If Your Car Could Talk

Like most young children (I hope), our daughter enjoys giving voices to her pets, stuffed animals, imaginary friends and anything else that can't speak for itself. Through these conversations I've learned some pretty interesting things about our pet rabbit, our daughter's favorite stuffed rabbit and the apparent parking lot romance between my wife's truck and my car. The last one got me thinking: what if our cars could talk? What would they say to us? In a humorous (and financially depressing) trip down memory lane, I've come up with a brief synopsis of how each of my cars might have summed-up our time together:

Ford Mustang (current car):
"Why did you get the V8 anyway? I haven't been above the speed limit since Dick Cheney was president. There was a nice hot-pink convertible in the showroom that you might have enjoyed more."

Honorable Mention - Ford Explorer (wife's truck):
"If you give me some soap and a brush, I'll just wash myself. Seriously (as the wife passes another car wash)...no, seriously."

VW Jetta:
"For the money you've put in to me, you realize you could've just bought an Audi, right? OK, as long as you understand. I don't need this on my conscience."

Mazda 3:
"Newsflash: I'm a hatchback with tinted windows. You really don't look as cool as you think."

Mazda Miata #2:
"I'm a week-old and someone already hit me. What kind of neighborhood did you bring me to? I want a transfer. Plus, you don't really seem to be a 'convertible guy'. Maybe we should see other people."

Mazda Miata #1:
"You don't really seem to be a 'convertible guy'. Maybe we should see other people".

Dodge Neon SRT-4:
"Ignore everything you've heard. I'm really just a Neon. I have power front windows and roll-up rear windows."

Scion Xb:
"Ignore the critics. You're ahead of the curve. Refrigerator-based transport is the wave of the future."

VW GTI:
"I'm really sorry about this back-and-forth to the service department thing. I promise, I'll try to be more reliable (as the check engine light flashes). Well at least ask if they have a loaner car available this time".

Honda Civic:
"My previous owners were two middle-aged gay guys. Where do you think the worn-down shift knob and the bite mark on the steering wheel came from? Idiot."



Buick Regal T-Type:
"Of course you ran out of gas, my instrument cluster hasn't worked in 6 years. Wait...what's that 'For Sale' sign for? Oh well, on to the next fool."

Ford Mustang:
"I've tried my damnedest to kill this kid and at least three of his friends. I give up."

Oldsmobile Cutlass:
"I'm the only black kid's car in the parking lot. Try not to make me stand out too much...Fuzzy dice...Really!!!"

"...when you see the third yellow, go!"

A more sensible person would have requested further instruction before piloting his well-worn, barely-passed-tech-inspection-without-resorting-to-bribery, Mustang as quickly as possible down the quarter-mile for the first time, with every manner of monster-engined behemoth shaking the pavement in the lane next to him. For me and my friends however, the vagueness of "...when you see the third yellow, go!" simply added to the appeal.

Tired of the usual mischief that 18 year-olds living somewhere between the middle-and-end-of-nowhere get into in their (well some of their) final summer before college, my friends readily agreed to follow along as I took my car to the track to see what it could do. I'd spent enough time in my neighbors' garages, listened to enough war stories, watched enough NHRA Winston Drag Racing and had a large enough collection of Hot Rod magazines in the bathroom to know the basics: drive around the water box if you don't have slicks, pull up to the line, let 'er rip when you see the green light and slow down before you hit the sand trap at the end.

My mother had previously forbidden me to race my car at the track, likely spurred by visions of me and my dumb-a$s friends returning home with pieces of what was formerly a white 5-liter Mustang chained to the back of a flatbed. Based on the stories I told her years later about some of our other exploits that summer, her fears were well-warranted. So like any teenager whose mother tells him not to do something, I met my friends after work and headed out to the track.

A good evening of buffoonery for teens in the middle-of-nowhere is not complete without some sort of police involvement, so it was not much of a surprise when we were pulled-over about five minutes away from the track for driving with the headlights off (UFO-grade foglights and smoked headlight covers were all the rage at the time). After some discussion, and a warning, we were back on our way.

