The Alps, a Zonda, and a Writer
Part I




I wake up and smell dirty soap. It’s the kind of soap you find at a roadside “all natural” boutique, wrapped in brown paper, and smells of sage, lemongrass, passionfruit, and a whole lot of paraffin. It’s a bittersweet smell, a smell that stinks only if you want it to.

Yet it’s a welcome smell, because I am currently holed up in a quaint little roadway B&B smack in the middle of Swiss countryside. I took a detour off the main motorway between Luzern and Milan, to give the Pagani Zonda a little time to just play. I’m on assignment from a car journal, yet I feel like I’m writing up a feature for National Geographic. My assignment is to drive a metallic-grey Pagani Zonda F around for a few days in the Alps around central Europe. Sounds like fun? I guess it is, but with great cars come great responsibilities. I probably need not explain that declaration.

The day before, I had found a little ma-and-pop mechanic’s shop run by a wizened Swiss senior by the name of Werner, who euphorically agreed to board the Zonda for the night. Imagine, please, that the Pope wishes to stay the night at your Catholic-Italian grandmother’s house in her retirement community trailer park in Florida. Such was the situation between Werner and the Zonda. I felt like Santa Claus handing out presents when I asked Werner if he would take care of the car for the night. He immediately took it upon himself to pamper this divine automobile as if it were his own child. He grabbed his cleanest rag and began to clean around the tailpipes with the precision and care of a master jeweler. He then took a bottle of some sort of cleaning liquid and began to hand-wash the wheels covered in brake dust. I now knew how to woo the locals in rural Switzerland.

By this time, the entire village had made a semicircle around Werner’s garage to admire and worship the Car. Little children were crouching to look deep inside the front intakes. Women were standing with their arms akimbo, wondering what the heck it was. The men were laughing and pointing to all the amusing details about the Zonda’s crazy appearence. I t was a scene worthy of the cover of LIFE magazine.

Needless to say, I had become an afterthought to the people of this town. It was strange, since if I were driving the Zonda, let’s say, on Rodeo Drive, the person in the driver’s seat would warrant more stares than the car itself. Yet out here in the small world of Swiss villagers, people are all equal, one person is not greater by what they drive. Even though the town’s amenities and atmosphere was modern, the people were still pretty much rooted in tradition.

I asked Werner where the best inn was, and without looking away from the car, he said,
“Tuba”.
“Tuba?” says I.
“Tuba. Tuba Haus.”
“Oh, Das Gasthaus wird Tuba gennant.”
“Ja.”
“Okay. Danke.”
“Ja.”

I smiled, advised him against people touching and messing with the Car, and strolled down the short street with my bags to the Tuba Gasthaus.

So there I was the next morning, awakened by the smell of Switzerland. I ate a fantastic breakfast served by a very heavy, red-faced, panting frauline, and then went out to see how the Zonda spent the night. Werner had just opened the garage up, and was taking what appeared to be a flannel cover off the Car. He began to fuss over it again, touching it up with his buffer, shining the headlamps, cleaning the windshield. I felt almost sorry that I had to wrench away his new pride and joy, but alas, the car wasn’t mine or his, so we were both sort of bittersweet about having the Zonda under our care. Werner took it upon himself to teach me all about powerful cars before I set off, giving all sorts of advice about how to handle the transmission. To top it off, I was duly grateful when he gave me some of his “prize handmade lube” that happened to come in a recycled Feldschlosschen bottle. A fantastic souvenir from some fantastic people.

Werner insisted on pushing the Zonda outside his garage before I started it. To Werner, starting this car would be equivalent to firing off a nuclear warhead. You just have to make a big production out of it. So we pushed the weighty Zonda out of his garage and on to the Swiss asphalt Werner was very proud of. I lowered my head into the ridiculously frilly interior, set my behind into the six-feet-under bucket seats, and prepared to turn the main ignition. I had been doing this for 5 days now, but the excited shivering still had yet to leave my hand. In went the key, the turn was made, and the most electrifying, sumptuous sound erupted over my shoulder. It’s an odd sound, an audio aberration you will never hear the likes of again. Few sounds are able to flesh out raw adrenaline like the first breaths of a supercar.

Thus, with the ignition of the Zonda, it was time to say goodbye to my good friend, Werner. He even began to tear up, but not at my departure. I could only guess his joy at hosting such a masterpiece of automotive art, and to see it go must have been more emotional than attending a family member's funeral. MUCH more emotional. We exchanged formalities, and with a wave of his only clean rag, he watched his significant other thud into gear and roar away.

I was back on the road, and the Zonda apparently liked her accommodations and got a good night’s sleep. Within seconds of leaving the town, she was roaring through the tight Alpian roads with deft ability. However, I was already having my steering skills dramatically tested. The Zonda is not a featherlight kitten like the Ferrari F430, mind you. I felt like Han Solo attempting to steer the Millenium Falcon through the asteroid field in The Empire Strikes Back. The Zonda is a big bulk of precision engineering; nevertheless, it’s fast, powerful, beautiful, and can take you from point A to point B in a flash of brusque style.

And really, if you think about it, that’s sort of the whole point of acquiring a Zonda. It’s not built for the 24 Hours of Le Mans. It’s built for the 6 Hours of the E35, and it does not let you down. When I was breezing along on the motorway, and urbanely overtaking Geneva bankers in their BMWs, I sighed to myself, and said out loud, “Life’s good in a Pagani.”

DISCLAIMER: THE FOLLOWING IS 100% FICTION. A PRODUCT OF THE AUTHOR'S WILD IMAGINATION. ANY RELATION TO ACTUAL PEOPLE OR EVENTS IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL.