One Good Car

An Essay by Stephen Geez
www.StephenGeez.com
Art by Dizzy

I asked Cousin Tom if he’d like to have his old car again after all these years, a throwback to his days as a young man when he drove a (now) classic Pontiac GTO.

He nodded, then looked wistfully into the distance and remarked, “They say in your lifetime you’ll have one good woman, one good dog, and one good car.  I’ve had the dog and the car.”

Without elaborating on why he omitted one from the list, I’ll just say I do remember the good dog, and that car is something I certainly would like to have owned.

Cars evoke myriad associations, not only for their drivers, but for onlookers, as well.  I noticed this when I had run home to retrieve a wayward permission slip just as my scout troop prepared to leave school grounds for a camping trip.  Luckily, Tom was nearby, so we jumped into his GTO, laid a patch of rubber, and roared off toward the parking lot, arriving before we’d even left my house.  Dozens of boys rushed over to Oooh and Ahhh, admiring that sparkling green muscle-beast in all its powerful, growling glory. Tom scored serious points on the coolness scale that day.

Clever automotive marketers have long known that most men see cars as extensions of themselves, badges of success, skins of style, powerhouses of drive, wads of cash in shiny money clips . . .  and they groom them, meticulously neat or down and dirty, elegantly spare or festooned with strut-worthy plumage.

Women wear their cars, too, but of course the image they desire varies in most cases from your typical man’s.  Dodge tried chasing female buyers in the ’50s with branded she-models, cars as fashion accessories, including handbags to match upholstery and a makeup mirror for that modern lady who wants it all.  Clumsy, yes, and borderline insulting—an unintended parody that failed to score—it nevertheless led to a very sophisticated and highly specialized era of automotive targeting.  Man or woman, young or old, the car companies and their promotional arms know not only how you intend to use any kind of vehicle, but how it makes you look, and how that makes you feel.

So Tom’s “one good car” was that GTO from way back, and if you ask people who have achieved a measure of success that affords them ample choices for their motoring and parking pleasure, I believe most will name a model from their younger days.  I know a guy driving a Cadillac XLR as his spare pleasure car—a dream vehicle I dare say would have a shot at elevating my lifestyle—but he talks about his teen-years Nova with a fondness usually reserved for, well, women and dogs.

My friend Roger made his fortune, then spent years searching for the exact year, make, and model of Cutlass Supreme he’d bought as a young fellow who saved his wages for years.  Finding one, he wound up spending more than he had on his first house to have that car restored and customized beyond its original perfection, indeed until it became the car he’d imagined while driving it all those years ago.

I think that’s the secret.

We probably drove Mom’s car a bit, then settled for a hooptie that might or might not have gotten us from here to there; but eventually, sometimes sooner, maybe a bit later, we managed to claim ownership of a car or truck that we wanted, that made us feel good behind the wheel, that made us proud to pull up in front of our friends and neighbors. We might have driven a hundred successively greater vehicles in the years since, but no other will ever be that first, and none will ever make us feel that way again.

You should have seen Roger showing me that restored Cutlass.  I admit it was a beautiful thing, but half an hour into the excruciatingly detailed presentation I understood why I wasn’t nearly as enthralled as he.  I started having more fun when I realized what was really happening: He wasn’t showing me his car . . .

He was showing me himself.

He was offering me an intimate glimpse of who he used to be, a full-circle embodiment of who he’d become.

I’d like to see Tom pull up someday in a fully restored, sparkling green, growling beast of a GTO, but even if that never happens, I won’t forget how utterly cool he looked to my eleven-year-old eyes when he zoomed me into that parking lot.

If you have one good woman—or man, as it were—then that’s great.  I hope you have one good dog—or cat or goldfish or whatever wags a tail for you, too.  Grab whoever you got and jump into your classic car for your own trip back in time.

And if that car’s a bit out of your reach, just close your eyes and remember . . .

You know how it felt.

See?  You’re still in the driver’s seat.

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