Notes From the Hard Shoulder

by James May

  'Donut development', as the Americans call and spell it, is not a phenomenon unique to Detroit. Happens in England too, that people move out to the suburbs and the shops and services follow. What we call the inner city ends up poor, underfunded, problematic. But Detroit is something else.

  Turning from the main road to a deathly silent side street, we find rows of magnificent turn-of-the-century houses where once the captains of industry and commerce dwelt, and elegant '30s apartment blocks. All are derelict, some burned out. It is the occasional intact house that looks incongruous here. An abandoned wind chime sounds eerily from some long-ruined garden. The destruction, once you look, is everywhere – cinemas, shops, commercial premises. Even Hudson's department store in the town centre, remembered by every old person we spoke to as the hub of the city's good feeling, stands as a multi-storey testament to Detroit's decay. The new shop is in the suburbs too. 'They couldn't lease that place for one dollar,' says a scarred Vietnam veteran I met in its shadows, who, tragically, is living on the street.

  Postwar affluence has something to do with it. The GI Bill gave returning soldiers cheap loans to build new houses, and they did it in the suburbs. The car industry was wealthy, and wealth migrates outward, too. The very product that made the city, the car, allowed people to commute from afar. The suburbs are thriving still. Drive north to the inappropriately named Birmingham and you find an attractive and prosperous town of its own. Drive – there's no bus – east to Grosse Pointe and see fabulous mansions. Edsel Ford built one of them.

  But the summer of 1967 was the turning point. Legend has it the famous riot started in an after-hours drinking den near the old Tiger Stadium, with a slanging match between aggrieved blacks and the predominantly white police force. 'It was a feeling that kinda burst out,' says one who, returning to the city that evening, couldn't even get to his street. 'It was a hot, sticky day. The sort of day when you might want to riot.' Inevitably, the rioters ended up destroying their own neighbourhoods. By the end of it 43 were dead, Detroit's 'nicely integrated' social fabric had come unstuck and age-old racial tensions were unfettered. On the streets you can canvass opinions from people of all parties, but their views are predictable and not worth repeating.

  Realtors cashed in, buying people out of their houses for a song and selling them new ones in the suburbs at a handsome price, what we would now call a 'distress purchase'. Eventually some people simply abandoned their homes. Crime moved in. A campaign poster reads GUNS, GANGS, DRUGS – HAD ENOUGH? Not, as I said, a unique scenario, but what might be called a worst-case one.

  Even the factories have largely gone. GM's Ham-tramck plant, where Cadillacs are made, is the only one that can claim to be in Detroit proper. Its longstanding Clarke Street factory was torn down a few years ago, an event that still causes heartache amongst the General's executives. Ford's Highland Park factory, where the T was made, is now just a storage depot.

  We drive back up Woodward and eventually find Piquete Street. The General Linen and Uniform Service looks like the right building, and gaffer Tom invites us in. Standing amidst the damp and flaking paint of the deserted upper floor, you can just get a sense of the building as it was in the photograph behind Tom's desk downstairs – half-finished cars tightly packed, men swarming around them. This is the factory where Ford built his 'alphabet cars', the models A, B ... everything up to the S, after which things were changed utterly. The steel sliding door through which completed cars were loaded on to trains is long seized. Tom's stationery cupboard was once a walk-in safe; the bricked-up window behind his desk was where men lined up for the fat weekly pay packets that had brought them here. But beyond the current tenant's personal enthusiasm, there's nothing to tell you what this building once was.

  Detroit, we are told, is getting better. The carjacking and mugging we were warned against in its wrecked streets did not actually materialise. Plans are under way to regenerate the streets; the original GM building will be donated to the city and turned to wholesome civic purposes. All good stuff. But what Detroit needs is a sense of posterity.

  A CLOT ON THE LANDSCAPE

  As a good general rule, anything that involves dressing up – joining the navy, working in McDonalds, being a High Court Judge – is to be avoided. Invited to join the Land Rover Defender Challenge, essentially a two-day marathon of rolling around in the dust somewhere in Andalucia, I was advised that I would need to bring my 'adventure clothing'.

  I had a quick rummage through the wardrobe and was relieved to find that I didn't have any, save for an old pair of Land Rover boots stolen during a factory visit.