Upon arriving at the track and paying our entrance fees, we were directed to the tech inspection line. Although somewhat concerned with the loose battery, starboard-leaning driver's seat and questionable lug nuts, the inspector let me race under the assumption that the car wouldn't be going that fast anyway. After writing my car number on the windows in the ubiquitous white shoe polish (now I really felt like a hot-rodder), the inspector directed me to the race shop to pay the $5 rental fee for the biggest helmet my 5' 8" frame could support over my far-too-large-for-my-body cranium. Helmeted-up and ready to go, I decided (in the name of seeing what the competition looked like, of course) to check out a few races from the grandstands first.

It was there in the grandstands that I learned that reading and hearing about something is far different than actually doing it. I sat wide-eyed as I watched everything from Bill E. Bob's clapped-out diesel pickup to "Fast Eddie's" '81 Malibu (I would later learn that every track has a "Fast" Eddie or Tony or Tommy driving a Malibu, Camaro or Mustang of some vintage) went blazing down the track. Wanting to be sure I knew the procedure when I got to the line, I decided it would be best to go down and ask one of the track officials what to do. Keep in mind that when I say "official", I mean chain-smoking gentleman with headphones, a mop and skin like a dried tobacco leaf. After confirming that I was running on street tires, the official's instructions were simple: "when you"...you know the instructions by now.

After a seemingly-endless wait in the staging lanes, it was my turn to go. Too nervous to pay attention to what kind of car was in the lane next to me, I drove around the water box and pulled up to the starting line. First I went too far forward, causing the Pre-Stage and Stage lights to flicker on-then-off. Then I was too far back, not understanding that both sets of lights needed to be illuminated before the official would trigger the green. With a tap on the window and some guidance from the official, me and my pride were finally in the right spot. My left leg was trembling from the fear of making a fool of myself in front of everyone, and the Herculean-effort required to keep the car's clutch depressed for anything longer than ten seconds. With another tap on the window to remind me to flip the visor on my helmet down, I was ready to go. The yellow lights illuminated in their 1-2-3 sequence, the green light illuminated, another second passed while my mind drew one of those "hey, I wasn't ready" blanks - then I floored it. The plume of smoke from my right rear tire would have made John Force proud (if he was into Mustangs with worn-out Traction-Lok rear ends that were supposed to spin both rear tires...and he didn't actually want to go anywhere quickly). My friends would later tell me that the announcer joked "hey, we've got a smoke show down there!" Needless to say, the ensuing run was less-than-impressive.

I got the hang of the whole thing after a few runs. Motivated by my friend's offer to steal an NHRA sticker from the snack bar if I broke into the 14-second range, I later ran a best time of 14.9 @ 93mph. We affixed that sticker to the car's rear quarter-window, and I kept it there like a badge of honor for the next two years. A few of the guys never understood that you're racing the clock in heads-up drag racing, not the guy next to you, so I took some friendly ribbing about many of my losses that evening. We visited that track a few more times that summer, eventually perfecting the technique of removing the evidence of burnt rubber and shoe-polish numbers from the car before I got home.

Throughout my college years I would go on to spend countless days and nights at the drag strip closest to my school. Although my times with the Mustang got better, I always seemed to meet people with newer and faster cars. It was always a ton of fun, but nothing will ever beat the sights, sounds and excitement of that first night. Oh, and the advice I always give a first time racer? "...when you see the third yellow, go!"

The First Car

Ask most people to tell you about a memorable experience in their life, and you're bound to hear the relatively-short story of their first kiss, first love, (first?) marriage or birth of their first child. But there is one subject that is guaranteed to make those same people lay their heads back in their chairs, don their rose-colored glasses and look toward the sky as if preparing to tell a story as significant as The Birth of a Nation. That subject is the person's first car.

The length of the ensuing tale is directly proportional to the age and running condition of both the car in-question and the person telling the story. Most twenty-somethings can tell you a good story or two about their first car, but not the same way someone three times their age can. It's as if people keep these stories fresh in their minds, just waiting for members of the younger generation to ask the right questions or complain about their own first car.

The stories are almost-always comical: I've heard of a mid-'70s Corvette that could destroy anything on the road today despite having less horsepower than any Toyota Camry made in the last ten years, an automatic 6-cylinder Mustang that the small-town cops could never catch and a Volkswagen Beetle that shuttled its owner back-and-forth to school (10 hours away) on just two gallons of gas. A room full of professional painters could not come up with the superlatives people use to describe the color of their first car: red cars were candy apple red, black cars had a gloss so deep you could use the door panel as a mirror to shave in and the other colors were either rust brown, pea green, puke orange, sky blue or banana yellow. The stories usually contain financial lessons: saving money earned from the paper route the person had from birth to age 16 to raise the $25 needed to buy the car, working 3 full-time jobs, making straight A's in school, helping tend the farm and saving enough money to turn grandma's hand-me-down into the boulevard-prowling Beast of the Northeast - at age 15 and being responsible enough - at age 15 - to know that all that was needed was basic transportation to get from point A to point B.

