Rex writes RED CAR to showcase a novel transportation system which he invents (apparently), a futuristic transportation system: Freeway-Based Mass Transit or the future Red Car.
RED CAR explores the history of mass transportation in California, by using the Red Car trolleys of Los Angeles (circa 1920-1960), as an example of corruption in the transportation sector, a Los Angeles urban legend.
The protagonist, Transportation Commissioner John Tucker, recently lost his racecar driving wife due to a traffic accident. Her illness and death costs John everything. He takes a bribe.
On the drive to Sacramento from Los Angeles, he picks up a hitchhiker, Garth, an eccentric doctor. They endure the drive in the fog. Garth describes his new transportation system, Freeway-Based Mass Transit, but not all of it.
Garth's plans for the system are at his ancestral home, in Nevada City, California. Garth dies as a run-away truck with a stuck throttle smashes into his motel room.
John, reinvigorated to find the plans of the Freeway-Based Mass Transit, goes to the California State Library to discover new information. He brushes off the would-be bribers and heads to Garth's funeral with the goal: to find the plans!
At the funeral, John meets Beth, Garth's sister.
Beth shows John a working-model and plans for the Red Car which exchange passengers side-by-side while the trains move. John is so impressed; he wants Beth to testify at the Commission hearing.
The antagonist, Brandon Haze, and his flunkies, try to stop her from testifying. Beth and John fall for each other. The antagonist, Brandon Haze, and his flunkies try to stop Beth from testifying which the flunkies bungle.
At the commission hearing, Beth barely has time to say anything but what she does, impresses an oil representative who buys into the idea. Now it's moving! RED CAR!