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"            My friend Steve Morton suggested this column to me about two years ago. Steve has owned a variety of cars over the years, and he and his brother, Frank, have shown some fabulous cars at concours events. &amp;quot;So, why don&amp;#039;t you ask several knowledgeable car guys to tell you about the best car they&amp;#039;ve ever owned?&amp;quot;   Starting with Steve Morton: &amp;quot;The most fun car I ever had was the 1500 Super Speedster, but the best car I ever owned was a 1971 Mercedes-Benz 280SE convertible. This was during the era of muscle cars, and this was the Mercedes muscle car: Take a magnificently built and styled car and drop a powerful V-8 engine into it. The car had the &amp;quot;bank-vault&amp;quot; solid feel that was a trademark of Mercedes-Benz. I felt like I could drive anywhere in that car, and I still don&amp;#039;t know why I ever sold it.&amp;quot;   Dan Gurney: &amp;quot;Besides my new bright-red Ford GT, which I take out for special occasions, I am really enjoying my current everyday car. It&amp;#039;s a charcoal-gray 2005 GTO, and everything about it is stealthy, for obvious reasons. I took off the rear wing and put on a 2004 hood without the fake scoop. It has a very developed Corvette-style small-block V-8, and it is the closest thing to a NASCAR Cup car for the street.&amp;quot;   Next up is Gary Laughlin, an enthusiast who raced Allards, and other cars, and commissioned the famous Scaglietti Corvettes featured in a Salon in our February 1991 issue.   &amp;quot;Since you said it can&amp;#039;t be a race car, it would be a Porsche 911 Turbo \u2014 not a 930 though. Registered in 1977 in Texas, it had 317 bhp, very light weight, windup windows and no sunroof. It was black with tan suede upholstery. It had been the car of Dr. Fuhrman (CEO of Porsche at the time). It had short gear ratios, but when you got to 3500 rpm, you&amp;#039;d better be ready to steer, because it was going to try to swap ends! We couldn&amp;#039;t get it close to EPA specs, so we had to deport it back to Europe.&amp;quot;   Among car enthusiasts, television host/comedian Jay Leno is legendary. His collection of cars numbers more than 80.   &amp;quot;I chose my 1955 Roadmaster, not because it&amp;#039;s the best handling or the fastest or gets the best economy, it&amp;#039;s just the one I&amp;#039;ve had the longest and been through the most with. I had always liked the looks of those Buicks, so I bought it for $350 in 1972. I used it for everything. I didn&amp;#039;t have a place to live, I was a young comedian starting out and I would stay with friends, and occasionally I would have to sleep in the back seat.   &amp;quot;But it was the kind of car that when you got off a freeway ramp and it said 35 mph and you were going 36, those tires would be squealing! Anyway, I met my wife in the car. I parked it at my mother-in-law&amp;#039;s house for 17 years! One day I went by and there was a note on it that said, &amp;#039;Obviously no one cares about this car, and if you want to sell it, please call me.&amp;#039; I felt awful about that, but rather than restore it, I thought we should make &amp;#039;The Six Million Dollar Man&amp;#039; out of this thing.   &amp;quot;So I contacted General Motors Perform-ance Parts and we decided to build a hot rod. We used Corvette C5 suspension front and back, we got a 572-cu.-in. big-block prototype crate motor. It&amp;#039;s a fabulous motor with 650 or 700 horsepower. We made 17-in. wheels and stamped our own hubcaps so the car would look as stock as possible.&amp;quot;   Sam Posey, former racing driver and R&amp;amp;amp;T Contributing Editor, says his best car was the silver 300SL Gullwing he bought in 1958: &amp;quot;The car was 4 and I was 14. At the time, the SL was yesterday&amp;#039;s news, so I got it, in perfect condition, for $2500. But to me the car&amp;#039;s real value was that it represented a tangible connection to the world of racing that I desperately hoped to become part of. Today I am aware of the SL as a design that somehow never aged. It looks as fresh, and exciting, as when I first saw it exactly half a century ago.&amp;quot;   Bob Lutz is the vice chairman of General Motors, former executive at Chrysler, and BMW, former Marine Corps fighter pilot, and life-long car enthusiast: &amp;quot;The car that stands out in my memory is my 1952 MG TD, bought used in 1955 in Pensacola, Florida. It was my first sports car and it quickly became a faithful daily driver. It was also a SCCA gymkhana, autocross and circuit racer on weekends, and an object of scorn for the local population. They could not envisage an automobile that small, with only 4 cylinders and a mere 55 horsepower. But on the twisting roads of rural Florida and Alabama, it provided pure joy.&amp;quot;   Bill Ficker is the architect who designed the building in which Road &amp;amp;amp; Track has lived for the past 37 years. Bill is also a famous yachtsman who skippered the Intrepid in defense of the America&amp;#039;s Cup in 1970.   &amp;quot;My favorite car was also my wife&amp;#039;s favorite \u2014 a 1976 BMW 630 coupe. Barbara was not a car enthusiast, but when she first saw the 630 she loved it. There was only one in America with the paint scheme and interior finish we liked, and it was in Newport, Rhode Island. So, we bought that one while we were there for the sailing, and drove it back to Newport Beach. I had never driven all the way across the country, and the was perfect.&amp;quot;   No list in Road &amp;amp;amp; Track would be complete without the participation of Phil Hill, World Drivers Champion in Formula 1 and longtime contributor to this magazine.   &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a hard choice between my former Blower Bentley and the 1938 Alfa Romeo 8C 2900 I owned a long time ago, but I have to choose the Alfa. It was an Alfa Romeo team car that led most of the famed Mille Miglia race through Italy in 1938, only to suffer a tire failure near the end and finish in 2nd place, driven by Carlo Pintacuda. The feelings I had for the car when I first drove it still remain with me \u2014 it was one of the world&amp;#039;s great cars, and extremely pleasant to drive.&amp;quot;   So, that&amp;#039;s the list for this year&amp;#039;s New Car issue. I hope you&amp;#039;ll find the best car for you as you read through our presentation of all the New Cars for 2006 \u2014 and be sure to vote on the Road &amp;amp;amp; Track Readers&amp;#039; Choice Award for Best Car 2006. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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