-car enthusiast would have coveted at least once.
Rafael had clearly selected each one personally.
“You’re here, Jason?”
Rafael spotted me from the glass-walled office on the second floor of the showroom, waved, and came down the stairs.
Instead of his usual comfortable T-shirt, he wore a neat polo shirt and an expensive watch, making him look completely different from when I saw him outside.
However, his relaxed, down-to-earth smile as he welcomed me was the same Rafael as always.
“Hello, Rafael. It’s all right if the puppy comes inside too, isn’t it?”
“Of course. His name was Dusty, right?”
“Woof, woof!”
Dusty somehow remembered Rafael from their brief previous meeting and wagged his tail happily.
“Wow. To be honest, I never imagined it would be this large. Rafael… you’re incredibly wealthy.”
“Hahaha, wealthy? Hearing a young man say that makes me feel embarrassed. Money comes naturally while you work, and it disappears just as naturally. More importantly, what I wanted to show you was my eye for cars. What do you think of my inventory?”
Rafael asked with a subtly expectant look in his eyes.
Honestly, the answer was obvious.
“You have a balanced selection of iconic models from the 1950s through the 1970s. At the same time, they all pursue slightly different directions, so I can sense your ambition to appeal to a wide range of customer tastes.”
“Ambition? Hahaha! That’s right. You saw through me perfectly. I hate hearing that someone couldn’t find a car they liked in my shop even more than I hate failing to make a sale. Come on. Let’s talk in more detail inside.”
Rafael had seemed to be in an unusually good mood since our conversation the previous day.
He led me through a narrow corridor at the back of the showroom and into a private area.
There was a small reception room with luxurious carpeting, and in one corner sat a Shelby Cobra.
“Wait… Rafael, is that actually an original Shelby?”
The instant I saw the car, I froze like a statue.
The Shelby Cobra.
The holy grail of American classic-car collectors, created by fitting a Ford V8 engine into the body of a British AC Cars roadster.
(Translator’s Note: AC Cars — A British automobile manufacturer whose roots date to 1901. Its AC Ace roadster became the basis of the Shelby Cobra after Carroll Shelby arranged for Ford V8 engines to be installed.)
Even the least expensive versions started at around one million dollars.
As for CSX 2000, which had the distinction of being personally driven by tuner Carroll Shelby, it had once sold at auction for the astronomical sum of 13.75 million dollars.
(Translator’s Note: CSX 2000 — The first Shelby Cobra, completed in 1962 and retained by Carroll Shelby. It sold through RM Sotheby’s in August 2016 for US$13.75 million.)
(Translator’s Note: Carroll Shelby — An American racing driver, designer, and entrepreneur born on January 11, 1923. He won the 1959 24 Hours of Le Mans and later developed the Shelby Cobra and high-performance Ford Mustang variants.)
There were so many replicas that it was safe to assume ninety-nine percent of the Shelby Cobras encountered on the road were not originals.
“Hmm. What does it look like to you? Try to guess without opening the engine bay.”
Rafael looked at me with interest as he asked.
To be honest, from the moment we met today, I had felt as though Rafael had been testing me constantly.
This was probably the final trial.
Ding—
[Would you like to load the information for the 1964 Shelby Cobra 289?]
At that moment, the familiar window appeared in my mind.
This time, however, I decisively selected “No.”
I did not want to spoil the fun of Rafael’s little game.
More importantly, I thought it would be a good opportunity to see how much my own judgment had improved.
I had been reading every automotive book I could get my hands on whenever I had spare time.
“Then… allow me to examine it for a moment…”
“Take as long as you like.”
Rafael’s eyes were filled with curiosity and amusement as he watched me.
They were exactly like the eyes he had shown when inspecting and appraising the Corvette not long ago.
[Shelby Cobra 289]
CC BY 2.0, photograph by usf1fan2