  'I haven't got any adventure clothing,' I said, 'so I won't be able to come.'

  'Oh, don't worry,' said the PR lady. 'Just bring something old, so it won't matter if it gets ruined.' This immediately opened up the entire May spring/summer collection. 'Anyway, we can lend you something.' Bugger.

  Several things distinguish Land Rover from other manufacturers. One is a steadfast refusal to use the word 'car'. A Land Rover is always a 'vehicle' and any sort of off-road activity is an 'expedition'. The other is the company's range of corporate clothing. Since Land Rover is all about conquering Africa and places like that, it's only reasonable that they should offer a comprehensive range of pith helmets, khaki shirts, safari jackets and trousers on which the legs unzip to create instant shorts. This is just what you need out in Kenya, surrounded by crocs and armed with nothing more than the cocktail stick from your last gin and tonic – selectable low- and high-ratio legwear. For the full comedy effect, remove just one leg.

  And so it was that on the first day of the Defender Challenge I was standing by my vehicle and standing by to stand by in nicked boots, an old T-shirt that I thought looked very Land Rovery (because it's green) and adventure trousers. Meanwhile, the Land Rover staff emerged at the double in line astern looking like a platoon of the Queen's Own Off-Roaders, all crisp shirts, pressed shorts and proper haircuts and under the command of Sergeant-Major Roger Crathorne, Land Rover's head of off-road driving and all things decent, military and highly polished. 'This is a challenge,' he announced. 'You will get dirty, and you will get wet. Familiarise yourself with the vehicle.'

  Essentially what you see here is a Defender 90 TD5 turbo-diesel, reputedly the world's most capable off-roader. It is obviously – pauses to light pipe and don woolly hat – a proper Land Rover. The body styling looks as if it was worked out in cardboard rather than Cad-Cam. It is a direct spiritual descendant of the Wilkes brothers' original knockabout farm utility vehicle of 1948 and in some ways hasn't progressed at all. All the door hinges are still on the outside.

  But you have to wonder how much longer Land Rover will be able to call it the 90. As the figure refers to the wheelbase in inches, there's a good chance the Solihull Trading Standards Officer will confiscate the lot under some EU directive on SI units. It will then have to be rebadged as the Defender 2,286mm, and that will be England gone.

  My Defender was offered in 'Expedition Spec', which means more auxiliary lights than I managed to count, various bash-plates and side steps, a powered winch mounted in the front bumper, a high-level engine breather for 'deep water fording' and aluminium tread plates around the bonnet that would allow me to 'climb up on to the wings'. Why? Sand channels and jerry cans were affixed to a sort of roof-mounted viewing platform reached by a ladder up the back, on which I would be able to stand and salute to the bitter end as I went down with my vehicle. It looked terrific. Where other off-roaders make some sort of 'lifestyle statement', this one is used by the army. The Defender 90 TD5 Expedition Spec is laden with kit and the promise of great suffering.

  In the back were more things that should have been outlawed by the Geneva Convention – a selection of tow ropes, a shovel and a large axe with which I would be able to hack off my own arm before eating it. In the cabin, though, things were more promising. There was a radio, for a start, and a survival pack including choc bars, packets of tissues and bottles of mineral water.
This was most encouraging, as by this point I imagined that getting a drink would involve straining swamp water through my pants or something.

  The Defender Challenge began on the evening of my arrival, just at the point when I was ready for a beer and bed, with a night-driving exercise. Off-roading at night is something I'd never done before and it's quite interesting. I may have had the candle-power of a searchlight battery at my disposal, but even that would only illuminate a limited area of the Andalucian outback, especially when stuck halfway up a steep slope with all the auxiliary lights pointing at Venus. Twenty paces from the Land Rover there could have been almost anything – a proper road, perhaps – but your imagination conjures up something much more sinister. I reached through the window and swivelled the roof-mounted searchlight to check for hordes of spear-wielding natives and was startled when the beam briefly picked out a wild Brummie leaping through the undergrowth and emitting its characteristic cry of 'diff lock!'.

