Bruce Hotchkiss' "Spare Parts"

The greatest thing about all the press trips I was on was not the products I got to experience, but the people I got to meet. Some were famous (at least to me), and some just plain folks. These are some that I remember, in no particular order. I met Bill Taylor at one of the G.M. long leads. Bill had a strange gig; he was a Brit who lived in Southern California, and he wrote for an Australian hot rod magazine! As a Brit, he kind of naturally drifted to the Canadians on these junkets. As a hot rod writer, he was a bit of an outlier. He had a great sense of humour (I use the British/Canadian spelling for Bill), and often joined our after-dinner boozers. I scared Bill once on Chevrolet day during the G.M. long leads. Chevy had a military K5 Blazer that no one else was paying attention to. So I took it out; Bill jumped in the passenger seat. The Blazer was a diesel, had a full roll cage, big tires, skid panels, run flat off-road tires, etc. G.M. had a small off-road course with some great...