Geoff Nicholson - Gravity’s Volkswagen

I’d been quite wrong about it not being a Beetle. A Beetle was most definitely what it was, or at least what it had started life as. It was now a vehicle that had been stripped down, reduced to its basics, concentrated, distilled. It was partly a Baja, partly a dune buggie, partly a sandrail, partly a rat rod, and yet it was something quite other than all these things.

Very little of the original was left: no doors, no roof, no bodywork to speak of, although a sleek, pointed version of the distinctive Beetle snout remained in place and a mouth full of vicious teeth had been painted across its very tip. There was just one seat, the kind you might find in a jet fighter, and there was a full roll cage.

At the rear of the thing was the engine, naturally. Clearly it was the usual flat-four, horizontally opposed, air-cooled Volkswagen engine, but it had been decked out with various performance add-ons. I knew enough to recognise twin carburettors, upgraded air filters, an oil intercooler and a stinger exhaust, but there were all kinds of high-tech gadgets clamped around it that I couldn’t identify. It looked all business, serious business, disreputable business, but again it took me longer than it should have to work out just what that business was.

Leezza got in the car, looking completely and utterly at home, like she absolutely belonged there, and she started the engine. It was one of the most exciting noises I’d ever heard: not just loud, not just powerful, but truly, scarily elemental. It still sounded like a Volkswagen, but a Volkswagen on heat, on steroids, on hallucinogens, a Volkswagen that was ready to scream the place down. Leezza put the car in gear, gave it a sudden blast of throttle and the machine lurched forward, spun its rear wheels, kicked up its front end and did a gorgeous, dangerous wheelie. I was in love.

DJ Ballard put on what he thought was appropriate music, Van Halen’s ‘Jump’, which I thought was a bit old hat. It was the cue for Leezza to drive the car in a long wide loop, away from the seats and the stage at first, but then she turned, began her approach, and brought the car all the way round so that it lined up with the ramps and the row of Beetles in the centre of the track. When the car was dead straight on to the upward ramp, it began to gather speed. The acceleration was so smooth and controlled that it was hard to tell just how fast the car was going, but you knew it must be pulling some serious Gs, and there was only a fraction of a second between it hitting its spot at the base of the upward ramp and becoming airborne. The car launched itself effortlessly into space.

The flight was long and smooth and very clean.

The car remained straight and level, floating, gliding, mocking gravity. It passed without effort over the line of Beetles and landed on the other side, smoothly, precisely at the very centre of the downward ramp. The body sagged deeply on the rugged suspension, the wheels shrugged off the impact, then the car righted itself and went a couple of hundred yards before Leezza spun it round in a handbrake turn. Some cheap fireworks went off in the grass, and DJ Ballard changed the music to ‘Ghost Riding The Whip’, which I thought was much hipper.

The crowd, such as it was, cheered and applauded loudly, trying to make up in enthusiasm what it lacked in numbers. And one voice was louder, more raucous and frantic than all the rest. It was Barry. Someone had pushed his dead Beetle into position beside the seats so that he had a good view of the jump, or as good as you could have while trapped inside a Beetle. He yelled until he was hoarse, continuing long after everybody else had gone quiet. There was something manic about his enthusiasm. You would have thought he’d seen a miracle, and in truth we all knew he hadn’t.

The stunt had been fantastic in a way, very impressive and obviously extremely skilful. You had to admire the clinical, scientific way it was done, and yet I couldn’t help thinking there was something just a little too studied and perfect about it. I didn’t know much about stunt driving then, and I only know a little more about it now, and I certainly didn’t want to see a terrible crash, yet it seemed to me that a great stunt needed to look riskier, to be a bit more ragged, to steer closer to disaster.

As a way to end an automotive freak show it was curiously sedate, and it had absolutely nothing in common with the image on that painting by the gate, the one that showed the flaming car flying over the bottomless ravine. I couldn’t have said I went home disappointed but I was certainly left wanting something more. Maybe, I told myself, that was the whole idea.

If history has taught us anything (and I know it’s a big if, and I’m not sure quite who the ‘us’ is, but anyway…) it’s that bad guys come in all shapes and sizes, and in all manner of disguises. If evil tendencies went along with clearly identifiable markers, such as an ugly physiognomy or a black hat, life would be much simpler. Of course the Nazis made it pretty simple. They wore jackboots, sported death’s head insignia, they shouted loudly and unpleasantly in German, they had a dodgy salute. In retrospect even those pre-war Beetle prototypes have a distinctly sinister, satanic look about them.

When I wrote Volkswagens and Velociraptors , I didn’t want my anti-hero Troy, the character who turns into a little Hitler, then into a bigger one, to be too obviously or primarily a fascist. And I didn’t want the allegory to be too obvious. I did make him small and dark and resentful but I didn’t want him to be an absolute dead ringer for Hitler. I didn’t want to make him a disgruntled ex-soldier or a failed artist. I didn’t want to give him a toothbrush mustache. I wanted him to be an Everyman who just happened to turn into a Führer. That’s why I made him a used-car salesman, and a very English used-car salesman at that.

So naturally I was curious to see which actor was playing Troy in the movie. I’d seen the whole cast by now, and there wasn’t an obvious Troy among them. There was, however, one guy who stood out from the others because he was so much more glamorous and better looking than everyone else. He was more buff, more golden, more like a star, although you’d probably have said a TV star rather than a movie star. His name was Angelo Sterling and he was curiously ageless: he could have been a young guy with maturity and gravitas beyond his years, or he could have been an older guy who’d retained his youthful aura. He didn’t look Aryan exactly, though he did have elements of a Viking and a beach bum about him. He was the last person in the world I’d have thought would make a good Troy. Needless to say, he was playing Troy.

“Hi, Ian,” he said, joining me as I was foraging for breakfast next morning. “I’m Angelo. I’m your Troy.”

We had another one of those conversations about whether or not he was the way I’d imagined my character. I’d have been happy to lie and say he was just fine, but I was too slow, or he was too quick.

“It’s OK,” he said, “I know I’m all wrong for the part. I read the script and I thought, Angelo, there’s no part there for you. And I didn’t really get the concept. It didn’t come alive for me. So I went away and read the book, your book, the original, and then I got it, and I loved it, and even though I still didn’t see myself as Troy I really wanted to be a part of the project. So I signed on. Just to be involved was enough for me. I said I’d be happy to play some minor supporting role. Anything. But you know, I’m cursed with these pretty-boy, leading-man good looks, and one thing led to another, so here I am, and I’m your Troy. Hope that isn’t a problem for you.”