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The Blue Nissan Tsuru (photographed by MG Harris in Cancun, Mexico)

An extremely common sight on the roads of Mexico, this model of the blue Nissan Tsuru is a popular workaday car, often chosen by taxi companies and state police for their fleets , as well as by non-status obsessed professions like writers, educators, academics.

I chose this as the car driven by the bad guy in INVISIBLE CITY because it’s so NOT the kind of car a show-off-type bad guy would have. It’s a car that is so ubiquitous as to be invisible.

I have a secret fondness for the blue Nissan Tsuru, for two reasons. The first was that a favourite aunt once owned one and lent it to my family and two friends as we drove north of Mexico City to Celaya, Guanajuato and San Miguel de Allende. That was some great trip, which included seeing a room full of bottles of the delicious Mexican milk caramel sweet that originates from Celaya, as well as the ‘mummies’ of Guanajuato.

The second is that one of my best pals in the whole world, a science writer named Martin, also owned one, which he kept in pristine condition. He used to give my family lifts to the airport the day we left. So for me, the blue Nissan Tsuru was a very friendly car. But after what happens in INVISIBLE CITY I don’t feel quite the same way. The car has acquired a certain menace…

The Red Dodge Stratus (photographed by MG Harris in Tulum, Mexico)

More upmarket than the older Tsuru, the Red Stratus also has a family story behind it. In Mexico it’s the kind of car that a small business owner would have, or that a husband might buy for his wife. Nothing flashy or too noticeable, which is why Camila keeps hers on standby in INVISIBLE CITY.

My uncle Pepe once lent us his red Stratus for another of our Mexican road trips. Like many American cars it has really soft suspension and is pretty low-slung. You have to watch yourself on topes (speed bumps – they are everywhere in Mexico). We drove all the way from Mexico City up to Papantla in the north of Veracruz state, and back.

Driving in the state of Veracruz, we all agreed to take the direct road from Jalapa to Fortin de Las Flores. Big mistake! We should have looked at the elevations on the map but we were actually too stupid to notice that the route would take us up almost 3000m…

The first hint of trouble came when we noticed that the road was aiming straight at a huge mountain. And it wasn’t like the Alps – no tunnel! Soon enough we were zig-zagging up a mountain road with no guard rails. We were climbing higher into the mountain and the edges of the road looked straight down – a vertical drop of thousands of metres. Every time we neared the edge, those of us with window seats turned white with vertigo.

Everybody stopped talking, even our 9-year old daughter. All we could think of was when we would get out of there. And then we drove into the clouds that were wrapped around the top of the mountains. We drove close to the spectacular Pico de Orizaba volcano – a snow-capped pointy volcano and Mexico’s highest mountain. But we didn’t see a thing, because of the fog.

Driving in those clouds was surreally scary. On the one hand we couldn’t actually see the hideous drops at the edge of the road. On the other, we knew for sure that they were there. Beyond the mist at every turn, was either a roadside taco stand or a sheer plunge to doom. There was no way of knowing which.

Slowly, carefully we made it through the fog, over the mountain range and down to the flower-growing town of Fortin. That’s where we stayed in the once-famous Hotel Fortin-de-las-Flores, where each room is fragranced by a display of freshly-picked gardenias, and the swimming pool is famously sprinkled with gardenia petals. Which is where I got the idea for the pool at ‘Hotel Delfin’ in INVISIBLE CITY…

The Yellow VW Beetle

In INVISIBLE CITY Camila drives a yellow VW Beetle. Camila is a character based partly on one of my own sisters – who actually did for a while sell real estate on the Riviera Maya - and also a sort of mixture of all the cool Aunties I had when I was growing up.

VW Beetles are actually made in Mexico, did you know? The VW Beetle has always been a popular car in Mexico, and the VW factory in Puebla was one of the last places in the world to make the old model VW Beetle. In Mexico City, old-style Beetles are still used in the little green-and-white taxis, where they remove the passenger seat so that the taxi driver can just swing out the door on a chain to let people in.

Most of my Mexican relatives have owned Beetles at one time, especially my grandfather. When I was eleven years old a pal from England, Eoin and I drove all the way from Mexico City to Acapulco – in those days a seven hour drive through the mountains, in an old VW Beetle. No air-conditioning under the boiling sun…we baked and were car-sick. I have a real fondness for the VW Beetle – so much that I actually drive one!