Chapter One

Linda Hughes-Reed owed me big time, and I was about to collect. My wide-bottomed, rear end lodged deep in the leather passenger seat of a triple-black ’86 Corvette convertible; top down, music blaring; heater cooking my deck-shoed, sockless feet; cool, misty midnight October air waving wildly through what was left of my thinning brown hair. Flying low on I-4, eyeballing the Bee Line Expressway. Heading to a near-mystical place called Eckler’s in Titusville on Florida’s East Coast. Going to the 1992 version of “The Reunion,” a gathering that this year would celebrate “America’s Sports Car” reaching a milestone: the one-million mark. Thinking to myself, “Life is good” . . . and it was.

My pilot for this ground-level flight was Martin (pronounced Mar-teen) Gonzales, a Tampa native who’d parlayed his late father’s failing Spanish AM radio station into an all-talk, all-English, powerhouse that featured (among others) a controversial syndicated host named Rush Limbaugh. Ybor City’s Cuban community hated that Marti had dropped the money-losing, Spanish-language programming that had railed against Castro and Communism. Tampa’s media elite hated that he broadcast Limbaugh’s fiery brand of conservatism. He casually dismissed the criticism.

Cada cabeza es un mundo," Marti said, translating (for me) this Cuban proverb as, “Every head is a world of its own.”

I’d met Marti as a result of an article I’d done for Florida! magazine—an article Linda nearly spiked. I wondered how things would have turned out if she hadn’t listened when I told her to push off her annual hurricane edition until the September issue. She thought I was crazy and said so—in that earthy, slice-and-dice way that only a former cop-shop reporter can convey. But I pushed back (I’d shoveled through a few miles of police logs myself.) Sold her. Cajoled her. Won her over to a cover story called “When the Big One Hits,” convinced it would sell issues of her magazine, and, after all, I asked, “Isn’t that why you became a publisher in the first place?”

In the end, she agreed, but not before threatening to throw me off the St. Petersburg Pier if the idea flopped. I ended being right—and lucky. It wasn’t the first time I’d been either.

When Linda’s September issue hit newsstands in mid-August, nature had yet to produce its first named storm of the hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30. The magazine cover featured a stunning, computer-generated illustration of a massive storm bearing down on South Florida. The graphic, done by a student at the Ringling School of Art in Sarasota, had a wonderful trompe l'oeil quality: It seemed to float above the page.

The day after Florida! hit shelves, Tropical Storm Andrew hit radars, following the same path as the magazine’s faux storm, which I had christened “Zoey.” Issues of Florida! were tossed into shopping carts along with shrink-wrapped batteries, bottled water, and duct tape. For the first time in the publication’s history, it sold out.

People dubbed Ms. Hughes-Reed a journalistic genius. Shrewd. Crafty. Prescient. Fans of Florida! (her hip, breezy state rag) wined-and-cheesed her. Critics, who had smirked at the idea of publishing a hurricane edition halfway through the season, just whined. It didn’t matter. She’d made the right call. Gutsy. Now she basked like the Florida Gator she was, even though her success had come about because she’d listened to an FSU drop-out like me.

All I asked in return was for Linda to accept from me (her favorite freelancer) a trinket of a story titled “Fantastic Plastic, Florida’s Corvette Connection.” It was a serendipitous by-product of my meeting Marti. He’d read my hurricane article and hired me as a commentator during his around-the-clock Andrew coverage. (When I noticed framed photos of his beloved six-speed “Belleza Negra” plastered around the studio, I sensed a story.)

“If you like Belleza, you should join me for a little party I’ve planned,” he said.

I did not know, at the time, the party was for a car.

CHAPTER TWO

A crowded donut stand, a country block from the Eckler warehouse entrance, would have been an ideal place to stop, had there been parking, but Marti, who I’d long since learned to trust regarding planning ahead, was prepared: He stopped behind a beat-up trailer that appeared abandoned beside the unadorned, whitewashed building—then hopped out of the Vette, flipped down the fold-up ramp, and drove aboard, wisely letting me disembark first, for he knew that coordination was not one of my gifts-on-loan from God.

We headed inside.

A thin, golf course-tanned, hyper-manicured man who’d been saving a table for us stood up and waved. He wore a pastel creamy-green Polo shirt, perfectly ironed white Bermuda shorts, a toasty-brown, intricately knotted belt with a wrought-iron buckle, and fancy air-friendly shoes that look like they’ve been wicker-woven by fussy elves.

“Here’s Jack Sanders,” Marti said. “They call him Smilin’ Jack. He used to do PR for GM. He’ll answer all your questions.”

“At least some of them,” Jack said, “And you must be Sam, Marti’s writing friend.”

“The very same . . .”

“What’ll you have?” Marti asked as he headed to the counter, where a long line corkscrewed through the aisle.

“Plain cake donut. Black coffee,” I said

I pulled out two pens, a small notebook, and my portable tape recorder.

“Do you mind?” I asked.

“Not at all,” Jack said. “Marti prepared me for your interrogation tactics. Plus, I spent time in a German prison camp, so I can endure just about anything.”

