Chapter 66: What Exactly Makes Them Different from Us?
“One minute left. Whew...”
Late in the evening, Dusty and I were the only ones left in the empty workshop.
Using the stainless-steel workbench as a dining table, I ate cup noodles while staring intently at my laptop screen.
[00:00:53 Remaining]
An auction posted by a salvage dealer in Pennsylvania for “Left and Right Door Panels for Mexican-Version Dodge Super Bee” was about to end.
Three, two, one!
[Auction Won]
Flash—
After competing to the very end against an unidentified person on the other side of the screen, the button finally lit up to confirm that I had won.
Have I found everything that can be found now?
After searching every corner of online parts retailers and private secondhand auction sites, I had managed to locate seventy percent of the parts on the list Mateo had given me.
The left and right door panels came from Pennsylvania.
The genuine floor mats came from Illinois.
The armrests came from Michigan.
However, the remaining thirty percent could not be found anywhere, even after expanding the search beyond the United States to Canada and South America.
It’s unfortunate, but I’ll have to give up on these five items...
For the first time in a while, I activated the Coin Market.
Ever since Alex began handling my taxes, I had gained considerable room under the purchasing limit for parts bought with coins.
[1971 Dodge Super Bee A-Body]
The emblems are ridiculously expensive. Still, I can’t give up on these two.
In classic-car restoration, a single tiny emblem could create a surprisingly large difference in value.
That was why rare original emblems were usually worth whatever the seller demanded.
In the case of the Mexican Super Bee, however, even those could not be found at any price.
And for the engine parts, I’ll buy these two.
BUY!
The Chrysler-Dodge 318 engine was common in the United States, but neither parts nor even technical drawings could be found for the high-compression camshaft and valvetrain exclusive to the Mexican version.
Most people simply gave up and installed components for the American engine instead.
But that stripped away the distinctive sharpness of the high-compression engine, turning it into a soft, watered-down mass-market engine.
[Order Complete]
Coins Deducted: -1,660 C
Remaining Coins: 48,095 C
I had completed quite a few restorations recently, so my coin balance had grown considerably without me noticing.
The purchase was unexpectedly easy to absorb.
I lifted the particularly bright silver emblem and held it beneath the light.
It was true NOS—New Old Stock—with not a single scratch.
Mateo is going to love this when he sees it.
About a week after I ordered the parts, various Super Bee components began arriving from across the United States.
“Then I’m heading out!”
“All right. Drive safely. Give Mateo my regards too.”
“Yes!”
Vroom—
Noah departed in the company Ford Ranger for Mateo’s workshop in New Mexico.
The truck bed was loaded with parts purchased online and others bought through the Coin Market.
Buying a pickup as the company vehicle really was the right decision.
As soon as Noah left, I picked up my own keys and headed straight for Miller’s machine shop.
“Excuse me!”
“Good grief! You’ll rupture my eardrums. Why are you shouting?”
Last time, he had not noticed me because of the noise from the machinery, so this time I had gathered my strength and shouted the moment I entered.
Unfortunately, I had arrived during a lull in the work, and the machine shop was as silent as a grave.
“Want coffee?”
Miller, who had been leisurely drinking coffee, asked me.
Translated from the language of old men who worked in machine shops, it was roughly equivalent to, “Welcome back. Good to see you again.”
“Yes, thank you.”
Without answering, he stood, pulled the glass pot from the coffee machine, and poured some into a mug.
“Here.”
Slurp.
The coffee Miller poured was typical American drip coffee: watery, bitter, and completely devoid of flavor.
Naturally, the United States had plenty of excellent coffee and cafés.
Even so, places like police stations and workshops still used coffee makers like this because coffee was not treated as a luxury to enjoy for its taste, but as a beverage for replenishing caffeine.
It is convenient to brew a huge batch in the morning and keep reheating it all day.
As I silently leaned against the wall and replenished my caffeine, Miller gestured toward one side of the workbench with his chin.
“The work’s finished. Go check it. That precious Mexican engine of yours.”
