The Last Open Road (1994) by Burt Levy

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

The Last Open Road (1994)

by Burt Levy

Passaic, New Jersey

New Jersey: 10/13

  The Last Open Road is about the world of auto racing in the era when rich white guys could just drive to some backwoods locale and close off all the streets and race around in their Jaguars, MG's and Ferrari's.  If you are like me, you didn't know that this world even existed, ever, so in that regard it is an interesting novel.  Burt Levy, I gather, is telling the tale from a fictionalized version of himself, the son of Union chemical plant worker in Passaic, New Jersey who catches the "racing bug" while starting his career as a mechanic at a Sinclair filling station.  Along the way he befriends a local scrap metal dealer who is rich and the owner of a Jaguar which is in need of constant attention.  Seeking guidance, he falls in with a lower Manhattan foreign car mechanic/car salesman, who show him the ropes and provide his entree into the world of dilletante car racing in the early 1950's. 

   But beyond that appeal there isn't much going on here besides the uninteresting bildungsroman of a New Jersey foreign-car mechanic.