But don't laugh too hard at the people who tell these stories. There usually is some wisdom hidden somewhere deep within. Remember, it wasn't their generation who popularized leasing, 72-month loans and 100% financing.

The picture above is me at age 16 posing with my first car, an '85 Oldsmobile Cutlass Salon. I could talk about that car all day, but I'm not old enough yet.

The Front Seat

The morning of September 8th, 2009 found me prancing around the house, gaily clicking my heels and excitedly singing "It's the most won-der-ful tiiiime of the year". This was no Yuletide cheer, it was the realization (prompted by that old Staples commercial) that summer was over and the start of school was upon us. After fixing our lunches, pouring a truck driver-strength cup of coffee and pushing my daughter out to the car, it was time to drop the bombshell: "You can sit up front". The last time someone gave me such a puzzled look was twelve years ago after my first semester of college when my mother asked how I managed to fail all of my classes. On this day, my daughter had a similar look of shock and confusion that almost took me back in time and made me start explaining how the multitude of F's on my report card in no way reflected a lack of effort on my part.

My daughter sat in the back seat all of her life. Her body acquired the shape and flexibility required to extract one's self and belongings from the back seat of a Mustang without making oneself look too ridiculous. But along the way, she also began to develop Andre the Giant-esque proportions that her doctors say put her in the 97th percentile of children her age. So it was getting harder and harder for her to peel off the Mustang that was attached to her bottom every morning. Needless to say, she only listened to roughly half of that explanation before hopping in the front seat with the world's biggest smile on her face.

The 15-minute trip to school was a long one. She asked what every knob, button, lever, switch, gauge, needle, number, handle, light and symbol was for...at least twice. I also failed to account for the generous amount of personal space offered - even in a coupe - when someone is riding behind and slightly lower than you in the back seat. In the front seat, all bets are off. We rubbed elbows for the majority of the trip, my ears were assaulted by a voice seemingly designed for a concert hall or sold-out arena, and my peripheral vision was filled with a girl who thought it would be funny to see how long she could stare at me before getting me to say something.

It was an experience for both of us; one I'm sure she will never forget. Her head grew two sizes when she got to school and climbed out of the front seat - on the first day, with her hair done and new clothes on. Thirty years later, I can still remember the first time my mother let me ride in the front seat (although some may consider putting a shorts-wearing child on a sun-scorched vinyl seat - whether front or rear - child abuse). And I now know why parents say they can't wait until their children have children so they can sit back and laugh as they go through the same experiences.

Maybe It's Just Me...

Service Writer (SW): So what brings you in today?
Me: The top is leaking.
SW: When you wash the car?
Me: When I wash the car, when it rains, when anything more than the fine mist from a baby's warm breath gets anywhere near the area where the window meets the top.
SW: You know, convertibles often leak if you spray water directly on the area where the window meets the top.
Me: The car is two weeks old, and the top is already leaking.
SW: We can put some silicone on the weatherstripping. That should stop the leak.
Me: ....
Me: (2 days later) The top is leaking.

Service Manager (SM): So what brings you in today?
Me: There's a constant rattling noise coming from somewhere around the sunroof when I drive.
SM: (sitting in the car while parked) It doesn't seem to be making any noise now.
Me: The noise happens mainly when I drive.
SM: (pushing on the sunroof shade while still parked) I still don't hear anything.
Me: The noise happens mainly when I drive.
SM: You know, everyone's ears are different. You may hear very high tones that others can't hear.
Me: I've had ear problems all my life, I don't think that's the case.
SM: Yes, but you may be able to hear certain frequencies that others can't.
Me: ....

Salesman (S): It's a beautiful car isn't it?
Me: It is, but I notice that it has XM radio.
S: Yup, it does.
Me: I ordered Sirius.
S: Maybe there was a mistake and we accidentally ordered it with XM.
Me: The window sticker says Sirius.
S: Then how do you know it has XM?
Me: The display says XM - Hip Hop Nation.
S: ....
Me: ....

