The lucky ones have hills. They have wandering landscapes, foggy mornings with the murkiness lifting off the landscape as the sun rises. Amidst the cool mornings, there is the wafting noise of a sports car, up and down the revs, as the driver scoots around the corners, thankful the roads are still clear. You hear them long before you see them coming. You can see as they pass the dew streaming off the hood as if it were rain - but this is only early enthusiasm leaving its mark. From then on, each rain storm you go through will not be the same, as you remember this sight of the early morning driver.

At least this is how it seemed to a young midwesterner, growing up in the city in the middle of America where hills were three hours away. Those people from the east coast seemed to know something more, to have been somewhere different. They knew of history, sports cars, and hills. They had been to races at the special spots, Watkins Glen, Lime Rock, and even Thompson or Bridgehampton. They had stories of the country drives, disasters averted. Revisited as folk lore on wintry nights, my college friends were people who had been somewhere else, a different place than the ones I knew. Tell me more, please.

Those college years were full of times to spend on thoughtful pursuits, so one day we drove up from the south side of Chicago north to Bill Knauz' high end dealership in the swank suburb on the north shore of Lake Forest. This was a study in contrasts, as Hyde Park had the curious privilege of being home to Chicago's finest intellectual fabric, nestled in the midst of the south side, home to Chicago’s impoverished black population looking to make ends meet. Lake Forest, on the other hand, was home to Chicago's finest blue-bloods, the stuffiest and the largest estates in the area.

And Bill Knauz sold them their cars. He had been a dealer for years, an old-time Mercedes dealer from the 1950's. Bill also sold BMW's, the odd Ferrari and Chryslers to those that wanted the best service, an honest dealer, and were willing to pay for it. An affable and low profile sort, he had taken over his father's business in the 1950's and had grown it substantially by the mid-1970's.

With his moppish grey hair, clear plastic glasses and frumpy but elegant clothes, Bill would work his way up to his best line, "I'm just a country boy", and that would be the clinching argument. In the face of that, you'd have to hold onto your wallet, as it seemed to have grown small legs of its own. Rejecting your authority, your wallet would just start to meander across the table to Bill, as he twinkled his blue eyes amidst his good affable looks. It was all over, and you only hoped that when you woke up the next day, that you'd like whatever you had bought.

Of course, it was easier to think of Bill as ruthless and calculating, but that was only the half of it. There was this romantic streak in him, this caring for what he did that made it more difficult to get a handle on him. Oh sure, he'd buy someone's old car, think it was worth twice what the market would pay, and he wouldn't budge. Not at all. He'd sit there, with this car you wanted and some outrageous price, and he wouldn't budge. And you'd go home, look in the mirror and say "what's wrong with me? Maybe it is worth that kind of money.", and then calm would start to creep in and you'd roll over and go back to sleep realizing that he really did want way to much for that old car. This would go on for years, but maybe he was right. Someday, sooner or later, someone would pay what he wanted. So to keep things under control, I didn't go up there too much. Best to avoid trouble like this.

But on this wintry day, my friend Jack (from College) and I did go up and look around. There were some cars up there - usual sort. I remember still the Maserati Sebring covered in snow that we both still wish we had bought. I of course, didn't even know what it was, and years later, even now, still keep wondering how neat it would be. But Jack knew better, and he has only the midwestern winter cold to blame for his reluctance to take it home.

But that missed opportunity pales against our biggest mistake, the big fish that really did get away. Yes, Bill Knauz had that streak, and the funniest things would end up in his yard. Of course, the best ones, the most interesting things went into the "museum", a locked and secured building of its own that probably was the family retirement fund. And each time we went up here, we'd wander around, eating doughnuts and coffee until Bill would come over and bashfully tease us, wondering if we'd want to get into the museum. Or was it us who asked him? At any rate, we'd all indulge and off we'd go. It was across the car lot, and we wander to the far off building, away from watching eyes.

And there were the treasures. They really were. Yes, they changed from time to time, sometimes new stuff would show up, and some of the old would move on, but the aura was that of a big wine cellar. Kind of musty and aged, but very sweet and rich. The smell of good old cars and leather. At one point, Bill Knauz had found the first Mercedes 220 he ever sold for MB. It took him a while to track it down and pry it loose, but he got it back. What a dealer.

And nearby was the Alfa GTA, and the Duetto with less than 10,000 miles on it, the odd Ferrari or two, a Lancia and the one. That one. It was a hulk of a car that made no sense – it wasn’t even running, and he'd have let go for $10k. Back in the early 1970's we looked at this big old car, red with big fenders. I didn't know too much, but I knew that much money for something that big meant bigger trouble than I wanted. And the engine block was cracked and a new one would have to be cast. It didn't have its interior in place, and I don't even know what it had or didn't have. But it was big, it was red, and it said Alfa Romeo somewhere. And the block had eight cylinders, looked like two of the four cylinder ones put together. Built in the 1930's. Boy was I glad we passed on that one. We made the right move then. Yessir. No doubt about it.

Success came in little ways with Bill. I had bought a rat of a Flaminia sedan from my friend Walt (in Pittsburgh) for $300 and sold it to Bill for $600, doubling my money. Of course he then sold it for $1200 to a guy in St. Louis, who sold it to Japan for $2,400. So one day, all four of us sat down and had a doughnut in honor of the sedan, and each of us dreamed of getting it back someday. Must have been a chilly morning.

But that day when Jack and I were visiting, we had more ground to cover – we then spotted the Lancia Aurelia Bill had, a B20 from the Shakespeare collection. Shakespeare was a strange man, a farmer in southern Illinois who had collected Bugattis years ago. The story is well known, how the Schlumpf brothers wanted to buy all of them from Skaespeare, but were shocked to find the Bugattis were tucked amidst barns, on dirt floors and just kind of cars on the farm. The story was well told some years ago in an issue of Automobile Quarterly by Bob Shaw, a Chicago car. He acted as an in-between guy and photographed the cars being shipped from the farm on a railroad train. That was after two years of negotiation and all the appropriate name calling between the parties involved. Its a great story ofstrong personalities, culture clash and a shared love of Bugattis amidst real personal dislikes.

Yes, amidst all those Bugattis that were shipped off to those French collectors, Bill Shakespeare had an Aurelia. A man of taste, to be sure. His B20 was a fourth series car painted in two-tone green, an odd combination that looked extremely nice. It was a good car, one with charm and an aura of distinction, and I remember hoping someday to be able to have one. It seemed a bit big and a bit too far away from me then, but maybe Bill had just put one of his high prices on the car.

On the floor nearby were some parts that came with the car, odd Aurelia bits, a spare engine and transmission, a fan and a generator. These were off some Spider or convertible that had been wrecked years earlier but the details were unknown. There wasn't anything in the pile worth trying to pry away from Bill. I spotted the number plate from the wrecked spider, and Bill didn't care if I had it or not.

Somehow, about a year later, I learned of an Aurelia spider for sale in Chicago. It turned out that a fast talking guy on the west side of town said he had a spider, but had never had the money to fix it up. Possible? Very unlikely - the guy didn’t looklike he had beer money, much less a B24 Spider. But you never know - and I agreed to help him sell it, sight unseen. So one wintry day, in a storyland that seems like magic, on this broken down old wooden trailer comes this car – a real Spider on four wheels. Yes, it was full of rust and bondo, but it was a  complete one, with side curtains and a parts book. My friend Walt Spak came to get the car,. So with Walt in town, we run up to Bill Knauz's, and look at the B20 for fun as well.