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Gallery: American muscle in Suffolk
Hot rods, Camaros, Firebirds: the US Air Force has some serious metal, and it's all hiding in the UK
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The business of defending the free world is deadly serious - never more so than with a medievally unhinged strain of jihadism currently at large in the Middle East. But it's reassuring to know that some of the people charged with tackling the threat still know how to relax in style.
Take the 48th Fighter Wing, the heartbeat of the US Air Force's combat capability, whose pilots and support infrastructure contribute to the 6,500-plus people stationed at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk. When the day job involves flying sorties into enemy territory in the unequivocally awesome F-15E and C fighter jet, you may choose to unwind with a spot of transcendental meditation or a Downton Abbey box-set binge. Or you could head over to the on-site auto shop for an all-night welding session on the hot rod, washed down with a few beers and pizza.
Photos: Jamie Lipman
This feature was originally published in the April 2015 issue of Top Gear magazine
Advertisement - Page continues belowHere's the deal. If you're a member of the USAF, it's odds-on you'll do a stint overseas. The Americans have airbases on NATO soil and elsewhere, and the minimum tour is two years. The relocation package includes the transportation of one vehicle, which is why you might have found yourself following a Ford Econoline or Chevy Astrovan up the A11 on the way to Cromer. Or perhaps something rather more diverting.
The guys at Lakenheath don't have an official car club - they're too cool for that - but when word got out that TG was coming over for an inspection, the machinery that rolled up was almost enough to fill a hangar. "You don't know who you're going to meet on your next tour," Captain Mitch Rose tells us, "but, rest assured, you're going to run into some bros who want to talk cars."
It's a seriously motley assortment, a perfect automotive manifestation of the wanderlust that surely characterises a life on the move. The surprise is that for every piece of arcane Americana, there's an equally unexpected example of European metal. Would Tom Cruise's Maverick (OK, Top Gun was about naval pilots, but you get the point) have set so many teenage hearts aflutter if he'd rocked up in a Mini instead of on a Kawasaki Ninja 900? Unlikely. At least two of the guys here are aficionados, although one of them is planning to replace the 1,275cc engine on his mid-Nineties, Japanese-spec car with the powertrain from a Honda CR-V, which he's then going to turbocharge to at least 500bhp.
To be fair to Technical Sergeant Justin Wilder, even if that project comes off, it'll still only be his second craziest car. The other is a 1936 Ford hot rod, a labour of love whose flame-belching party trick manages to startle a deputation of visiting senior military personnel while TG struggles to maintain the appropriate decorum.
Advertisement - Page continues below"It's mostly a '36 truck," Sgt Wilder tells us, with a meticulously engineered poker face. "It lived in a field in Oregon for, oh, about 50 years or so, and had cattle walking over it. So I asked the farmer about it, and he let me have it. I hammered it back into shape with my uncle. The front end is Model A, the wheels are powder-coated originals, the steering column's from a fork lift, the powertrain's lifted from a late-Eighties Mustang and the turn signals are from an old school bus. The fuel tank is a beer keg from the San Francisco Brewing Company."
Justin confirms that it's quite challenging on East Anglia's bumpy B-roads, but that "it's mostly about tyre smoke". And flames. Lots of flames. "I like making things that aren't supposed to go fast go really fast," he says. "I also like to think that if something's worth doing, it's worth overdoing." Sgt Wilder, we quickly conclude, is something of a savant when it comes to spannering, which is handy given that it's his job to keep $40m fighter jets airworthy.
Other attractions include a '68 Pontiac Firebird, a '68 Camaro SS, various jacked-up Jeeps, including a Rubicon-spec car, a brace of current Camaros and a '67 Mustang fastback. The latter is the prized possession of Technical Sergeant Art de la Fuente, who drove it all the way from Washington State to Alaska where he was stationed at the time. "I'd been driving a crappy minivan for a while," he says. "Then I found out one day that a close friend had been killed by an IED in Afghanistan. I wasn't in a good mood when I got home, and told my wife I'd had enough of driving a lame car. So I found the Mustang and bought it. I drove it more in the first three days I had it than the previous owner had managed in 10 years."
Lieutenant Colonel ‘Smash' Blackwood admits that the ad hoc car club is a fantastic motivator for the base's airmen. He's racked up 2,200 hours in an F-15 Eagle, and scratched the ground-level itch over the years with various Corvettes and Jeeps. But the current car is the epitome of lightweight European engineering, and locally conceived - a Vauxhall VX220 turbo. But never mind that, what's it like flying an F-15?
"You have a lot to learn. The systems are like nothing you will ever have seen before," he says. "And just when you think you've got the hang of the plane, they hand you the tactical manuals, and you have to learn how to use it to fight and employ it against the enemy.
"On initial F-15 training, the second flight you do is a vertical take-off, so there are no missiles on the plane or excess fuel, you just take off and stand the jet on its tail. The instructor will tell you to look between the fins as the earth recedes behind you. The sense of power and responsibility never leaves you. That said, I was driving my VX220 at Bedford Autodrome the other week, and I couldn't get my braking right. Flying a jet is all about having the right attitude, and realising that you never stop learning. When you reach a point when you think you can no longer learn or improve, well, that's when you should be hanging up your boots. It's the same in a car, I guess." Even in a Mini.
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