Under Achievers
(copyright 2001)

Money is good. Spending it on a Lexus is better, especially with cash from a retroactive tax-cut. Actually driving it is best. But will they?

People generally use every room in the house. They know by heart all 158 cable channels. They've figured out the car radio and all the coffee holders (but can they open the hood?). Why then, do modern racing machines rarely get revved more than a couple points on the power curve? The greatest inefficiency in automotive design today is wasted potential.

Sometimes I fear that Volvo is right. Great stuff the S90. But check out the sales pitch: excitement AND safety. Are these really compatible ambitions? Truth in advertising would go more like, Safety is what you need from this car when you spill coffee on yourself while on the cell phone... and excitement is what the cops took away from you exactly ten seconds after you actually drove this thing. The S90 can double most speed limits and effortlessly cut a g-pad-smashing, traffic-avoiding dance to Exit 21 from the left lane. Otherwise its a wonderful, comfortable -- and very fast car, should you ever care to find out. The best way to enjoy it in modern conditions, though, would be to hire a chauffeur who'll suffer traffic pain for you while you stretch out in back (and safely exercise the cell phone; speaking of which -- I saw the other day a cop talking on her cell phone; correctly figuring she was too busy planning her Friday night to worry about me, I blew past her unmolested).

When you next run through a car museum, please remember that these machines were made with purpose. Nobody ever built a museum piece, and if they did it would never be worthy of a museum. That fabulous red and yellow 1912 Renault limousine? Chick bait (and the fastest motor in town). That monstrous-engined 1917 Simplex? The '37 Bentley? Those are called a "survivors." The rest were converted to scrap by trees, telephone poles, and mountainsides, sad events that generally occurred when someone asked the machine to yield exactly 101% of capacity.

Every day I suck more horses out of my Korean-jobby, four cylinder automotive discharge than most people get from a two year lease on a SLK 450. This car makes hitting 68 a thrill, while more excitement comes of trying to get back to zero any time soon. The car [sic], a '91 Pontiac LeMans, is so ridiculous that only GM, working in conjunction with subversive overseas manufacturing forces to just barely meet NHTSA and EPA rules, could build it; it is a car whose automotive capabilities are in indirect proportion to the stature of the road race for which it is named - an act of singular contempt, by the way, so named by some viciously satirical or decidedly corrupt marketing firm. Aside from the near useless brakes which my spirited driving causes to be replaced monthly, its minuscule "motor" [sic] is rendered helpless by an automatic transmission. Nevertheless, or, rather, because of it all, I push the "car" [sic] literally to its limits.

I defy the manual. I crank it up to eleven. On highways, I rear-end Corvettes. The teenagers down the block think I'm the crazy one. When I celebrate the unlikely and joyous encounter with a real driver, her white RX-7 turns blush when she realizes she was chased down by Mercury with a bad case of Achilles heel. Cops let me go because they know I'll get off in court on an insanity plea.

Perhaps this is the secret to automotive excitement. It's not just at NASCAR and F-1 where technology has outpaced the laws of physics. Your average BMW or Lincoln provides no thrill in the legal lanes of the interstate. For these great automobiles, a healthy seventy-five is but a jog. In the modern luxury car you need seriously to push the century mark and query centrifugal forces before you can feel the road, much less get nervous about it. On today's roads you will never know just how much fun is a Ferrari (that's why you read car magazines -- even if you own one). A Corvair revival, anyone?

Too bad the dormant possibilities, because we've finally got automobiles that'll do anything you want and with oversteer to spare. Seems the more the auto makers put into their cars the less we use 'em. Maybe we've got it too good. Maybe we've relaxed too much, spoiled by technology's ease. Cars take care of themselves, don't they? (My sister was just admonished by her mechanic after working on her Range Rover, "Now, Susan," he scolded her, "your car needs oil.") Automatic everything has dulled the driving mind, while immoderate road law has inured us to its responsibilities. It's all pragmatism and purpose now. Gone is the abstract school of driving, and with it, the enjoyment.

With the death of thrill, automotive martyrdom has turned to victimhood. The word "accident" is meaningless today. Accidents are things that are unavoidable or coincidental, like the unfortunate concurrence of an early green and a late red. In the courts and insurance companies, automotive destruction is always somebody's fault, and always deliberate. How can it be otherwise, for aren't cars built to comply with road law? These are the times the automobile went from cultural icon to appliance. No wonder the kids tinker in html rather than carburetors. Oops, no more carburetors, either.

Nevertheless, it's there if we want it. And gloriously. Although few exercise it, below the NHTSA orthodoxy of determinism lies automotive Free Will, manifest in the guilt-strained adolescence of readers of car magazines like you and me. For us, the forty yards between speed bumps behind the K-Mart are the opening shot at Monte Carlo. That rare power slide over fresh snow is the Sahara rally. The marketers know all about both of these cultural strains, thus Volvo's dual appeal to cowards and dreamers.

I've a friend whose Manhattan office was moved from above Grand Central Station to Wall Street. Before, the New York Central line was too convenient to avoid. Now he's got an excuse to drive to work: he'd have to transfer to the subway to get downtown... yes, my thoughts exactly. Anyway, now it's back at the wheel of the Bimmer. And it's done marvels for his job performance. Now he shows up for work feeling properly mean. He no longer needs coffee to foreclose on small nations. His conscience spent on the Hutch, laying off entire industries is calming. He sold his interest in Tums. He's excited, actually excited about getting up at five a.m. (Ever notice that serious speeding takes place pre-rush hour?) Since leaving the iron horse, he's re-learned two important things: traffic can be hell, and beating it is invigorating. Especially with a solid rack of Bavarian meat under the hood.

As for me, I get mine whenever I can, and with as much as my little car will give. Otherwise, I try, I really, really try to contain my contempt for the road underachievers that surround. When the old bag in front of me at the left turn signal fails to stretch the right foot to the extension allotted her by Cadillac engineers and I gotta sit through another cycle, I feel the designer's pain. I mean, why'd they bother? Was it just to employ automotive journalists?

Hitting the redline is divine. Popping down to second and full throttle-throwing the back end around traffic is heavenly. Blessed if we don't hit anything.

-Bromley, 2001