The plane began its descent into Houston’s international airport and I peered out of the window for my first-ever look at the Lone Star State — Texas. Land of the Free. Home of the Brave.
Oh deary me, I thought, I’m on the wrong jet. The pilot’s gone mad. We’ve been flying around in circles for eleven hours. That’s not Texas. That’s Lincolnshire.
For as far as the eye could see — and from 15,000 feet on a crystal-clear day, that’s a very long way indeed — it was flat, unrelenting and dull beyond even the ken of a party political broadcast speech-writer.
In the next two weeks, I would crisscross what is America’s second-largest state looking for some geological eccentricity, but apart from a miserable little canyon up near Lubbock, there was nothing.
I’m told it’s a bit deserty over by El Paso in the west but elsewhere it’s a series of completely flat fields broken only, and very occasionally, by the odd corn thingy.
The towns, too, are unremarkable. God only knows what Tony Christie was thinking about when he immortalised the hateful sprawl that is Amarillo. There aren’t even any decent titty bars.
And the most interesting thing we found in Lubbock was the airport car-rental desk. This is the town that gave the world Buddy Holly and James Dean. But both of them left.
So what of Houston? Well, it’s no better I’m afraid. The skyline, built with oil money I suppose, is impressive in a pointy-type way, but the streets are almost completely devoid of human life.
For our first three nights there we walked the sidewalks at night, looking for bars and restaurants. We wanted action but all we got was a joint whose USP was an owner who encouraged us to throw the pistachio nutshells on the floor.
This is the fourth-biggest city in America. Home of NASA. Epicentre of the world’s breast-implant industry. And, in 1994, provider of more than half the Playboy centrefolds.
And there we were in an awful little bar with Ry Cooder doing his best to slide some atmosphere into the joint by giving it some soulfulness on the geetarr.
It wasn’t until the fourth day that we figured it out. All of Houston’s shops, bars and restaurants are underground, linked by a series of walkways that would defeat Ranulph Fiennes. There were people down there who had voted for Lincoln.
It seems that Houston is a hot place — they’ve obviously never been to the middle of Australia — so to keep the shoppers happy, everything is tucked away below ground in air-conditioned splendour.
I hated it, and I hated our hotel which was where everyone in America had arrived for a bridge tournament. I hate bridge too.
But then, as is the way with our Motorworld forays to the edges of extremes, we started to meet the people. And a smile started to pucker the corners of my mouth.
First, there was Clyde Puckett, whose pickup truck had just been recognised, officially, as the ugliest in the whole state.
If he were to walk into your house, you would call the police first and the council health inspectors shortly thereafter. He was big, for a kickoff, and to complete the picture he had long hair tied into a pony tail and a beard whose most far-flung extremities reached down to his oft-exposed navel.
But here was a gentleman; a man of God who lived the simple life, way out in the hinterland with nothing but his truck and a dog — it was hard to tell them apart sometimes — for company.
We were there because I wanted to know why Americans in general, and Texans in particular, buy so many pickup trucks.
In order to be tough, and not to tip up when their rear ends are loaded down with ‘stuff’ — you hear that word all the time in Texas — they are burdened with suspension that would be more at home propping up a skyscraper.
Just walk up to a big Yankee pickup and try to make it rock. You might as well try to push the Tower of London over.
This means, of course, that if you hit a small pebble while driving a pickup, your spine will shatter. Your teeth will implode too as the vehicle rears up like an angry beast, before crashing down again with great vengeance and furious anger.
Of course, while it is up in the air, the wheels will not be on the ground, so you’ll have no steering. But that’s OK because thanks to your snapped back, you’ll have lost the ability to turn the wheel anyhow.
The pickup truck is even more uncomfortable than a horse.
So let’s look at the practicality. Well for sure, there’s a great deal of space in the back for… um, it’s hard to say what really. I mean, once in a while, maybe, you need to take an old sofa to the skip, but would you be prepared to put up with the bone-breaking discomfort on the other 364 days in a year? Certainly, in England we would not.
Especially as the huge rear end means there’s precious little space up front for people. Most are capable of accommodating three alongside one another and some of the bigger versions have elongated cabs to provide space for five — but frankly, bearing in mind the average size of an American, we’re talking two-seaters here.
To move this vast vehicle around, obviously, an equally enormous engine is required and that’s why even the cheapest, most bland and plain models come with 5.0-litre V8s.
These, though, are usually tuned for torque, so that should you wish to spend your days uprooting giant redwoods, you’ll be well equipped. Unfortunately the downside is no power.
