In 1958, Steve McQueen bought this Jaguar XKSS from a local TV personality who kept it parked in a studio lot on Sunset Boulevard. McQueen cajoled his wife Nellie into writing a check for $5,000 -- today around $40,000 -- and became the third owner of XKSS chassis No. 713, a car that had originally been imported a year earlier by Jaguar North America. It had been purchased new by a man who helped develop Riverside Raceway. The ingraining of motorsports history, even tangentially, was only appropriate. McQueen was early in his career and showing glimpses of the potential hell-raising that would come at the height of his powers; that the Jaguar, with its stubby proportions, inflated curves and race-derived everything, appealed to him was only natural.

XKSS No. 713 was off-white with a red interior -- a thoroughly handsome color scheme, especially for a convertible, but McQueen wouldn't have any of it. ("He liked darker, subtle colors," reminisced son Chad McQueen years later. "He just had the greatest taste in cars.") Off went the white, on went British Racing green. The red interior, gone -- swapped out by hot-rodder Tony Nancy, "The Loner," for black upholstery at his Sherman Oaks shop. Not a trace of white remained. The car had been stripped down for the repaint, covering every delicate aluminum body panel on both sides; the doors open above the achingly tall doorsill, upwards and outwards like an Aston Martin DB9 -- had it been a coupe, Sir William Lyons would have been tempted to fit gullwing doors, a la Mercedes. But alas.

Jaguar built the XKSS as a way to use up leftover D-type chassis; the car had stopped racing in 1957, departing as an undisputed champion. Straight Le Mans victories in 1955, 1956 and 1957 cemented Jaguar's reputation even as the company pulled out of factory efforts after the first year of winning. Lyons figured Americans loved fast European sports cars, so the Le Mans champion became a thinly veiled race car for the street: Off went that fabulous fin and on went a passenger door, chrome bumpers and a rudimentary top. For the most part, that was it.

As I took photos, a faithful recreation of James Dean's 550 Spyder Blake Z. Rong

McQueen nicknamed his car the "Green Rat," perhaps in reference to James Dean's "Lil' Bastard." While he was shooting the show "Wanted: Dead or Alive," starring McQueen and his legendary sawed-off "Mare's Leg," he would sometimes tie his horse to the Jaguar. He drove fast and ran from the cops without second thoughts. Once, he tricked a patrolman into racing him and a supposedly in-labor Nellie to the hospital; Nellie was pregnant, sure, but only by six months. McQueen waited for the patrolman to leave, then told the nurses, "false alarm." Nellie was so angry she didn't speak to Steve for the rest of the day. "But, by God, it worked!" he said. "I didn't get the ticket!"

The sheriff of the LAPD introduced a lottery for his men: Whoever could finally nab the son of a bitch would win a steak dinner at Lawry's.

Not a single cop won.

In 1963, McQueen co-starred with Natalie Wood in "Love With the Proper Stranger." Wood was rumored to have spent much of the shoot trying to seduce McQueen, but he didn't bite. (McQueen reportedly respected his friend Robert Wagner, Wood's husband, far too much to make her just another notch on his belt.) Nevertheless, the two became friends. And in the early morning before the day's shooting, McQueen would wind his way down from Solar Drive, across Mulholland, down Laurel Canyon Road, pick up Natalie Wood and drive her to Old World Café, near Sunset and San Vicente -- which since then has evolved into a succession of bars.

Imagine McQueen blasting up and down the Sunset Strip, flush from "The Great Escape," at the height of his powers, the highest-paid actor in Hollywood, the coolest of cool. Imagine the Green Rat ascending Mulholland at two in the morning -- its wide-eyed headlights bouncing off the canyon walls, side-mounted exhausts resonating deep into the Valley. There goes McQueen, they'd say, probably from somewhere past Encino. There he goes, with his race car.

Your author recreates the famous picture of McQueen looking confused in the studio parking lot. Dana Williamson

Dana Williamson has been the Petersen's manager of the collection for a scant six months, yet, they've already entrusted him with McQueen's car. "Well, somebody has to do it," he said. Williamson moved here from Boston, where he ran Williamson Coachworks for the last 14 years, specializing in split-window Corvettes, Triumph and BSA motorcycles and -- well, anything worth preserving. When a long weekend opened up, he made the commute to Los Angeles to see his wife, an actress and entertainment reporter living in LA for the past 12 years. Six months ago, he got the Petersen job and moved West and now plies Los Angeles streets in a 1978 Porsche 911SC Targa or a 1967 BSA Thunderbolt that he labels a survivor "only 'cuz it looks like it's been through a war."

The Petersen museum acquired the car from Richard Freshman. The collector purchased the car from the McQueen estate in 1984 as it was being liquidated. Chad fought desperately to keep it in the family. But Freshman, understanding the significance, sought a sympathetic restoration in the Jaguar's native England. Margie and Robert E. Petersen bought the car in 1999, where it has remained since.

The museum exercises most of its cars once a month, said Williamson. Seals dry up, plugs foul, oil sludges to the bottom. An object at rest, etc. Normally, Williamson does a few laps on the roof of the Petersen, takes a few pictures; the permit to drive on the street is a hassle. But Jay Leno is driving it the day after we go for our ride. "You got an exclusive over Leno," he beamed.

Williamson hums the Blake Z. Rong

There is no graceful way to enter a Jaguar XKSS. Reach over the removable side window and feel around for a latch, then lift. Hold the door up as you climb over the wide, tall doorsill that ends somewhere around crotch level. The seats are bolt-upright, thinly padded, absurdly narrow; the effect is not unlike an American Airlines' coach cabin if the seats were replaced with children's high chairs (we hear it's under consideration).

