The sound jolted me from my reverie at a stoplight in a small town just east of San Antonio.  It sounded like a weed whacker farting.  I heard it again.  I looked to my left.  In the lane next to my Z/28 sat a two-door Hyundai Accent with Beavis at the wheel and Butthead riding shotgun.  It had the obligatory coffee can-sized muffler hanging below the rear valence.  Bolted to the deck lid: an erector set-type spoiler that looked like it weighed more than the rest of the car.  Beavis (or maybe it was Butthead) had plastered the fenders and doors with decals of kanji characters and there was a bright red VTEC sticker splayed across the top of the windshield.  It looked as though they had just seen “The Fast and the Furious” and they were out to cop some street creds in their killer kimchee burner.

Beavis revved the engine a third time and they both looked at me in slack-jawed expectation.  I raised one eyebrow, Spock-like, then rolled my eyes, shook my head slightly and went back to watching the red light.  Undaunted, Beavis blipped the throttle yet again.  This time the car lunged forward slightly.  Obviously he was spoiling for a fight.  After all, what did he have to fear from the middle-aged guy in the rear wheel drive midlife crisis car with an automatic transmission who was listening to the same music his grandparents liked?  What was that group?  Something called The Beach Boys?  What could a fogey like that possibly know about cool street machines?  I decided to teach him that he should be careful what he wished for.

The light turned green.  Beavis must have had the engine fully tached up because he actually managed to chirp the Hyundai’s front tires when he took off.  He was winding the engine for all it was worth, blaaat-blaaaaat-ing through the gears.  I sat there and watched the show as they headed toward the next stoplight about a mile up the road, at full throttle. 

After waiting a three-count I took off.  No drama, no smoke, no squealing tires.  Just the transfer of copious amounts of all-American torque to the tarmac, accompanied by the mellifluous soundtrack of the LS1’s 310 horses.   It’s the sweetest music this side of heaven, but a sound that’s totally foreign to a generation raised on four-cylinder front-drive econoboxes and SUV poseurmobiles.  It’s a sound I don’t think B & B ever heard before, and probably one they didn’t soon forget. 

As I closed in on them I could tell they were beginning to panic.  I could see them both lurching back and forth in their seats as though they hoped their bodily inertia would improve their forward momentum. The frantic exhaust note told me the Accent was giving its all to the cause, but to no avail.  B & B were about to experience first hand what happens when youthful ignorance and arrogance run head first into the cruel, unyielding roadblock of reality. 

The end was mercifully quick.  Before I got halfway to redline in second gear, I passed them and gave them a slight wave.  (Yes, I used my entire hand.)  Their expressions were priceless, like they’d just learned the truth about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the tooth fairy all at once, in a single blinding flash.  I actually felt sorry for them– for a moment. 

Then my pity gave way to laughter as I considered the utter ridiculousness of the situation.  I felt a little like Evelyn Couch (Kathy Bates) in the parking lot scene from “Fried Green Tomatoes” – minus the willful destruction of personal property, of course – scoring a small victory for old farts everywhere.  As you get older, such victories are fewer and further between.  You take ‘em when and where you can get ‘em, and you revel in ‘em as long as you can.

I drove that same route every day for about a year.  I never saw Beavis, Butthead or that Hyundai again.  I’d like to think they pushed it off in the nearest arroyo and invested their money in a real car and some driving lessons.  And hopefully by now they’ve learned kanji isn’t Korean and that VTEC has no relevance to a Hyundai.  Probably not, though.  They probably just added more decals, ground effects and badges to that poor Hyundai and kept on getting humiliated.   Either that or they’ve moved on the latest fad and donked their whip with 26-inch spinners, candy paint and Lambo doors. 

And me?  I still enjoy the Beach Boys. I now drive a six-speed Corvette instead of the Z/28.  I still enjoy an occasional stoplight challenge, too.  Anyone with a Sonata want to run for pinks?

You’ll never see one on the cover of a buff book or tuner title. They’re never the subject of motorsports art.  Chip Foose's Overhaulin' crew wouldn’t touch one with a ten foot spanner. But for every pristine vintage roadster, numbers matching cruise night star and drag strip trailer queen, there are millions of "beaters” out there, saving wear and tear on a car owner's pride and joy or just racking-up the miles.  A non-descript econo-box, compact hatchback, sedan, four-cylinder pickup or mini-van, the beater is motoring’s unsung hero.

