My remem­brance of Don Vor­der­man was pub­lished in short­er form in The Auto­mo­bile, Decem­ber 2019.

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“Writ­ers rarely talk about writ­ing among each oth­er. It’s a very per­son­al thing, and it’s almost always hard to do well, none of which is too con­ducive to cheery cock­tail chitchat. Most of us would rather vis­it a den­tist than face up to the task of begin­ning the next piece, though it’s not quite so awful once the com­mit­ment is made and the thing is under way.” —Don Vor­der­man, 1977

My dear friend Don wrote that about the Eng­lish motor­ing writer Den­nis May, but he was also describ­ing him­self. He didn’t write spon­ta­neous­ly, but when he did, his words sang. Vorderman’s years of prominence—Editor, Auto­mo­bile Quar­ter­ly, 1968-74; Auto Edi­tor, Town & Coun­try, 1980s—were brief and under-appre­ci­at­ed. His work was as far from the falls-eas­i­ly-to-hand school of motor writ­ing as one could imag­ine. His depth of knowl­edge made great cars come alive. We saw our­selves crouched low over their steer­ing wheels, like Don’s hero, Simon Tem­plar, “the seat press­ing force­ful­ly into his back under the urge of the Hirondel’s ter­rif­ic power….”

Vorderman and Charteris

Yes, the “Hiron­del”! Only Don, who as a boy read “Saint” nov­els with a flash­light under his blan­kets, could have con­jured up Simon Tem­plar’s great sil­ver beast from the books of Leslie Char­teris. Wise­ly, Char­teris nev­er described the Hiron­del in detail. He left it to our imag­i­na­tions. Each of us visu­al­ized in our mind’s eyes the ulti­mate sports car.

In 1973, Don asked five of the world’s lead­ing auto artists to por­tray the Hiron­del as they saw it, assign­ing each a few lines by Leslie Char­teris for inspi­ra­tion. In The Last Hero, The Saint dri­ves to res­cue his lady friend Patri­cia Holm, held pris­on­er out­side Lon­don by the Ungodly.

“Snarling silver fiend…”

Dale Weaver Tot­ten got right into the spir­it of the thing:

“If this had been a super­sti­tious age, those who saw it would have crossed them­selves and sworn that it was no car at all they saw that night, but a snarling sil­ver fiend that roared through Lon­don on the wings of an unearth­ly wind…”

“Ridiculous, creeping glowworms…”

The final image focused on a coastal road out­side Lon­don. Here the great Wal­ter Gotschke pro­duced a mas­ter­piece of con­trived motion. Know­ing Walter’s style, Don gave him exact­ly the right Char­teris passage:

Again and again in the dark, the Hiron­del swooped up behind ridicu­lous, creep­ing glow­worms, sniffed at their red tails, snort­ed deri­sive­ly, swept past with a deep-throat­ed blare. No car in Eng­land could have held the lead of the Hiron­del that night.

About Don

Der­wood Lor­rimer Michael Vor­der­man was born in Texas, though every­body thought he was South African. I rather think he pic­tured him­self as Simon Tem­plar come to life. He was a sharp dress­er, a friend recalls: “Don spent all his mon­ey on whisky, Burber­ry over­coats, silk pock­et squares and cra­vats. Such a dandy.”

He once vis­it­ed us in rur­al New Hamp­shire dri­ving a yel­low Fer­rari, wear­ing tweeds and wow­ing locals. His check­ered past includ­ed romances with Zsa Zsa Gabor, Gina Lol­lo­b­rigi­da and, report­ed­ly, Con­nie Fran­cis. At forty Vor­der­man still made ladies swoon, and AQ’s bril­liant man­ag­ing edi­tor Bev­er­ly Rae Kimes mar­ried him. Alas Don rapid­ly burned bridges, includ­ing that one.

With Vorderman at Automobile Quarterly

For­tune brought me to AQ dur­ing a gold­en age for the hard­bound “Mag­a­zine of Motor­ing”: the reign of Don Vor­der­man and Bev­er­ly Rae Kimes. You couldn’t buy that edu­ca­tion in a uni­ver­si­ty. Don taught me things I nev­er for­got. On word-count: “A bore is some­one who tells every­thing.” On accept­ing edits: “The surest sign of an ama­teur is sen­si­tiv­i­ty about his prose.”  About bylines: “One per issue. No over-indulging. If you write a sec­ond arti­cle, use a pen name.” (Don’s was “Michael Lor­rimer.” He hat­ed “Der­wood.” Wouldn’t you?)

He taught me man­ners. To the throw­away greet­ing, “How are you?” Don would reply, “I’m fine, thank-you. I hope you are”—and wait for an answer. He didn’t tol­er­ate fools: “Putzes are every­where, like diar­rhea.” He was impa­tient with the sharks and blowhards of our world. Yet he intro­duced me, a rank ama­teur, to the elite of auto­mo­bil­ia, from Phil Hill to Dutch Dar­rin to René Drey­fus.

And what a pho­tog­ra­ph­er he was—with an 8×10-inch view cam­era, a rel­ic nowa­days. Ken Drass­er, then our art direc­tor, writes: “I remem­ber his trans­paren­cies. The pic­tures were stun­ning. We chris­tened him ‘Ol’ Mag­ic Fin­gers.’ He was so talented.”

