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(previous page)Four months before shipping the car to England it entered a crash program at Ram's Rod Shop in Dover, Del. Ramsey Mosher cut off the top and had Charlie Scribner at Classic Glass in Torrington, Conn. chop the windshield four inches. Ram fabricated a lift-off landau-style half top with removable front roof portion over the driver. His crew stretched a set of fiberglass bubble skirts to 9 1/2 feet in length and restyled the front end.

Don "the Egyptian" Boeke of Dayton, Ohio mixed a custom blend of House of Color "Liberace Lavendar" pearlescent paint, and Ram applied it. Bobby Sapp of Milford, Del. stitched the interior and half top.

A 20-foot long car is no longer a car, it's a pocket battleship. Hence the license plate "TITAN1C." Artist Joel Naprstek had a bit of fun with the connie kit. The life boats in the following photo are Nash Metropolitans.

We cracked a bottle of champagne over the front bumper and whisked the car into the 40-foot container to make the shipping deadline with not a day to spare. We didn't have time to rub out the paint job.

My loving wife of 32 years, Virginia, does not fly so, needing a co-pilot, I called my trusty bail bondsman and interior decorator, "Reverend" Michael Witek of Buffalo, NY (Church of the Perpetual Indulgence). My travel agents, Peter Seiler and Chris Fowler decided to tag along. Pete doubled as our sommelier.

Tunes were a necessity. DJ "The Golden Gup" assembled a special CD for our tour-20 songs with lyrics about America or the USA such as "America" from West Side Story, "American Woman," James Brown's "Living in America," etc.) We were ready!

We broke the trip into three chunks: two weeks in England in mid-September, three weeks in England, France, Belgium and Germany in November, plus a week in Stuttgart in January. Between junkets we left the car in the UK and Germany, flying home to recuperate.

In England we visited the Midlands Motor Museum (Bridgenorth, Shropshire); our favorite car museum in England, the National Motor Museum (Beaulieu); the Museum of British Road Transport (Coventry); and the museum in Covent Garden. We attended Beaulieu Autojumble, England's largest vintage auto parts swap met. We hit the International Drag Racing Championships at Santa Pod, where the car was mobbed.(next page)