The classic beater is an integral part of mainstream family life.  I have fond memories of our family's 1960 Buick LeSabre, christened the "Blue Witch.”  On long weekend road trips, confined to the back seat, our youthful imaginations stretched to relieve the monotony of long Sunday drives.  If we grew tired and napped, we awoke with nubby damask patterns etched on our cheeks.  By the same token, I remember the grey seats of a friend's parent's Renault that ferried us to and from swimming lessons while we sang Partridge Family songs (mea culpa), marking the vinyl with our wet bathing suits.  A green Plymouth sedan– boring as Danny Partridge’s do– eventually became The Millennium Falcon to my pre-teen cohorts. 

And who can forget their very first set of wheels?  For most of us it wasn't a fancy performance machine, a new car or even a nice car.  It was whatever we could get our hands on– after we’d begged, borrowed and yes, worked for the cash.  Mine was a Nissan Micra.  I quickly became adept at beater basics: the 'running-push-and-leap-in’ start, bending clothes hangers to temporarily hold up the exhaust and 1001 uses of duct tape. Don’t knock it: the beater gave us glorious mobility.

Writing this, I cast occasional glances out the window where falling petals from a neighboring crab apple tree are busy blanketing my 1997 Dakota pickup truck.  A picturesque scene perhaps, but it only serves to emphasize how long it’s been since the Dodge truck last moved.  A wheel bearing that needs replacing accounts for its current state of immobility.  It isn't a huge or costly job, just another addition to a lengthy list of future household expenses which must, alas, await additional income. 

I'd rather not add up what I’ve spent on this vehicle over the past six or seven years.  One (not me) could probably think of it in terms of groups of matching appliances, exotic Caribbean trips, home renovation projects or a normal, sane person's retirement savings plan.  Somewhere in the last couple of years, I crossed that invisible line between conscientious vehicle maintenance and obsessive compulsive custom hobby. This leap, of course, necessitated buying something that I could actually drive, you know, when I need to. A beater.

That’s why I purchased a Mazda 323 for less than the price of the tires that encircle my pampered pickup's custom rims. The Japanese sedan isn't much to look at (a statement that could also have been made fourteen years ago when it was new).  But $20 in regular fuel keeps it running between two paychecks.  It doesn't sulk if I forget the date of its last oil change. It slugs through the worst that winter can dish out and starts unfailingly during cold snaps. Snow hasn't stopped it yet, although deep ruts slow it down. It chugs along determinedly, with little-engine-that-could stoicism. Stalling and unexpected drifting displays are not part of its repertoire; unlike, I might add, its prima donna pickup counterpart.

The onboard Hanes manual has proved useful as an impromptu cushion when the sagging driver's seat suspension becomes a little too relaxed for sustained driving.  As familiar as an old glove, the beater’s interior offers no-frills comfort.  When I discover my nephew's cuisine– half a cream cheese bagel stuck to the seat back– I snicker, instead of a gasp in horror and rush to the car spa.  The nondescript carpeting bears witness to countless Tim Horton's spilled on shared road trips.  With the hatch flipped up and the seats flopped down, the beater’s cargo hold has played host to dogs and horseback gear, bags of grain, a set of spare tires, assorted building materials and a mountain bike.

My beater may not be pretty, but every scuff, scrape, dent and spill tells a story.  That should be enough reason to remember those oil changes.  But no, we tend take our beaters for granted– until that sad day when they simply aren't up to their humble, but essential task. Then, we have a decision to make. Unfortunately, despite years of faithful service and unfailing reliability, the scrap yard is usually the final destination. Perhaps one day Barrett-Jackson will tout compacts and K-cars as the new cool and beaters will earn their just reward.

When I got my driving license, I couldn’t vote.  Legal drinking was a distant speck on the horizon.  But I didn’t care.  I was captain of my own ship, master of my own destiny.  Within a few months, the parental units provided regular access to the family hatch.  I treated this gift as a matter of life and death, because, well, it was.  By that time it was clear that my friends’ driving habits were the greatest threat to my continued existence.

I’m not saying I was the most capable or responsible driver extant.  I admit I sought answers to important questions relating to the time / space continuum; like whether or not a Honda Accord with nearly six digits on the clock could do the ton.  I planned my experiment carefully, selecting a deserted stretch of four-lane highway just outside of town for the daring deed.  Give me a crash helmet and a stick of Beecham’s and I’d have been Chuck Yeager.  I didn’t break the sound barrier, but I did peg it at 95. 