  So far, the biggest dangers were being flayed by an unseen branch through the open window and attracting extra spud-peeling duties from the sarge for breaches of off-road etiquette. I retired to bed and spent a sleepless night, unable to breathe properly through all the crusty bogies that the dust had formed in my nose. I knew the next day would be worse because there had been some worrying talk of 'team spirit' over dinner.

  It began easily enough with some rutted tracks, talk of axle articulation and more radio-relayed bollockings about the diff lock. Then we came to a river. 'In you go,' said Roger. 'Gently does it.' I removed the lower portion of my adventure trousers.

  At first the Defender chugged indomitably through the shallows, generating a pleasing bow-wave in accordance with correct wading technique. Then the river deepened and a curious bubbling sound could be heard from the now submerged exhaust pipe. Then I noticed the rapid ingress of silty water through the bottom of the driver's door. This in itself was not actually a problem, as the Defender is waterproof right up to its steering wheel, but I found myself driving one-handed, the other engaged in a constant battle to keep mobile phone, tape recorder, walkie-talkie and the discarded parts of my trousers above the rapidly rising water line. I could no longer see my boots and my tuck box bobbed around in the passenger footwell, yet the Defender maintained steady progress.

  But the river was deepening all the time. Soon the gear stick simply jutted out from a sea of brown like a dead branch. The wheels scrabbled for grip in the muddy riverbed, digging even deeper holes for the vehicle, and I had to acknowledge that my Defender had now arrived at that situation described in off-road parlance as 'sinking'.

  'Leave me,' I ordered. 'Go on, and save yourselves.' It seemed sensible to sit tight, listen to España FM, eat my chocolate and hope for rescue by a craft better suited to the terrain. A boat, perhaps. As I settled down for the long wait I began recording some observations concerning the interior, or what I could still see of it. It's rather basic and free of any extraneous feature save the radio. It may now be largely devoid of bare metal but that essential hose-down quality survives in the slightly brittle plastics, and the Defender was to become the only vehicle I've ever jet-washed on the inside.

  A man appeared on the bank with a stout rope. 'Out you get,' he yelled. For some reason that I still don't understand I clambered out through the window. Perhaps I sensed, instinctively, that opening the door would let water into the vehicle.

  Up to my nads in the river, I attached a tow rope. But the ignominy didn't end with being hauled out. Though successfully beached, I noticed that the Defender was still full of water. A helpful colleague opened the passenger door to let it out, with the result that my rations were immediately swept overboard and back into the river, necessitating a second bout of wading to effect the most important recovery operation of the day.

  I still wasn't in the clear, because there was a steep and seemingly unassailable bank to ascend. Incredibly, the Defender went straight up it, but when I returned to the slope to embrace the team spirit and help my stranded colleagues, I fell straight on my arse. This means either that the Defender is even more capable than I first imagined, or that more of the R&D budget needs to be spent in the boot department.

  I wish it to be known that Autocar magazine made it up the bank thanks mainly to sterling spade work by your own correspondent.

  Further along the trail was Land Rover's favourite off-road obstacle, the v-shaped gully. This is best approached at an angle, to prevent grounding out. 'Nice and steady,' said Sarge. 'This one could easily tip you on to the roof.' I put the nearside front wheel into the ditch and the Defender responded with a lightning blow to the side of the head with the door frame. An absurd angle of incidence was achieved, wheels hung in the air (diff lock!) and all unsecured objects in the cabin formed a neat pile on the passenger door. This was ridiculous. If I was going to end up on the roof I wanted it to be the result of a 150mph get-off in a mid-engined supercar, not of creeping forward at 0.2mph while surrounded by men from the West Midlands telling me how to drive.

  But I have to say that I made it. The Defender may handle like a Bechstein on a real road but out in the cuds it will cross terrain that I'd hesitate to tackle on a donkey. As its chassis components are made largely of pig-iron it's virtually impossible to break, and if the bodywork sustains a few dents it somehow looks better for it. At the very least you could always just pull the thing apart and knock them out with the heel of your coarse boot.

  I did slightly less well at the long and terrifyingly steep descent, followed by the dried-up watercourse and the equally long ascent up the other side, another standard off-road scenario that has the Land Rover squaddies rubbing their hands in anticipation of your failure.

