Steering Committee : Drivers Shuttle Imports in Lap of Luxury

Ed Kakos, 70, likes driving cars he can’t afford. Wally Powers, 64, is earning a few bucks to take his wife to Puerta Vallarta. And Ron Moore, 62, just likes hanging out with his buddies.

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The hours can be hairy and the pay isn’t great. But these Ventura County residents get to play welcoming committee for the thousands of BMWs, Jaguars, Volvos, Land Rovers and other luxury imports that roll off cargo ships every week.

On a recent weekday morning, Powers is one of 12 drivers convoying through Port Hueneme at 35 m.p.h. in top-of-the-line BMWs--cars built to cruise the Autobahn at speeds in the triple digits. Nevertheless, these temporary employees say driving the cars from port loading docks to a local distribution center is a job that is just their speed.

“This job keeps you on your toes,” says Powers, an Ojai resident, as he pilots a newly minted $95,000 BMW sports coupe through town. “You’re always moving and you’re often outdoors. For some of the guys, it’s golfing money. For me, it’s money for vacations.”

Shuttle drivers earn little more than minimum wage to ferry the autos to the car makers’ processing centers--some just two miles from the port. Their driving records must be spotless. On occasion, shuttle drivers get called into work in the middle of the night.

When foul weather delayed a ship carrying BMWs arriving from Bremerhaven, Germany, last month, Powers and the others shuttled cars from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m.

Mike Wallace, general manager of Pacific Vehicle Processors Inc., which employs about 35 shuttle drivers, says there’s a reason most of his hires are retired and have some time on their hands.

“They usually have worked for a number of years and we don’t have to worry about things like hot-rodding,” Wallace said. “They are very thrilled about driving a new Land Rover or a new Jaguar and they treat them with a lot of tender loving care.”

Bruce Brown, president of Nu Car Services Inc., which employs shuttle drivers through a temporary service, says younger people would probably not want the job anyway.

“If you have a young person, they are not really motivated by the [low pay],” says Brown, who drives the van that takes the drivers back to the port. “These workers still joke and kid. But they really get the job done in a dependable way.”

On this day, getting the job done means shuttling more than 400 BMWs from the port back to the car-maker’s West Coast processing center in Oxnard. The drivers will make more than 30 trips--about four an hour--to move this fleet of new cars out of the port.

Crowded in a van heading toward the port on their 12th run of the morning, the drivers trade jokes and talk shop.

“We like the sevens because we can turn the radios on,” says Powers, a retired bread truck driver, referring to the model numbers for the car-maker’s high-end sedan. “We can listen to Rush.”

As the van drives past rows of Volvos and Mercedes parked on a sprawling lot at the port, Brown calls out, “There’s Sweden. There’s Germany.”

A line of dark green fighter planes awaiting shipment to the Middle East catches the eye of Jerry Bjorklund, a retired quality assurance engineer from Port Hueneme.

“We’re going to shuttle those this afternoon,” Bjorklund, 58, says with convincing confidence.

When the van stops, the drivers spill out and pick a car from among the seemingly infinite number of red, blue, green and silver autos studding the asphalt. Moore slides into a 325i coupe and starts the engine. As if part of a sleek car commercial, the coupe falls quickly in line with the parade of purring BMWs.

“These are real nice cars,” says Moore, opening the $28,000 car’s electric sunroof. “I think they are a little overpriced.”

Like many of the shuttle drivers, Moore, a former General Telephone employee, works about two to three days a week to make some extra spending money. He says the trips in the van with the other drivers break up the monotony of the work.

“Everybody is friendly with each other,” says Moore. “I guess that could be a sign of maturity. I don’t know.”

Ventura resident Kakos says the job lets the employees test-drive cars most of them could never afford. He says he can’t imagine doing anything else.

“I like driving a new car,” says Kakos, who owns a 1992 Mercury Tracer. “They are better handling cars than mine. They are a little more comfortable too.”