The one-armed, 91-year-old race car driver from the CIA pulled a key from his pocket and carefully unlocked the door. We hurried into the parking garage, thankful to escape the winter chill.
“When I was in Europe, shot up and injured, I decided anything that I want that I can afford, I’m going to have,” Ace said. Mainly that was cars, more than 200 over the course of a long life, as many as 44 at one time, a total of 25 now, nestled in a location he prefers I not pinpoint.
“I pay a fortune in parking,” Ace said. He motioned toward a pair of folding chairs, and we sat amid the gaggle of Bentleys, Rolls-Royces, Jaguars and Mercedes.
“I’ve had the best life and the most interesting life of anyone in the world,” Ace told me and then proceeded to prove his point.
He enlisted in the Army, did a stint writing for a newspaper at Fort Meade, then became an infantry officer. He waded ashore in North Africa and was fired at by the French. He captured two French colonels. He speared loaves of bread from a passing truck with his bayonet.
He stayed in the Army for a while after the war, then looked around for something else to do.
“I never heard of the CIA before,” he said. A woman he knew was married to an agency bigwig, and she got him an interview. “I went to Vienna for five years, which was the hotbed of spies in those days.”
He raced cars, too: MGs, Austin-Healeys, an Abarth . . .
We got up and walked through the collection, Ace tugging aside car covers. There was a 1955 Pontiac Safari station wagon, red and white with every available option. “When I saw this in the auction, I knew I had to have it.”
There was a 1955 Rolls-Royce Silver Dawn. “I used to have a burgundy one, too, but a buddy said, ‘My girlfriend thinks I should have a Rolls-Royce. You know of any for sale?’ I said, “Yeah—my burgundy Dawn.’ . . . The girl married someone else.”
There was a 1947 Lincoln Continental convertible. “I drove Tony Curtis in this car in the Cherry Blossom Parade. He said to me, ‘Ace, I bought one of these new in ‘46.’ ”
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