6.21.2007

C. Automobeele

I read a car magazine called Automobile. For those of you who read that last sentence and thought, "how boring..." I will concur that some car material is banal, e.g., "The DOHC, 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine is 53 pounds lighter than it's competition." Still, there's some good stuff. Take Ezra Dyer's material. He came to write for Automobile after sending a non-solicited article to the magazine's headquarters. He's got great lines. When describing the Jaguar XKR's and Porsche 911's small back seats respectively he says, "...in a pinch, Biff and Tiff can fit in the back for a short run down to the club," and "The Carrera's rear seats actually angle forward, which is only ideal if you carpool with Quasimodo." Another example is Jean Jennings, the magazine's current pres. When she got a chance to drive the new Audi R8, she decided to take her 83 year old mother along and she "settled back and enjoyed this rare ride in the middle of the day, in the middle of a work week, in a spaceship." Some of my best memories involve a car - riding around ritzy neighborhoods with my mom looking at big houses, driving to Loa Utah with my brother, watching the RPMs go down as my sister pressed on the gas peddle when we drove the roads of Wisconsin, and sliding out on a Wasatch road as my dad turned hard knowing that he was free of his worries for at least that one moment. True, cars are basically machines that get us to and from places. But the fact that I'm having a hard time thinking about how I eventually need to part with the horribly impractical vehicle I own tells me there's more to it than that, at least for me.

3 comments:

Janice said...

Until I married dentist husband, I thought a car was just as car but I have now been converted over to your and his way of thinking. I cried when we sold our 1985 Civic, even though I had a brand new car sitting in my driveway. There was a ton of emotion there.

kel said...

one of my best memories goes along with your title here. St. Moritz, switchback roads, indigo Opel, thing in the back and...
the road is:
a. clear
b. NOT clear
c. pizza

best of luck with the cuke.

jo said...

I feel at least partly responsible for your horribly impractical car. Since then, I've seen the Sunny pass on, Rebel Stripes demolished, and the Coug (or Red, as I lovingly call him) cart me around like a champ. My cars are some of my best friends. I really should trade you though. You deserve it. Oh, and the answer is A. Concrete