The Thing about Cars...

There is a Thing about Cars that can't be described. For some it is a 'thing' about cars, a love, or sometimes even a lust, affair. For others there is a thing about cars that makes them mysterious and hard to understand but still attractive. Finally, there are those whose thing about cars is simply that, they are things. 

I want to declare that 'The Thing about Cars' is meant for everyone from those of us with gasoline in our veins, or in the case of this person, on his knuckles. 

To those that drive a car under duress and can't wait for the Star Trek teleport machine or making the self-driving car a real and viable option (look up Google car - your wait is almost over).

But why so many different perspectives? Why do we all look at cars and see something different? Is it nature? Is it nurture? Is it both? Can you ever take someone who thinks about cars as things and turn them into someone who has a thing about cars? So many questions and so few lines to answer them in but I will attempt.

Let's start with the one who thinks of cars as things. You have seen them. From entering the dealership to purchase to driving the vehicle of their 'choice' home (is it really a choice if you don't care?), it just doesn't matter. The shape, the color, the features - none of it matters. Clean or dirty, who cares? Dings, small dents, cracked lenses, so what? Drive-ability, handling, and performance, where is the Webster dictionary? These are questions that never enter into the equation. Now, does it run well? Will it get great gas mileage? What are the annual maintenance costs? These are the only questions on their minds that need an answer. 

What cars then jump out at them? None, or you think I am going to list only ugly and boring cars but that is not always the case. Yes, the majority of them will drive a Nissan Versa, Toyota Yaris, a stripped down Dodge Caravan. In the early days they would have driven a Ford Granada, AMC Pacer, or a Chevrolet Vega. However, I have seen them driving a Mustang or an Acura or something fancy or sporty. When pressed on why that car for them? The answer will be something like 'Well, I read it was a good deal' or 'It was the cheapest car on the lot' or 'I don't know, I just bought it.'. 

A person who thinks of cars as things will not care, maybe not even remember his or her first car. In fact, press them on what they drive today and they may not know the year or model. Most will never know what trim level they purchased. When you see a 'thing' car in a parking lot you will know the owner. Missing hubcaps. Dirty on the outside and inside. A dashboard covered with dust and multiple post factory creases surround the exterior.

A person who thinks of cars as things will never become a lustful member of the car love community. It isn't going to happen, so don't waste your time trying to get them to think that way. 

Those who like cars but only because of their looks or advertising theme are a different sort. They do like cars. They like what it says about them and how the car looks on them. A BMW is like wearing an Armani suit, A Lexus represents a Brook Brothers golf shirt and khakis.  A Camaro owner doesn't own a suit but has a drawer full of skateboarder graphic t-shirts.

This is a difficult group to distinguish from the lustful, car obsessed individual.  Their cars won't give them away because they usually are driving a nice vehicle. A Mustang GT500. Is that someone who loves power and the history of the pony car or do they love the rally strips, the illuminated entry door panel, and the pony stitched on the seats? The BMW M3 or M5 in your company parking lot. Who is this person?  Is it because he can drive the car Monday through Friday to work and then change out the tires and take it to the race track on the weekend? Does she love the history of the car and know it by not the name displayed on the trunk lid but by the internal BMW code? However, this groups thinks the BMW at a Starbuck's makes a great combination. 

At the tennis club it is very chic to say 'My spouse just bought a 3 series'. You may even hear someone from this group say 'You should see the neat cup holder my car has." (that comment makes me shudder).

While it is difficult to know who is part of the 'I like cars' group based on their vehicle, you can easily be identify them through a short conversation.  Their love is only sheet-metal deep. Ask them about the recent American LeMans race and how did Aston Martin do? Ask about the early SL500 and how did it influence 2 seat sports cars of today? Ask them if a Miata is cool? The answers from this group will be insufficient to anyone who lives and breathes automobiles. It will be like going on a date with that beautiful girl in your high school only to find out that, well, brains don't come with that beauty. 

Can you get someone who likes cars, maybe even think they love cars, to become a true lover of anything automobile? I am sorry to say, no. You might think that you have converted them when they start to know the history of their favorite automobile marque. However, at the end of the day, when standing in a parking a lot with a group of friends, a wonderful engine note erupts during the conversation, sadly, their heads will never turn to see what caused such a glorious sound. 

  The gasoline in their veins crowd, of which I am one, is a different story. We are few in number and possibly becoming extinct, definitely on the endangered species list. While at times it may be hard to pick us out of the police line-up, or maybe on the car lot or at an evening dinner party because our cars overlap with those 'who like cars' (Dodge Challenger, AMG Mercedes, Audi, even a Focus ST), we distinguishable. My group lives, breathes, thinks about, lusts after, dreams, day dreams, well, just are one with cars. I believe that chromosome 18 has a genetic defect by which gasoline is truly produced in our bloodstream (I am 68% by volume I believe). 

We are Shylock in the Merchant of Venice. 

'If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? If you wrong us, shall we not get revenge?"

Except we live by

'If you text and drive, do we not yell? If you damage your car, do we not get angry? If you kill a car, do we not weep? If you slander one of us, shall we ever help you again with car questions?

