Notes From the Hard Shoulder - James May [56]
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