In contrast, my classmates tested the upper limits of their ancient chariots between stoplights.  Only the inherent limitations of their mounts (family sedans and old econo-hatches) slowed their progress.  Other traffic didn’t figure.  To accept a ride from one of my speed-crazed, hormonally-charged peers was like playing Russian roulette with half the chambers loaded.  Fortunately, the brevity of the city confines limited the possibilities for automotive immolation.  Unfortunately, our city was a small island in a sea of country roads, with endless opportunities to accel.  

For those Boomers and Gen X’ers who came of age in a small mid-western town, the term “vamping” will bring back instant memories.   For those of you who grew up in the burbs or amongst high-rises and belt highways, vamping was the fine art of launching a vehicle into flight over a bump.  It was a relatively simply matter of blood, guts and a pair of lead feet.  Find the right bump, back up a bit and go for it.  As for the landing, well that WAS the tricky part.  God help you if another car happened to be driving in the opposite direction. 

There were more than 600 kids with licenses at my school, perhaps 2000 in the city.  No one knew exactly who was riding this dark thrill-ride until they failed.  And more than one did.  Perhaps the knowledge that I was leaving for college after graduation kept me from vamping it up.  Then again, that didn’t seem to stop my college-bound friends’ pursuit of “air time.”  One particularly brazen pair of associates managed to mangle three cars between them.  Two of the autos snuffed it in single car accidents.  The other required a joint effort, in what became a famous “experiment.”

 As in all towns, Springfield had a teen hangout: Quik & EZ (yes, we thought it was pretty funny too).  This less than salubrious edifice sat on a corner, connected to a large strip-mall parking lot by a short, steep ramp.  Despite the brief distance from the ramp to the street (perhaps 50 feet), our two heroes managed to drive their Nova onto the ramp at 50mph; enough to catch that elusive air.  Emboldened by the accolades, the driver decided to perform their automotive stunt show in the opposite direction.  Hitting the 45 degree parking lot connector at over 50 miles an hour, their car never actually touched the ramp.  It flew from one lot to another, bottomed out, spun 180 degrees in a shower of sparks and plowed over an electric transformer. 

Our heroes pulled themselves out, performed a quick inspection and discovered that the bottom of the car was fairly well fused.  The car “looked like a canoe”.  Since the police hadn’t showed (yet), and home was only two miles away, they decided leaving would be a good thing.  They piled back in and headed home, shedding parts the whole way, driving into local legend.

For those who survived and got something faster; the next level was thrashing around the two-lane out by the lake.  That road had lots of curves, little police presence and plenty of trees capable of cutting a Firebird in half (I saw the pictures).  One particular stretch saw fatal accidents in three straight summers; proof of the road’s automotive allure and our local drivers’ courage/stupidity. 

 My luck ran out at the end of my senior year; I was rear-ended by a Sable in a driving rainstorm.  For the next four years, my automobiling was restricted to summers and holidays; delivering Pizzas or heading out of town to boss hick kids and JD’s through cornfields.  My first set of wheels would be a graduation “gift” of the sort that gave Trojans nightmares, but that, my friends, is another story.

As a pistonhead of independent means, I’ve been lucky enough to own and sample a vast array of automotive hardware.  If I had a car for every time a friend, associate, colleague or innocent bystander asked me to name my favorite car, I’d see Jay Leno’s aircraft hangar and raise him a Space Shuttle shelter.  Of course, drilling down to one top whip would be like asking Angelina Jolie to name her least favorite husband—in reverse.  Still, in the interests of stimulating debate, here are my four faves.  I make no apologies for the fact that they’re all German; in the grand TTAC style, I call it like I see it and let the lederhosen fall where they may. 

#4 Volkswagen GTI

At best, the new GTI is cute; at worst, it’s pug ugly.  Like it or loathe it, you gotta love it: the GTI is the hardest working car in show business.  How many vehicles offer this much performance and practicality for $24k?  During my first week behind the wheel, I was convinced the speedometer was busted.  Everywhere I drove, it read 90 mph.  (The California Highway Patrol eventually verified the speedo’s accuracy.)  When VW sent me one of those little plastic “Fast” thingies to thank me for my purchase, I mounted it in on the dash.  Whenever my wife asks me to slow down, I just point and tell her to “Talk to the Fast.” 