I understood why they called him “Smilin’ Jack.” He bore an uncanny resemblance to Zack Mosley’s World War Two cartoon strip aviator, right down to the square jaw, pencil-thin mustache, and slick-combed hair, neatly parted in the near-middle. The only difference: Jack’s turf had long since turned Dover white. And he was more on the wiry side than his pen-drawn counterpart, but even at age 71, he looked formidable.

“Where do we start?” he asked.

I flipped on my recorder.

“Wherever you like.”

* * *

On September 30, 1938, Neville Chamberlain talked of “Peace with honor” and “Peace in our time.” The Sanders family pondered those words as they crackled through the cloth-covered speakers of the large, majestic, wood-encased, Silvertone radio that dominated the living room’s north wall of his Indiana home.

While the broadcast commentators droned on about what the Prime Minister’s Munich agreement with the German Führer might mean, Jack’s eyes shifted from his father’s tense expression to the radio’s ornate, softly lit, golden dial, with its stylized numbers grandly surrounding an Art Deco sun and stars. Three elegantly scripted words on the Silverstone’s face jumbled inside his head: “American,” “Foreign,” “Aviation.” It seemed a cryptic puzzler. What apocalyptic vision might this trinity foreshadow?

“The commentators all sound hopeful,” Jack said.

“Means war,” his father growled, puffing on his well-worn, hand-crafted, walnut root Castleford pipe. “You can’t surrender to a bloody lunatic like Hitler.”

Then he puffed, deeply.

“Means war,” he repeated.

Jack knew better than to disagree with his father, a veteran of The Great War, and a successful businessman whose Buick dealership had survived the Great Depression.

Though Jack was American by birth, the family had deep roots in England. His paternal grandfather was born in Cardiff, but his ancestors were all Devonians. Jack’s father left Great Britain just after the First World War for reasons unstated, but it had something to do with his having no desire to undertake a career in civil service. (He was the only Sanders with a keen entrepreneurial spirit.)

John worked his way to the States as a cook on a decrepit freighter, saved enough money to buy a fine suit, then trudged around trying to find a job before walking into a Buick showroom just as the Roaring ’20s unfurled. The Englishman’s handsome looks and dignified manner belied a slim purse, but he had determined that the streets of America were paved with gold, and he would mine the former colonies to their depth. The Buick would be his shovel—and an able tool it proved.

By the time Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., took over as GM president and writer/traveler Lowell Thomas was traversing Afghanistan’s tough terrain in a Buick circa 1923, the popular marquee’s top salesperson was a Brit. Within five years, he opened the doors of Sanders Buick, bankrolled by shrewd business maneuvers, not the least of which was marrying the daughter of a banker, one of his customers.

Jack saw in his father the foundational strength he knew England would need if war came. He felt he had an obligation to defend a homeland he never knew. But how?

The following year produced answers.

* * *

Harley J. Earl, GM’s first design chief, created a concept car called the Y-Job. Thanks to his father’s friendship with Earl, Jack feasted on it firsthand.

Y-job was like nothing he’d ever seen: It was long and low—20 feet from stern to bow, yet less than five feet tall. While other cars were square and boxy, Y was curved, black and beautiful. The crisp chrome grill was horizontal with thin, vertical bars. Headlights were hidden and power-driven, as was the convertible top, cleverly covered by a wide, smooth lid that slipped into a space behind the passenger compartment. It had electric doors and windows. Recessed taillights. Power steering. No running boards. An advanced braking system. Plus, it boasted just two seats.

“How do you like my baby?” an obviously proud Earl asked.

“It’s beautiful,” Jack said, exhaling the word in a way typically reserved for Hollywood starlets.

“Would you like to take it for a drive?”

Jack nodded.

“Jump in.”

Jack could not remember where they drove, only that he felt like a character in a Jules Verne novel who'd slipped into the future.

“Can I tell my father he’ll be selling these, soon?”

“No,” Earl smiled. “But tell him he’ll being seeing details from the Y here and there.”

Earl asked Jack about his future—and if he’d considered a career at General Motors.

“After the war, perhaps,” Jack said.

Earl’s face tightened.

“Years away, if at all,” he said.

“Not for me,” Jack said. “I’m trying to find a way to go to England. Fight the good fight.”

Earl’s smile returned.

“When you come back, see me.”

“I will,” Jack said.

On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Jack’s father was right. War came and, by May 10, 1940, Chamberlain was gone, a victim of his appeasement policy. As Sophocles wrote, “The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves.” Meanwhile, Jack was encouraged by the reassuring words of  Winston Churchill, the new Prime Minister:

"Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valor, and be in readiness for the conflict; for it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation and our altar."

Jack vowed that day to become a “man of valor.” It took awhile to make good on that promise.

By Thanksgiving, through his father’s contacts, Jack learned that Americans were covertly being recruited for the Royal Air Force at the Grand Central Aerodrome in Glendale, California. With his father’s support, but against his mother’s wishes, he headed West. (She would die before his return, a passing whose pain never fully healed.) RAF pilot testing was collegial, sprinkled with nods, winks, and humor. No mention of the mission was made. (America was, after all, neutral.)

There were British instructors as well as Americans; Jack scored well with both.

“You’ll do fine,” quipped Clyde Becker from Sutton Bridge, an Operational Training Unit on England’s east coast. “At least you shouldn't have much trouble with the language.”