This group, my group, just knows when we have seen a fellow combustible engine person. We will be driving the quirky car that people say 'What in the world is that?' but you know that they made that particular model for 4 years, it had a successful racing career and is truly spectacular. Don't get me wrong, we will own the exotic, the muscle car, the hot rod. We also are likely to pull up in 'rat rod', or maybe a 'rattling rod' in my case, and be proud to get out of it even as those around us are as shocked as a nun on the Vegas strip. Our cars may be multiple colors, with grey primer, no front bumper but when examined closely will have amazingly expensive tires (not wheels - we shall talk about that difference at another time), a shiny and lowered suspension and an engine that makes the ground shake below your feet. My group knows my people!



If you love cars, I mean really love them you know what a burden it is to live with this genetic trait. People don't understand us. Conversations about what's playing at the movies? What is on the news? Your neighbor's new baby is really just biding time until you can mention a car and some obscure factoid that would only interest you, and a fellow fuel veined soul. Talking about Weber carbs and the sound they make when the accelerator  is pushed through the firewall makes your heart race, your eyes dart around and makes you, well, ALIVE! 

A person who is totally infatuated with cars cannot change. Honest, as much as I would like to shut off my car brain at times, it just can't happen. My head will snap around when I see something old driving down the road. I can't help but notice that between 2007 and 2008 the Odyssey changed the turn signal location on the taillights. My mind will drift and I will lose focus in a conversation when I hear a V8 engine rumble by. The obscure, unnoticed cool car of the 50's, 60's or 70's will stop me in my tracks while my party continues to walk forward. I just can't stop it. It would be like asking you to stop, to stop...breathing...you just can't do it.

A disease like the Bubonic Plague? Maybe. 
Annoying to the non-petrol head? Definitely. A cure needed? A clear no. Patience needed? A definitive yes!

So who are you? Be honest. Can you say that you love cars when really you know you like them a lot and how they look but you don't love them? How about those of you who think of cars as things? Well, you probably didn't read this far and that is OK but for those that endured the torture, you know fit my description.

For the car obsessed. Let's unite, let's find a support group, let's start a national awareness of our disease! Oh, wait, that's right, they already have that - it is called racing.

The Thing about Car Clubs...

As I sit down at the kitchen table to eat lunch I suddenly feel lonely as the only other two people at the table, my wife and daughter, are engrossed in some house decorating, furniture type magazines and I have nothing but my bowl of soup to stare at. That is when I notice that my January issue of Roundel has arrived. I exclaim my excitement that my magazine is here! As I rip open the plastic bag protecting my coveted club periodical my daughter asks what am I reading and I explain to her that it is Roundel the BMW Car Club's magazine (and only the best club magazine on the planet) and I set off to read Satch's opening editorial. 

My daughter, noticing that I am now ignoring her, asks 'Do all cars have car clubs?’ My immediate answer was 'Of course not, only cool cars have clubs.' She reminds me that 'There is a club for Mustangs' and then asks 'So what cars don't have clubs?'. Again, I, a man filled with the all knowing wisdom of everything cars, quickly replies 'Well you would never see a car club for a Chevy' and my first thought was the Nova but then I realize that old Novas are cool so there is a club. Next on the tip of my tongue is the Impala. No, again, many cool Impalas have driven on our roads and highways, so there must be a club. I stammered a bit and blurted 'Well, cars like the Honda Odyssey and Ford Escort probably don't have clubs' with a finality in my voice that seemed to satisfy her curiosity.

It got me thinking. Is it only cool cars that have clubs? Which led to the question what makes a car cool? Is it exclusivity? Not really, if that were true then why is there a club for the seemingly millions of Mustangs out there? It must be speed of course, yes, that's it. No, then how did the Volkswagen Beetle ever earn a club? Nice looking and sporty? No, the venerable Jeep has a very active club. So what makes a car cool?

Defining cool cars, which therefore make them club worthy, one must follow the thinking of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart when asked to define hard core pornography. Justice Potter exclaimed '...and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly (describe what is pornography)... But I know it when I see it...'. Cool cars are like that, you just know them when you see them.

A car from the moment it is introduced by its creator is immediately assigned a place in the car world. No matter what the manufacturer might try to proclaim and market, the general public is the final decider of the type of car it will be. Take the PT Cruiser and the Scion xB (both of which have clubs by the way, are they cool? I think not, but I digress). Both of these models were created to reach a young population market with their quirky and different looks, the cars, not the young population. Yet to the manufacturers’ utter amazement, more appropriately stated, shock and despair, old people loved them!  With the definition of old in this case people over 30 who most likely have thighs with cellulite or expanding foreheads. So their cool cars became ones in which the uber cool 20 something person and his grandma both find hip. Imagine marketing to those two groups!

In the end, I have done little to define what makes a car worthy of its own club. It could be because it is cool. Maybe it is useful and utilitarian or just plain cute. Maybe it is because the people who purchase certain vehicles have similar backgrounds and interests.  They may think 'Let's meet because we like the same car so we must have something else in common'.

A true statement is that we can never force a club to start for a car that should never have one. We also can never stifle a club for a car that clearly deserves one.

What to make of car clubs then? When it comes to starting, participating, or actively promoting and building a car club just make sure that you join and make your mark. That could be writing articles, helping to organize events, or simply attending club events and sharing your enthusiasm and whatever knowledge you might have. Be proud of your club and make sure to tell others about it, even if your car is not ‘cool’...So what makes a car cool? Well, it has to do with, oh, never mind.