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| Isaac Hayes' 1972 Cadillac Eldorado |
Nothing else matters here!
--The Dictators, (I Live for) Cars and Girls
Wow, cars ahead of girls? Uh, that's right Mr. Hat. Girls, like busses, come and go all the time. But your car is your car. And without a Boss car, you've just got your personality (and despite what they say, most women value a man's personality only insofar as it entails the ability to pay attention and clean up after themselves). Yes sir, you'll pretty much be consigned to the low minor leagues of dating. The 40 Year Old Virgin? Yeah, he didn't have a car. Stacy Keibler don't go out with no guy driving a Cavalier.
Americans love cars. To Americans, the car symbolizes freedom. That's probably why adolescent boys and grown up men who think like boys (in other words, "men") obsess over cars. The car gives you freedom to go places, freedom to do things. You're no longer home bound, hoping something interesting comes on TV later or playing xbox for hours on end. You can see the world around you. You can go fast and experience the thrill of acceleration and managing speed. Every man remembers his first car. Nearly every first car is some beater that serves as a baseline to measure a man's success. If your first car was a 10 year old Toyota Corolla, and 30 years later you're driving a two door Kia, you may want to reexamine your life choices.
Americans love cars because we love freedom and exploration. We love going places. The Europeans don't love cars like we do, because they spend their whole lives in little villages, inbreeding and hating America. They ride their bikes everywhere, or take a train if they absolutely have to leave their town. Which works only when the train employees aren't striking or enjoying a wine and cheese brake (see what I did there? "break" vs. "brake" on a train? Hello?). Oh sure, they build some beautiful sports cars, but then tax everyone so maniacally that no one can afford them. America built roads everywhere anyone would want to go, thereby opening up the entire country. Our ability to move about freely, to explore opportunities wherever we find them, was one of the major factors behind America becoming economically powerful. You remember the old slogan, "See the USA in a Chevrolet"? That's right. Cars are about freedom. The "go back to the Stone Age or we will all die from global warming, err, actually its 'climate change'" crowd may try to force their Volts and their Priuses and their commuter trains down our throats. But not even the Goriest of them talk about taking away our Escalades and other utterly impractical gas guzzlers. Anymore. Self-righteous hubris can't win all the time.
A car also says something about who you are. Honda Civic with a sunroof and an "I Brake For Unicorns" bumper sticker? You're a twice divorced legal secretary from Port Arthur with a Xanax addiction and one kid whose criminal record keeps him from enlisting in the Army. Ford F-350 with dual rear wheels, elevated wheelbase, running board, and mounted fog lights? You're a man with an extremely small package and a girlfriend named "Shawnna" with a dolphin ankle tattoo. Minivan with one of those rolling side doors? If you're a man who drives such a vehicle then you own several cardigan sweaters and you think up affirmations for your kid's soccer team. If you're a woman who drives that van then you knit your husband lots of cardigan sweaters. And if you own a BMW M3 convertible, you're a total Baller. Hey, you can't represent in a Ford Focus.
Popular culture has embraced the American car mythology. Many popular movies and TV shows really star the car that the putative hero drives, or in some cases (American Graffiti or the Fast and Furious series) hardly even pretend to have a story and primarily focus on the cars. Sometimes this elevates these cars to iconic status: Steve McQueen's 1968 Mustang fastback in Bullitt, the Smokey and the Bandit 1976 Trans-Am, Jim Rockford and his Camaro, Magnum P.I.'s Ferrari, and of course James Bond's 1964 Aston Martin DB5. Bond doesn't drive a Nissan Altima, 'k? These shows embrace and reinforce the entire "car as freedom" ethos.
Until the last few years, America produced the best cars. From Henry Ford to Lee Iaccoca, Detroit viewed automobiles not just as mere wheels to transport drivers between two points, but as art, as personal statements, and something beautiful to behold. The Model T, the Model A, the '32 Ford Coupe, the Packard, the classic Cadillacs, all those tail finned cars of the '50s. Styling became more important than functionality, but until the late 1970s, Detroit produced exceptionally reliable and dependable vehicles. Then, as management failed to cope with the '70s energy crisis and rushed out ill-conceived designs to cut cost and react to the Japanese (not to mention turning its police force into RoboCops), Detroit lost its way. American motor companies have enjoyed some successes since then, mainly in the SUV and truck markets, but have mostly ceded the auto markets to low-cost and/or higher quality foreign companies (many of whom, ironically, make those vehicles here in the States, proving that its not so much that Americans can't make good cars, just the bloated dinosaur companies in electoral vote rich Michigan that receive government bailouts).
What makes a great car? Some might look to dependability. How many miles it lasts, its maintenance record, its resale value. Others might consider safety and reliability. While others, primarily shallow, Steve Dallas types like myself, consider performance and looks. In other words, how cool it is. How Beach Boy it is. No girl worth impressing ever found an SUV's resale value exciting.
Here's the Top 5 American Cars, from the classic times.
