Driving Down

The best part of driving this beater is the sheer fear it instills in almost all who behold it.

by Bruce Schimmel

Note: This column originally ran in the Aug. 3, 2006, issue. Bruce Schimmel is on assignment.

I hate my car, but I'm addicted to it, too. And if you own a car, I'll bet you're also a hostage to its charms. So let me offer some advice on how to manage your symbiotic relationship with your toxic codependent: In short, let it age.

My 1995 Mazda MX-6 began life 170,000 miles ago as a brand-new sports car in British racing green, boasting a leather interior of buttery blond. When I bought it more than a decade ago, I was in my mid-40s, and my Mazda was the fanciest car I had ever owned.

Back then, I used my car to feed my midlife crisis with delicious abandon. This baby was loaded: sunroof, mag wheels, even a faux-leather sheath, called a "bra," that seemed to embrace the entire front bumper.

Now my Mazda's metallic green is streaked with scratches. The driver's seat scatters flecks of foam rubber like dandruff, and the passenger seat is swaddled in duct tape. It is dinged, banged and dented from tip to tailpipe. The genuine Naugahyde bra is ripped and hanging, as if clawed at a frat party.

My car's become a junker. It squeaks, groans and kvetches lustily as it bounces down the city's streets. Mechanically, the very act of moving forward seems almost a miracle.

And that suits me just fine, because dressing down my ride provides me at least the semblance of mastery over my mechanical captor. It's way fugly. My 16-year-old niece says she's ashamed to drive with me.

But somehow all my passengers manage to swallow their pride, and their bile, when I remind them that it's perilous to judge any intimate relationship from the outside.

Let me explain: I may revile my ride, but I am certainly not an auto abuser. I am, in fact, blameless (well, almost) for the map of indignities inscribed on my car's facade. And fortunately, other drivers are ignorant of my relative innocence. Because here's where driving a badass car really gets good. The best part of driving this beater, especially in heavy traffic, is the sheer fear it instills in almost all who behold it. I have but pity for those sad souls who drive pristine rides, because they lack the Zen detachment that wielding a wrecker provides. The unenlightened who worship their idols of chrome are but slaves before their mechanical masters.

And slow slaves, too. Because motoring down the Schuylkill Expressway, I am like Moses on speed crossing the Red Sea. The traffic obediently parts to my ugly onslaught, as drivers head for the breakdown lanes. Even in the heaviest traffic, my rolling heap wields the psychological punch of a screaming ambulance.

I am master of my Mazda, too, because I own it outright — which increases the illusion that the vehicle to which I'm addicted doesn't totally own me. Still, old cars, like true friends, are generally cheaper to keep. Mature vehicles, unlike people, do cost less to insure as they age. And I've found that the care and feeding of this old beast isn't onerous.

Now, it is well-known that it's generally easier on the wallet to repair rather than to replace a car. So you may also be wondering about the costs of an old car to the environment.

Newer cars are more energy-efficient, and that's good. But it also turns out — according to researchers at Carnegie Mellon — that manufacturing a new car releases even more toxins than driving and disposing of an old car. (And believe me, when I'm finished with my mashed-up Mazda, it will have to be disposed.)

Still, to be sure, if someone offered me a new automobile that somehow sucked up carbon dioxide and spat out oxygen, I'd abandon my wreck in a flash. I'd openly adore any new car that functioned, if you will, like a tree. But nothing even faintly similar to that is going to happen until we get a president who isn't pushing the very addictions he pretends to despise.

So until then, I'm cleaving to my beater, however wretched and dysfunctional our relationship is. Loving my old car, and hating it, too, I'm the King of the Road, an Oedipus of Wrecks.

(bruce@schimmel.com)