The way he stood with his arms crossed and eyes narrowed made it obvious that he intended to test me.
Regardless, I calmly pulled out a dial gauge.
After setting zero at the target diameter of 3.9400 inches, I began measuring from the first cylinder.
The cylinder walls now had a subtle silver sheen quite different from when I had left the block with him.
Fine intersecting lines formed a forty-five-degree crosshatch pattern.
“...Well?”
Miller asked as he watched me check all eight cylinders individually.
“Hmm... The bores are all consistent. The crosshatch is clean too.”
I lightly ran my fingertips across the deck, the top surface of the engine block, and looked at Miller.
“And you didn’t simply remove thirty-thousandths of an inch. You also made another pass across the top while leveling the deck, didn’t you? You were correcting the distortion peculiar to this engine.”
Miller’s eyebrow twitched before he answered.
“...Looks like you weren’t all talk after all. It’s a fifty-year-old engine, so there was no chance the deck surface was still straight. If I’d left it alone and assembled it like that, it would’ve been perfect for blowing a head gasket, so I touched it up.”
I continued speaking while angling the engine block beneath the shop lights and examining the cylinder walls.
“The plateau honing is better than I expected too. You lightly knocked down the peaks with four-hundred-grit stones. That should make the break-in much easier.”
It was not empty praise.
The finished work clearly showed that he had approached the entire engine with a deep understanding of the process.
“You said you were using molybdenum rings, didn’t you? Those rings are sensitive. If the surface is too rough, they wear out in no time. I didn’t want to hear any nonsense later, so I recalibrated the entire machine before I started. You shouldn’t have anything to complain about.”
Miller continued grumbling, but I did not miss the twitch at the corner of his mouth.
He brought out a hoist to make the engine easier to move and pushed it toward me.
“If you have another engine that needs work, bring it here. With your personality, you’ll only end up fighting with any other shop.”
Someone with an eye as sharp as yours needs a craftsman of my caliber. I’ll do the next engine properly too, so bring it here.
That was roughly what he meant.
“I may be even more demanding next time. Are you sure you’ll be all right with that?”
“Good grief! Look at this fellow. I’ll... I’ll do whatever it takes to satisfy you, so just don’t haggle over the labor.”
“That goes without saying.”
I handed him crisp bills as I spoke.
I had gained another shop I could trust.
After returning from Miller’s machine shop, I worked diligently, intending to finish assembling the entire engine before Noah came back.
Engines from this era really are easy to work on. Their construction is simple, and they have fewer parts.
There was almost no electronic equipment, the engine bay was spacious enough to provide plenty of working room, and the camshaft system that opened and closed the intake and exhaust valves was much simpler.
European cars might offer far more refined performance, but if a vehicle broke down on the roadside, these American V8 engines were much easier to repair on the spot.
Looking at things like this, perhaps it wasn’t that they lacked technology. Maybe they were simply pursuing something different from the beginning.
Once the parts-supply problem was resolved, the Super Bee restoration progressed as smoothly as a ship running before the wind.
Over the past week, Noah and I had already completed the chassis and body restoration in advance.
Having two people definitely made both the work itself and our use of time much more efficient.
Once the car comes back from paint, all that’s left is installing the engine and waiting for Mateo to finish the interior.
As I assembled the engine and calculated the remaining time—
Ring, ring—
My phone rang.
“Hello, Jason!”
As though he had heard my thoughts, it was Mateo.
“Jason! I’m going to eat Mexican food with Mateo right now. I’ll bring some back for you later!”
Noah’s voice also came through the receiver.
“You both sound like you’re having fun. Did you check the parts I sent?”
“Whew... Jason, that’s why I called. The other parts are impressive too, but where in the world did you find that dashboard and those emblems? They’re in perfectly preserved NOS condition!”
In truth, they were not merely perfectly preserved.
They were brand-new.
But no matter how imaginative he was, it would be difficult for him to reach that conclusion.
“I happened to get lucky and found them. Do you like them?”
