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The men in my life are diverse, so when trying to size them up I employ their relationships with automobiles as a way to help me understand them better.
My father is outdoorsy – a geologist by profession, although now retired. Nick a rock here. Collect a fossil there. He is a man’s man, but has never shown any affection for machinery. Although brought up to be a gentleman, motors and gears had a way of bringing out the inner savage. Some of my earliest memories involve my dad bent over some motor, cussing out the Industrial Age.
My father would regularly switch the tyres on our Volkswagen camper, but I never saw him fawning over aftermarket center caps or grille work. While he would occasionally dab some Rust-o-leum onto rusted points on the van or put H2O in the radiator, you would never see him take a Q-tip to the dashboard knobs or scrub the headlights with a toothbrush.
But Then, my father-in-law is unquestionably a car man. He can tell you the make, model and year of every vehicle that’s travelled down the Pennsylvania turnpike. His ideal way to spend a Saturday afternoon would be checking out a 1962 Chevrolet at a local Antique Club Car Show or scrubbing his own whitewalls.
He grew up in rural northern Pennsylvania and graduated rapidly from a teething ring to a pitchfork and wrench. Where he grew up, farm boys were expected to learn everything they could about animal farming and automobile mechanics. He has preserved his passion for gizmos, wheels, and motors, but has no interest in animals. He left the farm, never looking back, and went to college.
My husband is also a professor; just like both of our dads, but that is the only thing they share. He doesn’t like camping out, carefully cleaning his cars, or collecting rocks. He loves to spend his Saturday grading papers as he sips fancy coffee beverages at Starbucks.
He has no problem putting gas in his car, but he would likely use his American Racing center caps for paper weights rather than using them to floss his ride. No offense to hard working wheel center caps. He makes it a point to vacuum his car twice a year and doesn’t mind driving around with “Wash me!” on the back window for a year or more.
My daughter’s beau is a juiced up version of my father-in-law. (I think they would bond speedily if sent together on an errand to a car parts shop.) The Boyfriend got a performance exhaust kit for Christmas and is content now that his car’s exhaust growls deeply, letting everyone know he has arrived. “I can hear him coming a mile away,” my daughter smiles, plainly in the throes of young passion.
Yes, men and their relationships with automobiles are complicated. Sometimes their relationships reflect an image of a man’s masculinity, while others treat vehicles as a foe – a needed nuisance to conquer or at least endure.
Some men give their cars names and others blaspheme them. Some give their cars plenty of TLC and others claim bragging rights because their car or truck is beat up or has the most mileage. Car stories are sold over beers, like war stories used to be shared around a campfire.
This is the reason the auto industry can sell billions of dollars worth of window tint, aftermarket center caps, dash accoutrements, chrome, seat covers, wheels, car alarms, backup sensors, hoods, exhausts, and decals.
Whether the ride in the drive is the cause for cooing or cursing, there has to be some form of mechanistic mojo occurring – something like, “if you build it, he will come.”