The Driver by Alexander Roy Page B

producer to whom he’d sold it in 1988, was such a car. Even with 92,000 miles it had inexplicably improved every year with nothing more than annual oil changes and inspections. I knew I’d give the 911 to my as-yet-unborn son.
    My Audi S4, alas, was not such a car. Despite all we had shared, it was plagued with recurring turbo-hose ruptures. I needed to replace it.
    But, before acquiring the right car for Gumball, before I could approach potential copilots who already owned more suitable cars, I needed an edge, a strategy, a lock on entry.
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    â€œYou are absolutely out of your mind,” said my attorney, Seth Friedland. I knew he’d say that. “It’s a felony,” he continued, “and I don’t need to—”
    â€œSeth, I don’t have a suitable car or copilot. I’m running out of time to fill out this Gumball application. I need to tell them something outrageous if I’m gonna get into this thing.”
    Seth was straight out of a Law & Order casting call. Fiftyish, short, handsome, and impeccably dressed in a pin-striped suit with suspenders, he spoke with the confidence and authority of the attorney every TV criminal wished he could afford. Seth and I had met right after the 9/11 attacks nearly destroyed the office building we shared. I was fighting our landlord over compensation for the professional cleaning necessary to make the EBC office habitable, and Seth was the only other tenant willing to join the fight. Seth reminded me of my own father, and this was the first test of his willingness to aid in my quest.
    â€œMaybe,” said Seth, bringing his hands together as if in prayer, “you should do some research. You’re a creative guy. Surely you can come up with a better idea.”
    It was too late for that.
    The Gumball Rally , Cannonball Run 1 and 2, Cannonball!, and Death Race 2000 .
    Most of the characters in the films had allegedly been based on real people, so I made a list of all The Drivers and cars from all the films and the few articles I could find about the real races from the 1970s, then divided them into two distinct schools of thought.
    The brute force camp drove Ferraris, Lamborghinis, or Porsches in the belief that maximum power and speed would make up for time lost to frequent refueling and traffic stops.
    The stealth camp brought vehicles and disguises meant to confuse and (hopefully) pacify the authorities—the most ambitious being The Gumball Rally ’s fake police car, and Cannonball Run ’s fake ambulance (Burt Reynolds’s Transcon Medevac) and fake priests (Sammy Davis Jr. and a drunk-onset Dean Martin in a Ferrari 308).
    Although Yates himself had Cannonballed in the actual Transcon Medevac, with his wife as the fake patient, there was no evidence anyone else had ever used such disguises in real life.
    I knew exactly which camp I fell into.
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    â€œI’ve done the research,” I said, “and I’m completely serious.”
    â€œAs your attorney—”
    â€œSeth, have you seen The Gumball Rally ?”
    â€œNo, but I don’t need to, to know that impersonating the police is a really, really, really bad idea. What about if—” Then, in a moment of joint Thomas Edison–level revelatory insight that would forever bind us, change me, and greatly increase Seth’s billable hours in an area of law in which there is virtually no precedent, he said, “—you drove…a foreign police car?”
    â€œNow that, ” I exclaimed, “is worth $385 an hour!”
    â€œI was joking,” said Seth.
    â€œBut it might work!” I shot back, slapping my shaved head with both hands.
    â€œIt’s a long shot.”
    â€œIt’s certainly better than driving cross-country in an NYPD cruiser.”
    â€œI suppose”—Seth rubbed his chin—“it might buy you time, if you and the car looked sufficiently different from local law