Who better than an ex-pilot to fly across empty flatlands at lightplane speeds than Stephan Wilkinson

A land too harsh to be grazed and too far from the Permian Basin to be oil rich, the real West Texas is hard, empty, low-mountained, big-horizoned, raw-bouldered country that hangs like an udder from Texas, poking under New Mexico and pointing toward El Paso. "Out in the West Texas town of El Paso / I fell in love with a Mexican girl," Marty Robbins sang huskily on a 45 that I used to play endlessly. "Nighttime would find me in Rosa's cantina / Music would play and Felina would whirl." There were no Felinas whirling at the grim Hilton El Paso Airport, but Robbins would have comealong for the ride anyway. Few knew it, but he was a surprisingly competent part-time Nascar Grand National stock-car racer.

But never in anything as fast, powerful, or expensive as the panther-black 203-miles-per-hour 520-horsepower $260,000 Aston Martin Vanquish S that awaited me outside. It was the perfect car for the roads I'd find in the West Texas barrens beyond the interstate, where it would chew up the miles at lightplane speeds. Marty, a balladeer with a big throttle foot, would have been in his element.

Day One, 293 miles: El Paso to Lajitas via Marfa
A friend said, "My father-in-law would give a body part to go on a Great Drive with you. He just read your new Porsche book and loved it, and he's a car nut to boot."

Well, how about next week?

The dad-in-law, Ron, my sudden co-pilot, shows up in El Paso ready to roll, having thoroughly Internet-researched the rare Vanquish S—only 70 a year are imported into the United States. He practically knows more about the car than I do.

Now, any Texan knows more about the Rio Grande than I do. Trundling the Aston through a tangle of truck parks, loading docks, and warehouses, over potholes that have never before battered a quarter-million-dollar car, and across railroad tracks that threaten to high-center the slinky beast, I abjure Interstate 10—the obvious way east—and head straight for the river on the industrial outskirts of El Paso. A fool's errand, as it turns out, for here the rio is anything but grande. Invisible beyond high double-chain-link border fences, it's either dry, underground, or trickling along a hidden concrete sluiceway. It'll be tomorrow before we do indeed see water.

Back on I-10, I note that every fourth vehicle seems to be a waddling, weaving motor home, most of them towing tenders. The iron pachyderm in front of us has a little PT Cruiser hitched to its towbar, and on the Pete's trunk is a sign: "Please be patient, I'm pushing a motor home." The wisdom of paying the price of a split-level, not to mention gas, in order to thumb your nose at $49.95 Motel 6 bills escapes me, but I'm sure motor home drivers wonder why someone would buy a handmade British coupe to carry around two seats and a trunk so tiny that Ron's gym bag ends up in the cabin.

New experience for a city slicker: a border patrol checkpoint on I-10. The German shorthair tugging at a leather lanyard the size of Mistress Greta's whip claws his way up the passenger-side door of the pickup ahead of us, presumably sniffing for illegal immigrants. If he tries that on the Aston's nine-coat hand-rubbed finish, which took several Brits two days to apply and polish, Dick Cheney will be getting the bill. Fortunately, Fritz is kept on a short leash, and all the guards want to know is are we U.S. citizens and what kinda car is this?