The view over the hood is sensuous -- bulging fenders, swollen hood. The end fades away in the sunlight like an infinity pool, viewed through a thick aluminum frame shaped like wraparound sunglasses. It's a ridiculously phallic automobile: McQueen's psychologists would have had a field day simply watching it pull into the parking lot.

Starts right up! Not bad for a cranky old race car. The side pipes emit quite the rumble. They're pointed down and outward and the sound reverberates off the hot pavement straight up into your ears, bassy and crackling. The engine is an XK-series inline-six, twin overhead cam, triple Webers, producing 262 hp and offering 60 mph from a standstill in five seconds. Even today this is quick; back then, it was devastating. The Dunlop brakes -- discs all around, a period innovation -- protest until warm with a chorus of squeals. Missed shifts from the tricky four-speed gearbox produce a noisome grind: First and second are unsynchronized. Steering is rack and pinion, the front suspension is double wishbone and the entire car rattles like a toolbox filled with hammers.

We set off from the Petersen, headed northwest.

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It's worth noting that the citizens of Los Angeles are so jaded when it comes to flashy cars that they hardly turn a head at the XKSS -- one is tempted to conclude that even if lothario McQueen were still alive and at the wheel, he wouldn't garner a second glance. Maybe that was for the best. Faces from cars twice as tall viewed us with a mixture of curiosity and contempt; we were anarchists, we were overstepping the norm, we were filled with equal parts flash and cantankerousness. (Leno must know this all too well.) A young brunette sauntered across San Vicente, coffee in hand, eyes aimed resolutely and unwaveringly forward. A girl in yoga pants, dog leash in hand, pretended the XKSS's side-piped burble wouldn't drown out her phone conversation. The dog looked up with mild curiosity.

"McQueen owned it halfway into his racing career," said Williamson from the driver's seat, with his Ray-Bans bearing some resemblance to the departed actor. "So when he drove it on the street, he drove it as hard as he could. I'm sure he scared a lot of people."

From here, we nearly retraced the steps to McQueen's house: up Laurel Canyon Road, turning the other way across Mulholland, stopping at the overlook to Fryman Canyon -- where, if you hike down to the dense trees, you can sit on the remains of a Volkswagen Thing that met a ruinous fate among the rocks.

"How fast were we going, 60?" I asked.

"You know what, I wasn't watching." He looked down. "But yeah, about 60."

"Do the wipers work?"

"Let's see," said Williamson, and he cranked the knob twice. "Nope."

Even in its element, the XKSS is cramped, hot, fragile, loud. Its brakes chirp like birds all the way down Laurel Canyon. There is no dignified way to get out. At one point, we pulled over on Sunset Boulevard to let the engine cool among the shade of delivery trucks, and their drivers looked at us with a certain annoyance: Who were these snobs in our way?

But I walked away with a kindred conclusion, shared by anyone who comes in contact with an XKSS: It embodies that most beguiling of concepts -- a race car, for the road -- in such an outlandish, otherworldly fashion that it doesn't even need the King of Cool -- it is already cool enough.

Barreling towards oblivion, in second gear. Blake Z. Rong

McQueen, uncharacteristically fearing for his license, sold the Jaguar XKSS in 1969 to Vegas tycoon William F. Harrah. For the next eight years, the car haunted McQueen with its absence. He made Le Mans, he made The Towering Inferno. He entered the 12 Hours of Sebring, narrowly losing to Mario Andretti by a scant 23 seconds. McQueen divorced Nellie and married his co-star from "The Getaway," Ali MacGraw, 10 years his junior. His garage remained Jaguar-free. He made "On Any Sunday" and made Husquvarna a household name. Meanwhile, Harrah put the Jaguar up on display in his namesake casinos.

Finally, McQueen couldn't take it anymore -- he went to Harrah and bought the damn thing back. The year was 1977. In his desperation, he paid twice as much as he had 20 years earlier. He drove it around for just three years before dying from lung cancer in 1980.

We wonder what an antiestablishment, antihero McQueen would say to the legions of pretenders thriving off his name today, hoping to capture an essence of his coolness, licensing his brand for everything from motorcycles to perfumes to faux-mud-splattered 499-pound jackets; companies and promoters and marketing departments who namedrop McQueen as a stand-in for everything cool and badass and rebellious while being market-friendly and worth the premium, as if cool itself could be distilled into a trendy commodity. McQueen, by all accounts, was "complex and haunted": a lousy drunk, a cokehead, a shitty husband who hammed his way through terrible movies just as he led the cult ones. Depth behind the façade, pain behind the cool, McQueen was all too human a being, just like the rest of us.

But he carved out a myth that echoed far beyond his 50 short years. The "King of Cool" persona permeated everything he touched, as evidenced by his machines. Just last year, his 1946 Indian Chief sold for nearly six times its value. A year before that, McQueen's 1970 Porsche 911S sold for an eye-watering $1.375 million. The suit McQueen wore during Le Mans, while he gave the British a piece of his mind, had been valued from $200,000-$300,000. It sold for nearly a million dollars.

Back in 1984, Freshman paid $148,000 for the XKSS. It's worth quite a bit more now. Williamson figured that if it went up for auction, it would probably fetch $10 million. (At Barrett-Jackson in 2003, an XKSS without the celebrity provenance sold for $1.1 million. It was white, like McQueen's car once was.) How does it feel to drive a $10 million car?

"I try not to think of it that way," he laughed. "Everybody says they want to buy it, but I don't think the Petersen would ever sell it. It's one of their jewels."

I sat where Natalie Wood once sat. Across time and space, we touched butts. Blake Z. Rong

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