When they’re burdened with an automatic gearbox — and nearly all of them are because manuals in the States are as rare as non-remote-controlled TV sets — you would not believe how slowly they go.
People will tell you they have a ‘lot of pickup’, meaning they can get away from the lights quickly, but that’s nonsense. An Escort diesel would leave even the most potent US doubly for dead.
And when it comes to top speed, forget it. The pickup truck doesn’t have one. And nor would your car if it had the aerodynamic properties of a wardrobe.
Needless to say, they chew fuel too, which is just one more small reason in a sea of big ones to give the very idea of a pickup truck the sort of berth you’d give a bear whose cubs you’d just trodden on.
Explain this one then. In Texas in 1994, 21,000 people bought a Ford Taurus, which is the bestselling car in America. It’s a sort of cross between a Mondeo and a Granada, but that’s not really important just now. Remember the sales figure — 21,000.
In the very same period, 110,000 Texans bought a Ford pickup truck. In Texas, pickup trucks outsell cars five to one. The people there are very obviously as mad as it’s possible to be without being incarcerated somewhere.
Clyde Puckett was not mad. He had a truck because he hauls ‘stuff’ for people… but he was the only one.
Down at the Broken Spoke ‘dancing and dining’ Bar, the car park was chock-full of pickups which, very obviously, had never hauled anything more arduous than the odd six-pack.
Inside, the customers told us that pickup trucks are safer, more convenient, more practical and better-looking than a car. But it’s more than that. A truck is as much a part of the Texan uniform as a ten-gallon hat.
Suitably equipped with an electric-blue Ford F150, I headed out to meet a few more of these strangely daft people.
And happened upon Bill Clement. Bill runs a sort of Battersea Dogs Home for knackered Chevvies, picking out the best and restoring them. He has many, some of which he sells, and some of which live in his warehouse.
Dull so far, until he tells you that his favourite models are those which bear the high-performance SS insignia. ‘They were not too popular among non-Third Reich enthusiasts,’ he says, while sitting at his desk playing with a German helmet from WW2.
His desk, in actual fact, is the front end of a 1955 Chevvy but I was a little more bothered about the list of ‘nigger names’ he’d just plunged into my sweaty paw. ‘What’s your daughter called?’ he barked.
‘Er… Emily,’ I stuttered.
‘Nice name,’ he said. ‘Means something, unlike any of the names you’ll find on that list.’
‘What does Emily mean?’ I asked.
‘Oh, stuff,’ he replied.
Getting to see Bill hadn’t been especially easy as a large sign above his door made it perfectly plain who was welcome and who was not.
It went something like this: ‘No bargain hunters, bleeding hearts, bullshitters, credit, cheques, computers, collegiates, deadbeats, drunks, daydreamers, non-Chevvy drivers, estimates, Fords, girlfriends, honking, metric, politicians, peddlers, refunds, solicitors, sympathy, vacationers, wives or whiners.’
Things he liked included profanity, chauvinism, bitching, cash, impatience, bad attitudes, NRA members, sloppy appearance and bigotry. Another sign on the office window advised visitors to ‘speak English or get the fuck out’.
I was allowed in even though I was considered a ‘crapass limey’, from the same country as the ‘godawful’ Rolling Stones and the ‘gall bladder of rock and roll’ John Lennon.
I tried to show an interest in his impressive collection of cars but his assistant, Bob, was much, much more absorbing.
Bob was a large man who had bought a pair of jeans when he was not quite so large. However, rather than diet or throw them away, he had simply done them up under his arse, letting his shirt tails protect his modesty.
That was fine until he bent over. It was quite a sight, Bob’s butt. It’s a Motorworld moment.
Bill was talking. Did I want to take a drive in his stunningly restored El Camino SS, a 7.4-litre 430-bhp machine that was actually built at GM’s Arlington plant in Texas?
Well not if Bob’s been driving it, I thought, but voicing such a thought seemed rude, so off I went. ‘Just don’t take it through Niggertown,’ called Bill, usefully, as I roared off.
It was a great car — well pickup actually — with exhausts that sounded better than any Fender Strat. It didn’t handle and looked like it was on a day-release from the seventies but I adored the pre-political correctness turn of speed. As Bill’s T-shirt said, ‘If you haven’t seen God, you’re not going fast enough.’
When I took it back, I asked if Bill was worried about his cars being stolen. ‘No sir,’ came the reply. ‘If a nigger tries to come in here, we have the right in Texas to vigorously defend our property, up to and including killing him.
