pPart I: Michael Mraz's Bohemian Rhapsody

Parked in three rows on the front lawn of Rosenburg castle in northern Austria are 50 cars whose combined value might well rival the GDP of a small country. A country like Britain. It's mid morning and we've stopped to refuel on local white wine and damn powerful coffee--the Sbarros at the Sloatsburg rest area off the New York Thruway this is not. The cavalry stormed the castle in quick order, thanks to the likes of a 1914 Opel Sport; the 1955 Bentley R-Type Continental (pictured); 14 Ferraris, including 2 GTOs worth about $15 million each; a 1961 Tatra 603; and a rare 1956 Mercedes-Benz "Gullwing" 300 SL.

We've just finished the first part of the third and final stage of the Louis Vuitton Classic Boheme Run, a rally race across the new Eastern Europe: Budapest to Vienna to Prague. (See a slideshow of photographs from the Run right here.) I've made it this far thanks to Olga, the Hungarian driver of the Press Car. Even though we weren't official race entrants, Olga, who pounded a Red Bull every few minutes, navigated the many switchbacks and S-turns alongside the Danube by speeding down the middle of the highway, honking at anyone brazen enough to be traveling in the other direction.

I thought I'd succeeded in securing a ride in a Le Mans-winning Jaguar.  Last night, in a horse-drawn carriage on the way to the full-dress ball thrown by Louis Vuitton at Hofburg Palace, I met Adrian Hamilton (left), a formidably built Brit dressed in tails. He mentioned he was racing the voluptuous Jaguar C-Type. It was the same car that his father, Duncan Hamilton, won the 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race in 1953 with. When I asked if he wouldn't mind if I tagged along for the first leg of the rally, he said, "Oh, sure, sure." (The most notable feature about a classic Jag is the sound of its engine, and Hamilton's 6-cylinder, 3.4-litre version could hit 150 mph.)

But early this morning, as we were preparing to leave Vienna in a stately procession from the palace, I wasn't exactly surprised when I saw a very attractive woman sitting in the passenger seat of Hamilton's Jag. Last night at the ball, after a good deal of champagne and red wine and one too many Viennese waltzes, Hamilton said that he had recently gone through a nasty divorce. Between his car and his latest project, a website called wifesgone.com, he'd been keeping very busy. "The name says it all," he said.

Next: On the Road