I have a few important men in my life that are all very diverse. In an effort to size them up, I have utilized the relationships that each of them has with autos in order to understand them a little better.
My own father has ever been really outdoorsy, which suited him perfectly. He worked as a biologist, but is retired nowadays. Pick up a fossil here; chip a rock there, that’s my dad. He never managed to acquire any fondness for machinery. He was brought up by his parents to act like a gentleman, but motors and geartrains appeared to produce the worst in him. I have early memories of him blaspheming the Industrial Age as he was bent over an engine.
My father would always change the tires on our Volkswagen van when they required it, but you would never see him admire aftermarket center caps or custom chrome grille work on a car. You might see him checking the H2O level in the radiator or putting some Rustoleum on patches that had oxidized on the van, but you would never see him using a toothbrush to scrub headlights or using Q-tips to clean the knobs on the dash. These things just didn’t take place in our garage.
Then Again, my father-in-law is a complete car man through & through. I wouldn’t be surprised if he knew every make, model, and year of every automobile that ever graced the Pennsylvania turnpike. He is happy to spend a Weekend afternoon admiring cars at an Antique Car Club Show or scrubbing the whitewalls on his car.
He graduated rapidly from a pacifier to a pitchfork and pliers while growing up in a rural area of northern Pennsylvania. Learning all about animal farming and the ABCs of automobile mechanics was required of young farm boys. His interest in things with gadgets, wheels, and engines seemed to stick even though any fondness for animals did not. He made the decision to leave the farm and go to university and he never looked back.
My hubby is a teacher, just like his father and my father, but that is where their similarities finish. He doesn’t meticulously clean his cars, collect rocks, or go camping. He likes to spend Saturdays enjoy coffee at a local Starbuck, grading papers, and connecting with friends on Facebook.
He has no trouble putting gasoline in his car, but he would in all likelihood keep his Toyota center caps as paperweights in his office rather than pimp his ride with them. No disrespect if you’re a center cap mind you. He makes the time to vacuum-clean his car every other season and doesn’t mind driving around with the words “wash me” scrawled somewhere in the grime on his car.
My daughter’s boyfriend is a juiced up version of my father-in-law. (I think they would bond rapidly if sent together on an errand to a car parts shop.) The Boyfriend got a aftermarket exhaust kit for Christmas and is happy as a clam now that his car’s exhaust rumbles deeply, letting everybody know he has arrived. “I can hear him coming a mile away,” my daughter smiles, evidently in the throes of young love.
There’s not question that the relationships that men have with their cars can be complicated. On occasion, the car can be a reflection of a man’s masculinity, while other men act as if their vehicles were an enemy that are a nuisance to be subdued or at the very least, tolerated.
Many name their cars, and others blaspheme them. Some treat their vehicles with TLC, while others declare bragging rights because their car or truck is beat up or has the most mileage. Car stories are exchanged over beers, like war accounts used to be shared around a campfire.
Why else would the auto industry continually sell billions of dollars in decals, automobile alarms, hoods, tailpipes, center caps, dashboard accoutrements, fancy headlamps, window tint, backup sensors, seat covers, rims, and chrome?
Whether the vehicle in the driveway is fuel for swearing or cooing, I’m inclined to suppose there’s some kind of mechanised mojo in there - something reminiscent to “If you build it, he will come.”