‘I found a nigger trying to break in here once. He got an overdose of lead that night.’
‘You killed him?’ I asked.
‘Sure did,’ came the reply. ‘Ain’t no loss to society.’
The man was a social time bomb, a point that was proved as we interviewed him on camera. It took ten takes before we got a sentence without the words ‘nigger’ or ‘fuck’ in it.
My word, we thought, as we left. What an unusual person. Oh, how wrong we were. In Texas, Bill’s a korma in a sea of vindaloo.
Take Stanley Marsh. Stanley is the boss of a TV station and, despite the sartorial elegance of a tramp, a respected figure in the local community.
He drives a pink Cadillac and spends his time dreaming up curious slogans for a series of road signs that you’ll find all over his home town. You arrive at a crossroads and there, instead of a ‘give way’ sign, will be the familiar, authentic-looking diamond shape bearing the legend, ‘Two-headed Baby’ or ‘Hear the Fat Lady Sing’. Odd, but not much use if you want to know the way somewhere.
Stanley’s house was full of university drop-out types, one of whom had modelled himself on Bob from Lubbock. He wore his trousers so low down that you could see the top of his penis. I don’t know why but I kept wondering if Douglas Hurd would ever do that.
I was still wondering when Dennis, our rather thoughtful director, summoned up every ounce of energy from his politeness genes and said to Stanley, ‘Sir, I think it would probably be a good idea if you were to drive…’
Dennis was shut down by a huge shriek from Stanley. ‘WHAT IN THE HELL DO YOU MEAN, “PROBABLY”? IF YOU WANT ME TO DO SOMETHING, COME OUT WITH IT STRAIGHT, BOY.’
No one has ever talked to Dennis like this, and at 51 years old, it’s a long time since anyone called him ‘boy’.
It seems that Stanley likes straight talking. He doesn’t mind being told to do something so long as it’s in plain English.
Plain English is a Stanley speciality. When I asked him if there were more eccentrics in Texas than anywhere else, he was off. ‘No. I’d say there were a higher percentage of dull people living around fish, living on islands.’
Was he, perchance, talking here about Britain?
‘I sure am boy. I don’t know how you can live on that stupid little island. It smells of fish and is covered with scales.’
Turns out that Stanley’s no great limey fan, and he can prove our uselessness when you get him onto the subject of Stonehenge.
You see, up by the interstate near his house — called Toad Hall — he has partially buried ten Cadillacs, nose-down, in a field. Why, I asked him, did you do such a thing?
‘I wanted to build something better than Stonehenge,’ came the reply. ‘Took about a week.’
He now has a thing for burying cars so that on his immaculate lawn at home a bright orange VW Beetle is buried up to its windscreen. Crazy guy. No he really was. He’s the only Texan we met who didn’t have a pickup truck.
I was in a state of despair about Texas until we arrived in Austin, which is the state capital. You know that because the government buildings are an exact replica of the White House, only in true Texas style the dome is slightly larger.
I knew I would like this place when we were told that the only statue in town was there to honour Stevie Ray Vaughn, the local boy who became a guitar legend.
Music is the thing here. Walk down 6th, any time of day or night, and you will hear everything from the blues to C and W to old time rock and roll. Every building is a bar and every bar has a live band. Forget Duval in Key West. This is it.
Strangely, for America, the road is pedestrianised and the only vehicles allowed are horse-drawn. People have to park elsewhere and walk — a word you don’t hear too much anywhere in the US.
I did a lot of ‘walking’ around the back streets and couldn’t believe what I was seeing — no pickups. Well, there were a few round the back of Country bars, but everywhere else the parking zones were filled with Hondas and Toyotas and little Dodges.
It turns out that Austin has the largest university in America with more than 50,000 pupils from all over the States. That gives it a cosmopolitan feel. I liked it because for two glorious days I forgot I was in Texas.
Eventually though, it was time to leave because back in Houston we had our biggest-ever Motorworld interview. We had been granted an audience with all three members of ZZ Top.
This had taken months of preparatory work, even down to a discussion with their manager about Dusty’s perspiration problem. It was explained to us that he sweats freely and that we would need to break from filming every few minutes so that the make-up girl — who we would provide incidentally — could powder his brow.
Odd, then, that the venue for this interview should be a non-air-conditioned Tex-Mex joint in one of Houston’s rougher zones, on one of the hottest evenings of the year. It was 114 degrees outside, and about twice that under our lights. Dusty had a big problem.
