They don't make them like that any more. Cars, that is. They don't, and they never will again. Which accounts for the enormous world-wide interest in old motors of every description, and the fantastic prices that they fetch.
Behind this latest manifestation of the international antique trade, lies a strange and secret world, where dealers offer for sale cars they do not own, where rich collectors willingly pay thousands for some mechanical abortion that can barely drag itself up a hill without a following wind, simply because it's rare.
Usually, hazards in this old-car business - as in any other - are run by the buyer. But there are also risks for those who sell – as the proprietor of Aristo Autos discovers.
He deals exclusively in motoring exotica, and when he's unexpectedly offered one of the rarest cars of all, a supercharged Mercedes two-seater 540K, he buys it immediately.
There's a clear two-and-a-half thousand quid profit for him in the deal. But soon he realises there's also a clear danger of death, for someone else desperately wants this car for some very special, private reason.
Someone who will kill to get it. But who, and why ?
The only thing to do is to find out, and he does - travelling a sinister trail, blazed by old cars and young girls, that leads from London to Spain to Switzerland.
Rackety, randy, changing gears expertly through violent and hilarious adventures, he's an entirely new and colourful character in the wide spectrum of suspense fiction.
He's a supercharged four-wheeler dealer, with a sharp eye for birds, a nose for money - and a taste for trouble.