Salesman (S): So what do you think?
Me: (looking around inside the car) Where's the trunk release?
S: Oh, it doesn't have one. You just have to hit the button on the key fob.
Me: Are you serious? How does the car not have a trunk release?
S: They polled previous model year owners and found that they didn't really care about the trunk release.
Me: ....
S: Hey, _____ is giving you a car this nice for a great price. They have to cut some things out.
Me: ....

Service Writer (SW): So what brings you in today?
Me: The radiator is leaking and the truck is barely three years old.
SW: What makes you think there's a leak.
Me: Well that little green puddle is either following my wife around and laying underneath her truck when she parks, or the radiator is leaking.
SW: Yeah, that's a common problem with these. We can have the radiator, hoses, and lines replaced by this afternoon.
Me: Sh#t, how common is this problem!?!
Cashier: Your total comes out to $1,186.85. Will that be cash or charge?

"That Guy"

2,267 - That number represents the combined horsepower, as-rated by their respective manufacturers, of the vehicles I've owned throughout my driving career. Or as I like to put it, a combined power output exactly equal to that of two Bugatti Veyrons and an Impreza WRX. The specific details are slightly less glamorous: 13 total vehicles, an average of 174.4 horsepower per vehicle, a lowest horsepower rating of 102 and a highest horsepower rating of 300. Or as I like to put it, a combined power output exactly equal to that of two Bugatti Veyrons and an Impreza WRX. Some of those vehicles were enthusiast favorites, one was basic transportation, none were left stock, a few went well-above their manufacturer's horsepower ratings, one was modified to the "wait, I spent how much on that car?" level and one is a currently non-running '69 Pontiac Catalina that I inherited from my stepfather. But that's just back story. The real topic of this discussion is my realization that I am in-fact "that guy".

"Which guy?" you ask. You know, the one who orders his German über-saloon with all-wheel-drive because the road to his house does have that one kind-of-sharp turn. The one whose macchina Italia is equipped with the optional small television-sized carbon ceramic brakes just in case he mis-times the yellow light and has to panic stop before crossing into the "Don't Block the Box" zone. The one who orders the heavy duty towing package because you'd be surprised how much strain the smallest U-Haul trailer and a love seat from Ikea can put on a 5,800lb. truck. The one who orders the 5,800lb. truck because you shouldn't be fooled by the five combined inches of snow we've had in Northern Virginia over the last three winters; "the big one" is coming.

Yup, that's me. We hardly know each other, but here I am disclosing my deepest darkest secrets to you. Ask me how many times my current car has been over 100mph, and I'll tell you once...at the drag strip...two years ago. The 4.10 gears - they ensure that I burn more gas than necessary when cruising down the highway in the middle lane. The barely-muffled exhaust - that ensures tinnitus and slow hearing loss for my daughter and I as years of morning trips to school take their toll. The intake and tune - they ensure that the car will only drink 93-octane (while burning more gas than necessary when cruising down the highway in the middle lane) because hey, 87 is just too cheap these days. The whole coupe thing in general - well that ensures that my daughter will be mistaken for a Cirque du Soleil entertainer when performing her back seat self-extraction routine in the "Kiss 'n Ride" lane at school each morning.

It's a sickness, this fantasy vs. reality thing. The fantasy is that I'm blasting down the open road with the windows rolled down, radio turned up, tank full of gas and dual exhaust pipes roaring underneath my seat. The reality is that my wife's SUV serves as the family hauler on weekends, and if my daily commute was any shorter I could probably just throw the shifter in neutral, coast down the hill and really show those hybrids a thing or two about gas mileage. After three years of daily driving, my current car has yet to cross the 18,000 mile mark. All that fantasy, and more than a few dollars, for a car that barely covers 6,000 miles in a given year.

The irony is that in every other aspect of life, my frugality and cheapness are the stuff of legend. My father would likely respond "cheapskate" if shown a picture of his beloved son and asked to do a word-association exercise; Verizon called my wife to ask if I was dead or she got a divorce, since only one of the two phones on our family plan ever seems to use any minutes; the family is currently threatening to give me gift cards to clothing stores for Christmas because apparently, having just four outfits for the four days in my work week is no longer acceptable; and my daughter - my lovely daughter - the only kid in her class facing early-onset hypertension and anxiety due to concern that her dad will one day turn into one of the peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches he's eaten for lunch every day for the last five years.