Edi­tors exist to make writ­ers bet­ter, and Don was the best edi­tor one could have. He fired me once (I deserved it), but recon­sid­ered when he liked my next piece, on Tri­umph. In it I’d writ­ten that the Luft­waffe “did its num­ber” on Coven­try. He blue-lined that and sub­sti­tut­ed “wrought ter­ri­ble destruction”—sensitive and pre­cise. We shared mis­eries over a cer­tain pub­lish­er, and I declared I’d wear a red tie the day he died. “Don’t say that,” Don scold­ed. “Life is too short to car­ry grudges.” It was just like him. The day came, and I refrained.

The Allard named “Grendel”

Above all stood his fan­tas­tic imag­i­na­tion. Who else would pre­cede a road test of the fear­some Allard J2X with a fan­ta­sy by Dick O’Kane about a fic­ti­tious Allard named “Gren­del,” owned by twin moun­tains of flesh, the Boslovsky Brothers?

Don hired the zany genius Stan Mott to illus­trate Stan­ley: “Boslavsky Major.” (Stanley’s broth­er Nick was “Boslavsky Minor.” Nick was shorter—only six-foot-seven.)

Mott duly por­trayed Boslavsky Major, stoned out of his mind, wear­ing noth­ing but hair and beads, his pin­wheel eyes fixed on Gren­del. (“I hoped he was hav­ing a good trip.” wrote Dick. “Stan­ley on a bad trip was like a malev­o­lent sev­en-foot owl….)

“Dazed­ly Stan approached the Allard…. His pin­wheel eyes began to fill with tears. Then he was wrap­ping his arms around her hideous pink nose and sob­bing, ‘Moth­er.'”

Don, of course, caught and used O’Kane’s ref­er­ences to Beowulf. His J2X road test began: “And now alone I shall set­tle affairs with Gren­del, the mon­ster, the demon.”

Farewell, Don

Though we nev­er saw each oth­er after exchang­ing a few vis­its in the 1980s, we had a warm email friend­ship. When I sent him my arti­cles in The Auto­mo­bile, he always had an inter­est­ing smidgen to add. Of “Churchill’s Motor­cars” (August 2016) he wrote: “What a deli­cious idea! You men­tioned the death of Churchill’s daugh­ter Marigold. It brought to mind Bent­ley Boy Tim Birkin, pass­ing from the same con­di­tion while not a mile away, Flem­ing had already devel­oped the ear­ly ver­sions of peni­cillin.” Of Dutch Dar­rin (May 2017): “Your touch is just right—authoritative but friend­ly. I still think that 1938 Phan­tom II town car he built for Count­ess di Fras­so is one of the pret­ti­est cars I have ever seen.”

And then the emails stopped. I wrote him, but my let­ter was returned. Too bad, because I had writ­ten how much he meant to me.

This remem­brance began with Don’s piece about Den­nis May, and I’ve often quot­ed his final paragraph:

There’s noth­ing to be said when a friend dies, even among peo­ple whose trade is words. There’s just an emp­ty hole where there was once some­one you loved. And all the talk in the world won’t change that. Every­one who knew him well miss­es him. And that’s one crowd I’m proud to be a mem­ber of.

Vordermania: Don on Cars

Alfa Romeo: “Sure, they’re build­ing nice cars today, but before the Sec­ond World War they were mag­nif­i­cent. Every blessed one of them.”

Allard J2X: “The first thing you notice is the accel­er­a­tion. This is also the sec­ond and the third thing….”

Bugat­ti: “They were bit­ter rivals, but you have to admit that for every year when Bugat­ti was build­ing a good car, Alfa was build­ing a great one.”

Cadil­lac Eldo­ra­do: “It’s a high­ly vis­i­ble dec­la­ra­tion of what the own­er wants you to think of him. But it’s a free coun­try, and every­body has the right to make a fool of himself.”

Hud­son: “I tried to keep up appear­ances for my MG’s sake, but soon my friend’s Hor­net and I start­ed to meet secret­ly. She could do every­thing my TC could, only ten times better.”

Jaguar: “In 1961 the new E-type was the most excit­ing car in the world. Sir William Lyons was one in a thousand.”

Lin­coln Con­ti­nen­tal: “You know why you want one: because it’s big and expen­sive and every­body knows it. Also, the instru­ments are down by your knees where you won’t have to look at them.”

Lotus Elite: “Col­in Chap­man’s come a long way from the back­yard weld­ing torch.”

Mer­cer Race­about: “Why not be philo­soph­i­cal about it, and con­sid­er it an hon­or to be passed by such a car?”

Messer­schmitt: “Is das nicht einen Kabi­nen­roller? Ja das icht ein Kabinenroller!”

Packard: “The 1947 Cus­tom Super Clip­per is my idea of the per­fect Packard. Won­der­ful­ly smooth big-ass straight eight and that grace­ful, swoopy shape. Doesn’t mat­ter what color—they’re all gorgeous.”

Pon­ti­ac Grand Am: “Get one quick, before they change it.”

Rolls-Royce: “They haven’t been mak­ing RRs since the Sil­ver Wraith…. They must sense the dis­tress of we impa­tient, dis­ap­point­ed lovers. But even an unre­quit­ed lover has his limits.”

Stude­bak­er, 1953 Star­lin­er: “You are not old enough to have expe­ri­enced the impact it had on every­body who was into cars. How gor­geous! How un-American!”

Dick O’Kane: A Memory

The Gren­del-Allard sto­ry was writ­ten by the late Dick O’Kane, anoth­er hero of my youth, whose joy­ful, whim­si­cal pieces about cars dec­o­rat­ed the pages of Road & Track and Auto­mo­bile Quar­ter­ly. A short note about Dick is post­ed here.