For $30,000 More, He May Drive You Into Bankruptcy

I’ve been neglecting my car recently. This is bad. I’m a sportswriter, driving is the No. 1 sport in Los Angeles and the No. 1 rule in any sport is take care of your equipment.

With the holiday season approaching, I figured I could make it up to my car by buying it a nice Christmas gift. This thought coincided with the arrival in the mail of the Beverly Hills Motoring Accessories Holiday Gift Book.

Beverly Hills Motoring Accessories is a store, sort of a Pep Boys for people who can afford to buy Pep Boys.

The very first page of the catalogue had some interesting items. A portrait, for instance. “The world’s most foremost automotive portrait artist, Harold James Cleworth, will capture the spirit of your car in his renowned ‘photo realism’ style.”

The portrait is only $15,000, and no doubt Cleworth uses only top-grade canvas. But for my car, I’m holding out for Dali.

The “charmeuse silk” car cover sounds nice, $800, custom tailored. But my car is young and would probably outgrow the thing. Besides, I’d have to spend another $100 to buy a cover to protect the silk cover.

How about a nice license plate frame? For $40,000, you can pick up a pair of 14-karat solid gold frames. “The ultimate license frame!” the catalogue brags. But how do we know they won’t come out with a plutonium model next year, making the gold obsolete? For items like this, I always wait for the after-Christmas sales.

The real mink floor mats, at $7,000 for the four-piece set, I ruled out for two reasons. One, I make it a policy never to spend more on floor mats than I paid for the car itself. The second reason is religious. I can’t shake the feeling that if God caught me driving down the street with $7,000 mink floor mats, He would pull me over and write me up.

Then I saw it. The perfect gift.

For $30,000, Danny Sullivan will teach you to drive.

“A day with the ultimate driving instructor, 1985 Indy 500 winner Danny Sullivan,” the catalogue said. The lessons are given at Sears Point Raceway in Sonoma, Calif., and you can use one of the several available race cars, or bring your own.

I already consider myself an expert driver, and I have no racing aspirations or fantasies, but let’s face it--on the L.A. freeways, there is no such thing as too much driving skill. And after a day with Danny, I could probably cut my daily commuting time in half.

I needed more details. By phone, I reached Sullivan in Florida. I asked him what I would get for my $30,000.

“I’ll teach you how to drive around the track at high speed, and critique you,” Sullivan said for starters. “I’ll give you a braking course, teach you to brake into a corner, which is known as trail braking.

“If you want to get tricky, I can teach you all kinds of turns, like you saw on ‘Miami Vice’ (Sullivan starred in an episode last season but didn’t do his own driving). I’ll teach you hand-brake turns, reversal turns, bootleg turns.”

How about bat turns, like Batman made in his Batmobile?

“That’s the same as a bootleg turn,” Sullivan explained.

What else?

“A lot depends on what kind of car you have,” he said.

I told him my car was a small, four-wheel-drive vehicle with approximately the same speed and cornering capabilities as a real nice vacuum cleaner.

“Do you do any off-road driving?” he asked.

Not intentionally, I said. I asked him what he could teach me that would be of use on freeways and around town. Bat turns probably have little practical application on freeways.

“I can teach you to use a radar detector,” he said. “And how to change lanes so as not to be so conspicuous. For city driving, I can teach you creative parking, how to park when there are no spaces available. You use the bumper of your car. I’ve actually pushed cars out into the road and taken their spot. It’s surprisingly simple.”

And economical. If I muscle into parking places with lots of time on the meters, in a few years these driving lessons would pay for themselves.

Sullivan informed me the day of lessons would last 8 to 10 hours, and the $30,000 price would include at least one catered meal, as well as tip for the instructor. Sorry, no discount for senior citizens or students.

Danny also assured me he wouldn’t put one of those embarrassing “Student Driver” signs on the back of my car.

Hey, it sounds great. And practical, too.

I’m either going for the lessons, or for the camel-hair driving cap, with car logo embroidered, $39.95.