Car Porn
I’ve never been a car person. In high-school in the mid-80s, I drove a 1964 gray Chevy Nova. In college I rode the subway. Since then, I have puttered about in a sturdy Toyota Tercel coupe, a vehicle with mild aesthetic appeal when purchased new in 1989, but lately notable only for its uncomplaining reliability and tolerance for neglect. Since I work from home, I don’t drive much anyway. Getting a new car was somewhere below “re-arrange sock drawer” in my priorities list.
Lately, however, the Toyota appears increasingly in need of expensive maintenance. Rather than dump a few thousand dollars into its upkeep, I figured the time might be right to mount a new steed. Besides, my professional fortunes have taken a turn for the better and it might be both possible and desirable to justify the car as a business expense and leverage some tax advantages at the same time.
Faithful readers of this site might expect that I went about my car search with a cool, methodical detachment, carefully checking features and benefits off a well-researched list. Yup, me too. The last thing I expected was to be reduced to a quivering, consumer-obsessed mid-life crisis stereotype drooling after some obscenely-priced war chariot. Car marketing disgusts me. Car engineering bores me. Driving is an activity in service of transportation, not an end unto itself. These things I know. At nearly 36, I smugly counted myself as either a little too young or a little too old to be taken in by the poster-child for the consumer excesses of industrial society.
And then I laid eyes on the object of my irrational desire – a vehicle whose design and style so completely overwhelmed my senses that I knew immediately I would suspend all judgment and critical faculties in order to make it mine (at least for the term of the lease). I won’t bother you with details like the make and model – you can cut and paste the object of your own automotive affections in its place. Just know that it is as cool and deadly a piece of driving machinery as has ever put four tires to the road, as grossly inappropriate to my modest needs as is possible to imagine: a vehicle of supreme and overarching impracticality.
Approaching the dealership, I was nervous as if on a first date. I made a few casual inquiries before zeroing in on the topic at hand. There were a couple on the lot for me to ogle, and one on the showroom floor to actually explore in clinical detail. I ran my hand along its sumptuous curves, slipped my fingers under the handle. The door popped open and I slid comfortably into its welcoming glove-leather trimmed cockpit. Its instruments were laid out before me for inspection. I rested a hand nervously on the gear shift, felt the steering wheel.
The dealer knew enough not to interrupt a seduction-in-progress. He hovered ingratiatingly at my side, ready to fill my ear with confirmations of my outstanding taste and superb eye for style. He ticked off details about the car’s performance, the awards it has won, the millions of features packed into its trim galvanized frame. I tried to keep control, asking pointed, sensible-sounding questions and casually mentioning other makes and models I was considering. He was happy to indulge me in this pretense, never pressuring or making unwelcome overtures. When a question was beneath his consideration, such as, for example, whether it were possible to replace the car’s custom sound system with an after-market component without damaging the sensitive electronics, he clucked disapprovingly and made no apologies for the vehicle’s diva-like lack of flexibility. Even in my dazed state, I could see that owning a car like this was out of the question, but driving one for a few years is, thanks to the miracle of business leasing, an increasingly tangible possibility.
It was getting toward closing time, so we did not consummate the encounter with a test-drive. This car doesn’t test-drive on the first date anyway. You have to make arrangements in advance, be prompt, and, I suppose, bring flowers. That’s happening this week if all goes well. As my baseline standard for vehicular performance is my boxy, under-powered Tercel, I do not anticipate any issues arising from the test drive to dissuade me from my mission. Assuming a suitable model is available somewhere in the lower 48, the plan is to be behind the wheel by my birthday at the end of the month. Pure ecstatic happiness guaranteed to follow thereafter – it even says so in the brochure.
Re-reading all I’ve written here, it is clear that I’m in the grip of some kind of psychosis. Fortunately, all we’re really talking about here is a big inanimate thing –cool in some ways, but much less challenging than even the simplest human relationship. I anticipate wasting a few bucks scratching this itch and spending 36 glorious months as the object of envy of my friends, fellow motorists and pedestrians. And (obligatory political reference), I will also be doing my part in helping the rebuilding of Iraq by pumping several hundred gallons of premium gasoline into my new ride’s hungry tank. As obsessions go, I suppose I count myself lucky that this is one that can be solved with the simple, steady application of copious amounts of money.
9:51:09 AM 
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