5. The 1955-57 Thunderbird. When the Beach Boys write a number one song about a car, and it outclasses all the other cars in American Graffiti, that car deserves serious respect. Suzanne Somers drove a '56 T-Bird in the movie. I personally favor the 1955 version without the trunk mounted spare tire, though I like the porthole style rear side windows from the later versions. This car was awesome: unlike nearly every other American car, the T-Bird was a work of art. It was gorgeous, albeit in an elegant, Grace Kelly kind of way. Ford designed it to compete with the Corvette, though it didn't market the T-Bird as a sports car. The original version had a 292 V-8, while later versions had a 312 with a four barrel carb and a supercharger. So it could move too. Thank Robert McNamara for making it into a family-mobile, boat-on-wheels starting in 1958. The same guy who helped push us into Vietnam. How anyone let that guy near any important decisions after skewering the original T-Bird is a mystery.
4. The 1955-57 Chevy Bel Air. The Heavy Chevy. There's nothing exceptional about this car except it perfectly evokes all those 1950s hot rodders out cruising around, hanging out at the malt shop, talking about the big dance, and getting ready to race. American Graffiti showed several of them, and Harrison Ford's character drove a '55 Bel Air. It featured mounds of chrome, tail fins, a huge back seat the likes of which today's teenagers could only dream of, and it owned the road. Its the archetypal American 1950s car.
3. The 1976 Pontiac Trans Am. The aforementioned Smoky and the Bandit car. I drove a 1976 Firebird once, from Waco to Dallas on IH-35, during a dark and very stormy night while my friend, who owned the car, recovered from several "Big O's" he had just consumed at George's. Its the most powerful vehicle I've ever driven. And that was the lower level package for that year. The Trans Am was the 50th Anniversary model for Pontiac. Starring an insane 455 V-8 with a 4-speed manual transmission, it went from 0-60 in 7 seconds. That's just wrong. "Unsafe," I mean. This is a total white trash pick, obvs, but the TA was gorgeous, though in a more Farrah Fawcett way. It was also fast, muscular, and completely over the top. Just like America herself. At least, the America where I grew up. Hey, that car made Sally Field look sexy. 'Nuff said.
2. The 1964 1/2 Mustang 289. For a couple of glorious years when I was in law school, I owned an original 1965 Mustang 289. It was true red, with automatic transmission, fuel injection, and racing wheels. That thing could fly. Uh, I've heard. The Mustang caused a huge revolution in the auto industry. It showed that a "youth market" existed, with that Baby Boom swelling the ranks of twenty-somethings looking to drive something with a little more zip than a Buick. Ford, led by Lee Iaccoca, basically took its Fairlane chassis and sported it up. The Mustang was an instant smash. Ford couldn't keep them in stock. Its competitors took four years to catch up with Chevrolet's Camaro and later the Dodge Challenger. The Mustang was reliable, sporty, fast, and beautiful. One of the most gorgeous scenes in any Mad Men episode came this season as Don and Roger rolled up to a Beverly Hills hotel in a red convertible 1966 Mustang (driven, unfortunately, by that goof Harry Crane). That's how you roll into town, boys.
1 (a) The 1960s Corvettes. Cheesy middle age mid-life crisis guys drive Corvettes now, but you know who drove them in the '60s? Astronauts. Air Force test pilots. BOOM. No one ranked higher on for bad assery during the '60s than astronauts. And they drove 'Vettes. I've read the Corvette represents the only true American sports car. This never made much sense, but then maybe I don't know what the term "sports car" means. What car outshines the '61 red Corvette Eric Stratton drove in Animal House? Maybe the '69 model, with a 427 engine and four speed manual transmission. I even dated a girl once just because she owned, and used to let me drive, her Corvette. They're completely impractical, impossible to maintain, and extremely costly. But they could blaze down the road and looked totally sweet. The perfect car.
1. Isaac Hayes' 1972 blue Cadillac Eldorado. This is the most Baller car ever made. The Stax Records Museum in Memphis displays it. Isaac Hayes had just written the soundtrack for Shaft, for which he won an Academy Award and made a small fortune. As a signing bonus, Stax Records bought him a new Cadillac Eldorado. But not just any Cadillac. Talk about pimping your ride. This one had 24 carat gold trim, white fur lining, a television, refrigerator, crushed powder blue suede upholstery, and moon roof. Naturally, Hayes went bankrupt a couple years later, but ultimately the car was purchased at auction by a Memphis police officer, who later sold it to the Stax Museum where everyone can enjoy it. What is there to say except...Baller Lifestyle.
Honorable Mention: the 1969 Camaro, the DeLorean (fitted with the Flux Capacitor, obvi), the 1932 Ford Coupe (the "Little Deuce Coupe"), the 1964 Pontiac GTO, the 1964 Chevy Impala (with the 409 engine..."she's real fine my 409"), and the 1968 Mustang Fastback (the Bullitt car).
NEXT-the World Tour resumes...New England.
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