  Low range, first gear, diff lock, feet right off the pedals, thumbs outside the steering wheel in case an unseen rock sends it spinning wildly; down I went, gently gently gently gently, the engine moaning, the seatbelt threatening to take my head off, trickles of water re-emerging from under the seat and re-entering my boots.

  The thud of the front wheels into the ditch, and renewed contact between the head and something of military issue hardness, was the cue to snick it into second and gun the diesel for the long and slippery climb. My one criticism of the TD5 blown diesel is that it can leave you a bit bogged down in the lower end of the rev range, and it's a bit of a double bummer to find yourself bogged down by both turbocharger technology and the terrain. The gearchange also owes a certain amount to Victorian railway engineering.

  But at least I remembered to put the diff lock on. In fact, I had almost achieved a faultless performance and attained the summit when Roger came on the radio and said, 'That was very good,' which I somehow misunderstood as an instruction to drive straight into a tree.

  In all I hit two trees, got stuck three times, forded two rivers, had two tows, made one dent in the Defender and lost one leg, but only off my adventure trousers. The total distance covered was only about 45 miles, but at least half of it was the really difficult stuff you see in the Camel Trophy brochure. Normally, the Defender would not figure highly in any discussion of vehicle refinement, but when I finally turned on to real tarmac again I felt as if I'd stepped on to a sheepskin rug after a day of walking barefoot through gravel.

  Here is why I would, in the end, recommend something like the Defender Challenge. Off-roading around your local disused quarry is right up there with ironing your socks, but a proper 'expedition' with a genuine objective – a decent dinner and the beer I was hoping for on arrival – is, I almost hesitate to admit, pretty invigorating stuff. Best of all, and as with being flogged, you'll feel much better for it afterwards. Mainly because it's over.

  DON'T FORGET YOUR TOOLKIT

  My friend Sophie was on the phone, speaking in a slightly manic tone disturbing in most people but quite becoming in one who is half Italian. 'My aunt's given me her old car. Will you come with me to pick it up and drive it back?' Can't you do it by yourself? Where is it? 'In a little village on Lake C
omo.' Italy? Fantastico! That's altogether different. I'd be delighted. What is it, by the way? 'A 1967 Fiat Cinquecento.'

  Ah...

  Lake Como is an unutterably beautiful place; much prettier, to my eye, than the slightly flashy neighbouring Lugano. The tiny village of Rezzonico, home to the previous two generations of the Langella family, is a haphazard pile of old houses crowding the water's edge as if drawing sustenance from it and growing there. Focal point of the community is the diminutive and ancient Capella de Sant' Antonio, patron saint of, er, things that have gone missing, apparently.

  I press for explanation over dinner, a homely affair of local produce, gargantuan portions and several courses, the complete consumption of any one of which is taken to indicate unsatedness and generates a refill. If something goes missing, say the car key, then Nonna (grandma) says a quick prayer to St Antony and, like as not, it will turn up.

  And if it doesn't? Doesn't this shake one's faith in the great martyr somewhat? 'Oh, no,' comes the translation. 'In that case it was actually lost.' By this point we were on course four, the freshly picked cherries. Bloated, I discreetly slipped handfuls back into the central bowl when no one was looking, and was thought to have acquitted myself admirably, portion-wise. Time to move on to the cake then. Surely not. Out came a huge slab locally baked in honour of ... guess who? No, not me – St Antony. Anything not consumed there and then would be coming with us in the car. That Tony also moonlights as a guardian of travellers offered some reassurance. Presumably he would stop us from actually getting lost.

  The omnipresence of the great saint was a glaring portent that escaped me in the excitement generated by the unveiling of the car that would be our trusty companion for the next five days. Bought new (locally, of course) in 1967 and promised to Sophie when she was a small child, the Cinquecento was a monument to the sort of originality that old car collectors covet. Every last piece of paperwork ever generated by this car, even old tax discs, survives in ordered, rubber-band-bound form. It came with the optional radio, but that hadn't been unpacked from its box yet; I even came across a letter from the salesman expressing hope that the car would prove satisfactory. Last year, the same bloke sold Sophie's aunt a new Cinquecento after a protracted example of what dealers call a repeat sales prospect. In the intervening 27 years the old car had never left Rezzonico and its environs. This, and the presence of St Antony on the metal dashboard in magnetic map-holding form, should have told me something.