We tried tightening the shot on Frank and Billy while the make-up girl mopped Dusty down, but by the time we’d swung round to film his answer to a particular question it was Niagara time all over again.
Then someone produced a hand-held Pifco fan and suggested Dusty used it to stay cool until the camera was on him. Then he could lower it, answer the question, and all would be well. Great idea. Dusty liked it too, and even Murray, our sound man, said its gentle hum was no big deal.
I was busy talking to Billy when the inevitable happened. The fan somehow wound up in the beard and it took an hour to get it out again.
This was a testing point. If these guys were arsehole rock stars, they’d be out of the place like a shot. But they stayed. Billy couldn’t do much else. He was laughing the laugh of someone who was about to burst.
They are car nuts. In their early days, they found a big, wire-mesh ball with a seat inside. God knows what it had been built for originally but they invented a game where someone would climb inside, shut the mesh door and then be pushed off the back of a speeding truck.
After Frank survived an 80-mph roll-off, they wrote the song ‘Master of Sparks’.
Today, their interest in cars is diverse. Frank has a collection of Ferraris, including a 250 GTO which he’s turned into a convertible.
Dusty has a big, fat, chopped 1950s cruiser.
It’s Billy’s collection everyone knows best. Every day, he uses an old Mercedes SL but he owns the Eliminator, the red hot-rod from those astonishing videos.
At nine o’clock the interview finished, and then the acid test began. A year earlier, after talking to Bob Seger, he’d joined us for dinner, so what would ZZ Top do?
Dusty was out of there but Billy and Frank hung around telling tales and bumming fags. They may be the rock star’s ultimate rock stars but they’re OK. Ordinary. Funny. They particularly liked it when we asked if they’d written ‘Sharp Dressed Man’ after seeing our sound man somewhere. Murray has a habit of tucking his shirt into his underpants.
Murray felt right at home at a Texas race meeting. All motorsport fans have no idea how to dress properly but you should see the lengths they go to to look daft in Texas.
The cars aren’t much better, because they aren’t cars at all. Inevitably, they’re pickup trucks, and what you do is line up in front of a big puddle. The lights go green and you try to get to the other side, 200 yards away, as fast as possible.
Some of the modified trucks were quite impressive, spewing up plumes of mud in their wakes, but most people were using stock Toyotas or Fords and honestly, basket-weaving would make a better spectator sport.
Then I found out why the grandstands were full.
The Big Foot truck is an awe-inspiring machine. It weighs five tons and sits on tyres which are six feet tall. To get into the plastic pickup truck body, you climb through the chassis and emerge through a hole in the Perspex floor.
Inside, there’s a racing seat, a five-point harness and a dash straight out of Thunderbirds.
You turn on all the pumps and hit a big red button which fires up the 9700cc V8. One blip of the throttle to get it running evenly and a gallon of fuel is gone. Think, Wow, this is loud, and another gallon has been spurted through the injectors. On the move, it uses one gallon of alcohol to do 300 yards.
They’d told me that it had an automatic gearbox but that I’d have to shift the cogs manually by pulling the lever backwards. The trouble is, they said ‘pull’ and not ‘wrench’.
At 6000 rpm I tugged on the lever and nothing happened. The revs continued to climb up past 7000, then 8000, until in desperation, I nearly yanked the lever out of its socket. It worked. I had second and we were going ballistic.
This monster accelerates from 0 to 60 in less than five seconds which is enough, but what truly surprised me was how those big fat tyres gripped on the wet grass.
A little flick on the tiny racing wheel and I was hurled sideways as the car canted over and simply changed direction. What made it all especially bizarre is that you could see the action through the Perspex floor.
They didn’t let me turn on the rear-wheel steering because they said it makes the truck a bit of a handful. And, I discovered later, they were beginning to wish they’d never let me go out in it at all.
Even after ten minutes, I was still having trouble with the gearbox and the telltale rev counter was stuck at 9200 rpm. This had, apparently, been accompanied by some spectacular backfiring, which had had the crowd on their feet and the owners on their knees.
I was blissfully unaware of the drama and having practised leaping some hay bales, was lining up for a real run, which involved leaping over a line of six cars.
It cut out. What I hadn’t realised is that to ensure the crowd would be safe if the driver had a fit, the owners have a remote control shut-down facility, which they’d operated. As I climbed out, one called me a crazy son-of-a-bitch.
Which, from a Texan, was quite a compliment. I’ve driven all manner of fast, large and expensive cars but my absolute favourite is that Big Foot. In an interesting country, it would stand out. In Texas, it was breathtaking.