THE AUTOMOTIVE EDITION
The Automotive Edition
E
It’s a power trip
very automobile is merely the sum of its parts. Look too closely and you’ll see nothing. Step back to enjoy the full beauty. Each car, each part, each angle looks different to each and every one of us. They provoke emotions like little else in life and (deep breath), they separate the sexes. Why do men and women have such different connections to the cars they drive? Perhaps this tongue-in-cheek analysis provides an explanation. Or perhaps it doesn’t. You decide. Which man ever wept when he sold his car for a better one? I know of none. His new car will be his new passion – this is the way of the automotive world since, largely, it’s just the way a man’s emotions work. The excitement of a new car imbues the man with renewed youth, and (because no man ever upgraded to a slower car) its increased performance refreshes his vitality. In all seriousness though who, male or female, didn’t feel younger behind the wheel of a new, faster and sexier automobile? Why men can’t just leave it at that, and feel instead obliged to add large spotlights, huge aerofoils and shiny wheel trims, is perhaps the topic for a different discussion – one on evolution. Women have a different relationship with cars. They’ll forget to monitor tyre pressure, overlook the importance of checking the oil from time to time, wonder how to refill the washer bottle and neglect the service schedule. But they don’t intentionally mistreat or disrespect their automobiles. For sure, you don’t hear women boasting about the time they blew an engine or wrote off a car. The woman who scrapes a wheel trim against a kerb, bumps the exit sign on the way out of the car park or drains the battery by leaving the headlights on overnight, can take comfort in feeling nothing other than mild embarrassment. The man who writes off a car or blows up its engine take pride in their stupidity and will find themselves admired for it.
A man and his car become partners in crime. Theirs is an intense relationship, a Bonnie and Clyde love affair involving a seemingly innocuous series of transgressions of motoring laws. No man forgets the first time he got busted by a speed camera, nor the first time he parked illegally and got away with it. To a man, these are rites of passage in the same vein as first love. Even sharing the space within his car becomes an issue. Men don’t share gladly. If it’s not a loud sigh from the accompanying female, it’s going to be a silent gripping of the door handle in preparation for his partner’s swift exit at the first opportunity. The inner voice begging her man to “please slow down, please don’t go through this red light, please don’t race every car away from the lights” manages to take the shine off any new car experience. Today’s essential satnavs are the man’s best friend – a soft and sultry female voice will whisper directions as he travels through new cities, inviting a right turn here, a slight left there, but they’ll never tell him to slow down. The man who can never remember to put his socks in the laundry basket will be the same man who allows no detritus to languish in his automobile. While unable to rinse out his coffee cup, he can nonetheless spend hours hosing down his car, lathering it up with soap, rinsing, polishing, and repeating. His car cannot shine too brightly. Even unseen corners of his car – high up under the wheel-arches and within hidden quadrants of the engine bay – glisten as brightly as his new pair of Guccis. The man who cannot tell you the colour of his wife’s eyes is the same man who can reel off the minutest details of the specification of his car – even before you’ve asked to hear them. He knows what cars his own is up against, and equally he knows he’s not the kind of man to have bought the wrong car. Bad drivers are other drivers. And this is automotive passion. A blinding love affair with motoring and cars. It’s not about transportation, and they’re not a matter of life or death. For many men, cars are much more important even than this. And it is to those men, and the more enlightened but no less passionate motorists of both genders, that we dedicate this edition of Men’s Passion.