My wife, and countless family members, have suggested brain damage as the possible cause of the aforementioned behaviors. While perfectly capable of helping me make sensible decisions in all other aspects of life, my brain's frontal lobe somehow goes all Windows Vista on me when it comes to cars and money. The better explanation, I would argue, is that I am just that passionate about everything automotive. The magazines, the TV shows, the racing, the car shows, the personalities, the diecasts, the scale models and of course - the cars. They've all been an integral part of my life for as far back as I can remember. So as soon as I was old enough to have my pimply-faced picture taken at the local DMV, I further submerged myself into the automotive scene as much as time, money and life would allow.

So that's how I became "that guy". Not out of a desire to impress others or show off, but out of a desire to realize my personal automotive dreams. Those dreams are not lofty. I'll likely never own one of the cars whose posters hang on young children's walls - unless currently non-running '69 Pontiac Catalinas are the latest rage. But I will make the best of what I have and, more importantly, what I can afford. So if that means getting my car professionally tuned to ensure that the maximum horsepower is extracted on the dyno - as-needed to cover all eight miles of my daily commute - so be it. Luckily for me, if other enthusiasts are reading this, chances are I'm not alone.

"The Last Truck" - Part II

When my father was switched from his position as a Chevrolet-specific manager and put under the General Motors management umbrella in the late '90s, his job description changed almost as quickly as his automotive tastes. In less time than it took my grandfather to figure out what each little button on his Pontiac 6000's dashboard did (bad example), my father was forced to turn a general awareness of GM's other divisions into a working knowledge of their day-to-day sales operations.

My father's first few years under the GM umbrella were spent driving Pontiac Grands Prix and Bonnevilles, Oldsmobile Auroras and Bravadas, Chevrolet Tahoes and Trailblazers - in every variety known to man and the occasional Trans-Am, Z-28 or Corvette as company cars. As the years went on, those once-ubiquitous Trailblazers soon gave way to more feature-laden Tahoes. The Tahoes eventually gave way to more-upscale Envoys and Yukon Denalis. The Envoys and Yukon Denalis eventually gave way to an H2, and every Cadillac but the XLR. Today, my father would likely accept early retirement before being forced to drive anything remotely resembling "the last truck".

The buying public, my father and GM - in that order - eventually realized that buyers no longer wanted two-door Blazers, that the available hot pink and dark purple hues did the truck no favors, that everyone who wanted the knobby-tired ZR2 already had one, that the Xtreme came late to the slammed 2-door SUV party (was there ever such a party?), that the SS couldn't hold a candle to the Grand Cherokee SRT8, that the Envoy XUV was beyond laughable and that the 9-7x was what the Trailblazer should have been in the first place. None were bad trucks, and they still sold in large enough numbers to make their competitors take note, but they were accompanied by the stigma that their sales had more to do with pricing and incentives than with the vehicles themselves. By the New Millennium, my father was driving Envoys as company cars only when forced by his managers to pick vehicles from divisions whose name did not start and end with the letter C. Even then, the Envoy was never his first choice. He usually wound up driving one only as a back-up when something happened with the ordering or delivery of his regularly-scheduled vehicle.

Although half-jokingly referred to as a brand snob, the reality is that my father is not much different than the average buyer with some money to spend. The only difference is that while the buying public was introduced to better offerings from other manufacturers, my father was introduced to better offerings from within GM. The Trailblazer and Envoy tried keeping up with the times (see variants above), but the half-hearted effort always made them look like the old men in the club trying to prove that they've "still got it". GM's passenger cars and trucks have come a long way. My father heaped so much praise upon the last GMC Acadia he drove that my wife and I gave it a thorough once-over when we last saw him just to see what all the fuss was about. Full Disclosure: My father heaping praise upon a GM vehicle is not always something to be taken with more than a grain of salt - to hear him tell it, the only thing wrong with the Hummer division was that they didn't make a truck to split the difference between the H1 and H2. But I digress.

"The Last Truck" reminded me that while GM is trying to right its previous wrongs and usher in a new era in vehicle quality and competitiveness, the passing of the Trailblazer and its variants really is something to be mourned. You couldn't convince those workers in Moraine that they weren't building the best SUVs in America, just like you can't convince my father that he doesn't work for the best car company in America, just like writing this has made me realize that Chevy Blazers will forever be intertwined in more of my personal memories than any other vehicle.