Measurement of a Man: Motors, Ponies, Mufflers and More

Posted by Editor

November 15, 2009

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I have a few important men in my life that are all very disparate. In an effort to size them up, I have utilized the relationships that each of them has with cars in order to understand them a little better.

My father has now retired, but was a professional geologist. He has always been really outdoorsy. He's best-known for chipping a stone here, collect a fossil over there. He is unquestionably a man's man, but has never been very fond of any kind of machinery. Gears and motors have a way of bringing out his inner savage even though he is a real gentleman. I can recall times when I was very young, watching my dad with his head under the hood of a car and hearing him cussing at the Industrial Age.

Dad would change tires on our Volkswagen camper vans when needed, but would never have been one to fawn over chrome grill work or aftermarket center caps. He might pour some H2O in the radiator or dab Rust-oleum on oxidized spots on our van, but scrubbing headlamps with toothbrushes or guiding Q-Tips around dashboard knobs were not affairs that happened in our garage.

But Then, my father-in-law is decidedly 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 Sunday afternoon would be checking out a 1962 Ford 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 pliers. Where he grew up, farm boys were required to learn all they could about animal farming and mechanics. He has preserved his passion for gizmos, wheels, and engines, but has no interest in animals. He left the farm, never looking back, and went to college.

My husband is also a teacher; just like both of our fathers, but that is the only thing they share. He doesn't like camping out, carefully washing his cars, or collecting rocks. He loves to spend his Saturday grading papers as he sips fancy java beverages at Starbucks.

He puts fuel in the car, but would be more inclined to employ his Ford center caps as paperweights on his desk, than as a fashionable way to floss his ride. Not that he has anything against anyone who toils over their center caps. He vacuums his vehicle twice a year, but is content to ride about town with "Wash me!" scribbled above his rusty bumper for a year at a time.

The young man that my daughter dates is a pepped up version of my father-in-law. When I have the opportunity, I am going to send them to an car parts store together so they can quickly bond. My daughter gave her boyfriend a performance exhaust kit for his birthday and he is excited that the tailpipe rumbles deeply. He says it lets everybody know he's arrived. My daughter smiles saying, "I can hear him coming from more than a mile away." It's obvious that she's in the throes of young love!

It's true that men and the relationships they have with their cars are complicated. It seems that these relationships can be an expression of some men's masculinity, while other men handle their cars as an adversary that's a nuisance that must be conquered or endured.

Some men give their cars names and others blaspheme them. Some give their cars a lot of TLC and others demand bragging rights because their car or truck is beat up or has the most mileage. Car stories are exchanged over beers, like war stories used to be shared at the campfire.

Why else is the auto industry able to sell billions of dollars of chrome, rims, seat covers, backup detectors, window tint, fancy headlamps, dash accoutrements and aftermarket center caps, exhausts, hoods, car alarms and decals?

Whether the wheels in the driveway are fodder for swearing or cooing, I think there's some inevitable mechanical mojo going on - something akin to "If you build it, he will come."

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