For a tallish front driver, the handling is supernaturally stable and sticky. The DSG transmission is almost as much fun as masturbation, except that I can’t match downshifts as smoothly.  When I’m not paddling to paradise, I get 29 miles per gallon and satellite radio (a $1,000 option in my Civic, even though the radio proclaimed “XM Ready”).  Sure, there’s a lot of plastic and the plaid (plaid?) seats are almost as hard to adjust as an iDrive radio, but otherwise, the GTI is a knockout for the money.

 #3 BMW 330i 

I’ve owned six of these ultimate driving machines in various guises, and they’ve all been a delight.  The 3-Series [still] boasts a superbly communicative helm; powerful, feelsome brakes and the world’s smoothest six-banger.  Generally speaking, you also get the best ride-handling trade off in the business: a car that cruises and thrashes with equal aplomb.  Even though the Bavarians have done their level best to screw-up the basics with ill-considered over-engineering— numb active steering, stiff and loud run flat tires, badly Bangled sheetmetal, cost-cutting plastics— the 3-Series remains the sine qua non of sports sedans.

#2 Porsche 911 Carrera

No car handles, brakes and accelerates with more effortless élan than a 911 Carrera.  Once a Spartan sports car for the chronically over-moneyed, the latest iteration offers enough electronic aids and creature comforts to soothe an S-Classicist.  Just be sure to pack platinum plastic; breathe on the options list and you can kiss $10k goodbye.  Pant on it and it’s entirely possible to drop $100k on the world’s fastest daily driver. Not that it’ll look it.  Although the highly evolved Carerra shape is wandering into self-parody and ennui, there’s something legally attractive about a bling-less car that pumps out this much performance.  A little more torque on the down-low and a little less impact from potholes would be nice (the tire and wheel choice have severe repercussions on ride quality), but otherwise the 911 is still high performance perfection.

#1 Mercedes E320 CDI / E55 AMG Wagon

One million German taxi drivers can’t be wrong: the E-Class is a hit.  The E320 CDI version is my favorite iteration of this best selling mid-sized sedan.  The oil burner’s 21 gallon fuel tank has carried me all the way from Phoenix to San Francisco; that’s 775 miles without stopping to fill the tank (just to empty my own).  At the same time, the CDI stumps-up more torque than the current V8 (this will change shortly).  Despite a little lag off the line, it’s faster than most petrol-powered sixes. Although the cabin lacks spizzarkle, the big E-z carries four adults and their stuff in bovine-skinned luxury and wood-grained comfort. She’ll dance (waltz, not salsa) when the rhythm of the road requires, even if the numb helm makes the car Vicodin-on-wheels.  Mercedes promises that the new, monster E63 AMG will have more responsive steering and corner more eagerly (you’d certainly hope so). The improved dynamics wouldn’t go amiss further down the food chain.  

Meanwhile, the E55 AMG (soon to be E63) Wagon is da bomb.  Turn off the big rig’s traction control and you can leave Hemis behind in a cloud of tire smoke.  Contrary to popular belief, this is not the perfect car for guys who like to drive fast and own big dogs; they’d have to constantly clean doggy slobber off the rear window.  It’s the ultimate Q ship.

“The older I get, the better I was.”  Those of you who were in high school before Neil Armstrong baby-stepped for mankind know what I’m talking about.  Time has a remarkable way of enhancing our memories of days gone by.  More specifically, we tend to idolize automobiles whose once questionable joys have been filtered and sanitized by the mists of time.  Occasionally we need a good old whack from the reality stick to jar the truth loose from the cobwebs of our cloudy minds.  I got mine today.

Eons ago, I owned an MG-B.  I purchased the English roadster for a song from an airman who had to get rid of it in a hurry.  That car was a great toy.  I enjoyed the wind-in-your-face sensation of fresh air motoring.  The tonneau cover could unzip just on the driver’s side, allowing me to drive the rorty ragtop al fresco during the north Texas winter, without freezing to death.  I used the electric overdrive switch on the top of the shifter (in conjunction with 3rd and 4th gears) to create a poor man’s six-speed.  I tinkered with the engine on weekends, nurturing plans to rebuild the car from the ground up when time and money allowed.  Needless to say, circumstance eventually forced me to trade my dreams for cash– and all the wonderful memories of good times spent with my MG-B.