“Whew! Honestly, they’re far beyond my expectations! Enough to make me want to keep asking you for help in the future.”
He clearly wanted to ask more about how I sourced the parts, but Mateo understood how this industry worked and did not press any deeper.
“Hahaha, I can help if you urgently need certain parts. Anyway, can I look forward to the finished work?”
“Of course! Thanks to your good fortune, I think this interior restoration will become an incredible piece. It’ll also shorten the schedule considerably. Whenever I work with you, everything always seems to go smoothly!”
“I’m glad you feel that way. Oh, and tell Noah not to overeat.”
“Hahahaha! Looking at his expression, I don’t think I can promise that!”
Mateo’s hearty laughter was loud enough to make the receiver vibrate.
“What the hell is going on?”
Alistair Blackwood’s furious roar echoed through his office.
At the same time, the report documents in his hand scattered through the air.
Apparently, even that was not enough to calm him, because he slammed his palm down on his mahogany desk with a heavy thud.
“It appears they are not an opponent we can afford to underestimate.”
Alistair’s right-hand man, the chief of staff, spoke while slowly picking up the white papers scattered across the office floor.
He smoothed out one crumpled sheet and placed it neatly on the desk.
Sterling Selection’s recent winning bids had been circled in red.
Every single one was higher than Blackwood’s.
“Underestimate them? Have you forgotten how much money I’ve invested? How much more am I supposed to spend against those small fry?”
Alistair snatched up his whiskey glass while breathing heavily.
The ice inside clattered loudly.
“We unquestionably have the advantage in volume, but they have the higher peaks. Our total profit likely cannot be compared, but people only look at the highest winning bids. And this car...”
The chief of staff pointed to one section of the paper.
A photograph of a Dodge Super Bee painted a brilliant fluorescent lime green had been printed there.
Beneath it was the model’s record auction price: an astonishing ninety-nine thousand dollars.
Compared to that, ours...
The difference was enormous when compared to the Super Bee Blackwood had auctioned on the same day, which had barely sold for more than seventy thousand dollars.
As though attempting to calm himself, Alistair lightly wet his lips with the cold whiskey.
“Why is there such a difference?”
“The appraisal grades of the submitted vehicles are different. If you look at the Super Bees, ours received a B7 grade, while Sterling’s received an A5.”
“You think I don’t know that? I’m asking why we can’t produce a vehicle of that grade.”
Alistair spoke while barely suppressing the rage boiling inside him.
“To begin with, there was some difference in the condition of the base vehicles. There is also an assessment that their restoration skill is simply superior.”
“Restoration skill...? Does our company not employ restorers? Don’t tell me you’re about to bring up that Asian man named Jason or James again.”
“Nevertheless, his name keeps circulating throughout the industry lately. I’ve also heard that he recently received a high NCRS score.”
“Didn’t the investigation say he worked jointly with a restorer who had fifty years of experience? He probably did nothing more than put his name on it!”
About a month earlier, Alistair had also begun hearing rumors of a young Asian restorer somewhere in the Arizona desert who possessed godlike skill.
Godlike skill? People in this industry truly love spreading stories.
Because the industry was so closed-off, rumors were frequently exaggerated the moment something attracted attention.
He naturally assumed this case was no different.
After all, the supposed protagonist of those rumors was merely a young upstart who had not even reached thirty.
It’s nearly impossible for an Asian to stand out in the classic-car industry in the first place.
Surprisingly, Alistair was not a racist.
Regardless of gender or skin color, he judged people solely by numbers.
Because of that, he believed he viewed the industry more objectively than anyone else.
In the eighty-five years his company had operated, the number of Asians who had distinguished themselves in the American classic-car industry was zero.
The likelihood of an Asian emerging among restoration technicians, who were generally trained through apprenticeship, was particularly low.
In any case, I can’t simply let them keep beating us. If our grades are lower, we’ll have to make up the difference.
Beep—
“Tell the head of the vehicle appraisal team to come in.”
Alistair’s lips twisted into a sinister smile as he pressed the call button.