I Need To Drive The Vector Fast In Front Of A Lot Of People And I Think I Should Be More Scared

We’re pretty excited to be part of RADwood this year, which is going to be at the Gold Bar Hangar in Alameda, California, and a big part of that excitement is all the toys RADwood is letting us bring to the party. Let’s be honest, it’s probably because of those toys that they’re letting us in the door at all: we’re bringing our Autozam dressed as a Ferrari F40 dressed as a Mazda 787B, I’m bringing one of my period-correct Apple IIs for some fun interactive ’80s madness, and, perhaps most significantly, we’re bringing a 1996 Vector M12.

Yes, a Vector M12! I’m sure anyone who is even considering going to RADwood knows the story of Vector, perhaps one of the most unhinged and bonkers automakers (and they’re barely that, as they only really made 50 cars in the lifetime of the company) so the fact that we’re bringing this one out there is, let’s just say, A Big Deal.

The M12 we’ll be taking out is a striking, grape-soda-on-a-summer-evening purple, and is number five of 14 cars built. It has a 5.7-liter Lamborghini V12 engine right behind your head, and it makes 492 wildly gesticulating Italian horsepower. That engine is nailed onto a maybe not-so-sophisticated chassis and a body whose build quality may be most charitably called “cavalier.” Here, check out David and Beau driving it around in this video where they compare it to a Spyker:

I’m bringing all of this up because part of our deal with RADwood is that we will be participating in part of the event they call “Wheels In Motion,” which is where some of the cars that are brought to the event will be driven, fast, down a big straightaway in front of the San Franciscan skyline, so people can see these things in action, hear their mighty roars and bleats, and take all sorts of pictures and videos of these legendary cars against the sunset over that majestic skyline.

And it’ll be great! Not just great, this could literally be a once-in-a-lifetime thing for many people when it comes to cars like this Vector, because who else is bringing a running Vector out to anything. Seeing this Vector drive by is about as uncommon a sight as seeing a sentient zucchini drive past you in a lightly (but tastefully) modified Wartburg wagon.

But to make this happen, there must be one crucial element: someone has to drive the Vector. And that someone is me.

Now, I’m excited to drive this thing! Very excited! Part of this excitement is the result of my near-constant companion, ignorance. That ignorance was made pretty clear when I talked about driving the Vector for Radwood to Beau and David and saw their looks of genuine horror and dismay. These were two people who had experienced the Vector and were still coming to terms with that experience.

“Not a chance. Absolutely not. No.”

That’s what Beau said when I asked about taking the Vector on a few relatively high-speed runs. There was no hesitation at all. He didn’t even for a moment entertain that it could be done. Instead, he gave me a remarkable analogy about driving the Vector:

“Have you ever heard of that sense of impending doom that happens when people get a blood transfusion of the wrong type? That’s what driving the Vector is like.”

Hmm. That’s not especially encouraging. Beau was saying that the car would not like being started and stopped a bunch of times, so I told him that we could leave it on and idling in between runs, to which Beau responded, “idling is no better.”

I should note here that the reluctance and, let’s be honest, fear, that Beau was expressing has nothing to do with the condition of the Vector. This Vector M12 is very likely the best Vector M12 on the planet. It’s terrifying because that’s how it was designed. 

Oh, and how it was built: the build quality doesn’t help. This was a failing company bought out by an Indonesian firm, making a car with a powerful and finicky Italian engine, and built with passionate disinterest by likely poorly-compensated Floridians. It wasn’t exactly a recipe for success.

I turned to David, hoping he could sway things a bit, and here’s what he told me about how it is to drive:

“It is like a velociraptor is right behind you yelling as loud as it can, and it wants to kill you. You feel like you’re going to die.”

Thanks, David.

Perversely, this is kind of making me want to drive it more. The only real concern I have so far, having never actually driven the car, is fire. If a fire starts inside the car, getting out of the car would be, um, difficult. Look how the doors open:

The doors swing up in traditional billionaire-car style, but here they only barely open enough to let you wriggle in and out, and you have to traverse that massive sill to get in and out, which is wide enough that you should probably pause in the middle of it for a snack. It’s an ordeal to get in and out. If there was a fire in there, you’d be well boned. And grilled.

Even if the cabin just fills with smoke, you’re not in much better shape, as the only part of the windows that open are these little slits, barely big enough to slide a pizza box into. So we should get a fire extinguisher for the inside.

I don’t care, though. We did tell Hagerty that we will drive the Vector, and, dammit, we’re people of our word. So eventually Beau and David agreed we can at least give it a try. I’m very excited to use this gated shifter, to hear the caterwauling of that V12 right behind my head, no sound deadening or anything to muffle the din, to feel that gut punch of Lambo power shoving me in the back, to revel in the terror of it all.

Also, look at the wipers on this thing! Three blades on one colossal arm? What alien designed this?

All of this is to say that if you want to experience an automotive event with a rarity on par of the blooming of one of those disgusting corpse flowers, then you best get yourself to Alameda on October 24, where the Legendary Running of the Vector will happen, very likely for the only time in your long and prosperous life.

I can’t wait. I think.

Top graphic image: author