Today, I stumbled upon an MG-B roadster, the first one I’ve seen in years.  It was parked along the street, wearing the same colors as my old ride (brownish-orange with brown seats and door panels).  Whoever owned the classic Brit obviously loved it; she was in decent condition, without apparent rust or decay.  I smiled as I looked it over, thinking about how much I enjoyed my MG, and regretted selling it.

Then I noticed was how tiny it was.  Mine wasn’t that small was it?  How did I ever manage to fold up my six-foot-three-inch frame and wedge my fat ass into that puny driver’s seat?  And how did I get my size 14 feet to operate those miniscule pedals one at a time?  Why in the world did I ever want to get out on the highway in something that small, open to all the elements, looking semis and SUV’s and mondo-sized 4×4 pickups squarely in the hubcaps as they whizzed past at 70 miles per hour?  

I stepped back and took another look at the MG-B.  It sported the same ugly black rubber bumpers as mine.  It looked like it was standing on tiptoes. [MG’s answer to US bumper standards: replace their beautiful trademark grille and chrome bumper with that hideous rubber thing, and then jack-up the suspension an inch or so.] How in the world did I ever get the car around corners at any rate of speed without rolling it?  And those awful stamped steel wheels.  Mine had the beautiful wire wheels that most people associate with classic MG’s, didn’t it?  No… wait… it had the same wheels as this one.  But mine were rusting.

And that color!  How could I ever be seen in public driving something that hideous?  They called it “Bracken.”  “Brackish” would have been more like it.  It was the same murky color as a mud puddle full of Georgia clay.  I couldn’t believe anyone with a modicum of taste would cover a car with such a putrid shade.

The memories came flooding back.  I drove it with the top down because the canvas cover was so fiendishly complicated I didn’t want to try putting it up.  The few times I made the effort, I could hardly duck my head low enough to get in.  Once there, I couldn’t see anything through a tiny slit of a windshield that was nearasdammit at ground level.  I used the overdrive as often as I did because the MG-B got atrocious gas mileage.  And it was slow.  A contemporary Cobalt or Corolla would easily outrun and out corner this high-performance English thoroughbred.  It was noisy.  It leaked copious amounts of oil (the main reason I tinkered with the engine on weekends).  Of course, back then, I couldn’t have cared less.  I was young and the MG-B was a genuine sports car.  That was all that really mattered. 

The owner came out: a college kid. As he drove off, I wondered why anyone with an education would willingly sacrifice safety, comfort, speed, handling and reliability for Anglophile street cred.  No doubt he loves his MG-B, though, and the attention it attracts.  And I’m sure some 20 or so years from now he’ll think back fondly on his MG and regret getting rid of it– regardless of the trouble it gives him now.  Live and learn.

The prairie town where I grew up offered exactly one wholesome diversion for teenagers: an eight-block stretch of Central Avenue known as The Drag.  On Friday and Saturday nights, you'd “shag The Drag.” You’d drive from 12th Street down to the city square, then back up to 12th Street, shouting at people you knew or people you wanted to know.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  Your goal: make time with a girl from school or, even better, entrance an out-of-towner who had no idea of your previous track record (or lack thereof).  Of course, you had to come to The Drag in a cool car.  In the late eighties, one car bestrode our teenage world like a colossus…

There were plenty of acceptable Drag shaggers: the Chrysler Cordoba, Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme and Mercury Cougar XR-7 spring immediately to mind.   But there was only one King: the Chevrolet Monte Carlo.  Oh, the Monte.  That was the car you detassled corn for, spending ten or twelve hours under the unforgiving Iowa sun with your arms over your head with some college student (obviously majoring in sociopathy) telling you to work harder.  Six weeks of that was like ten thousand years in purgatory.  At the end, though, you had enough money for a '76 Monte Carlo, a set of Cragar mags, and the finest Sparkomatic tape deck K-Mart would sell you.  You were ready to shag The Drag.

First, though, you had to straighten up the car a little.  In the main, this involved applying approximately 3.8 cans of paste wax to your Monte's oxidized exterior.  You had to buff that wax off with one of your dad's old, ominously stained t-shirts.  Since you never got all the wax off, you’d then suffer the heartbreak of finding telltale beige smears all over your gleaming ride.  But young men always suffer at the hands of their hormones, don't they?  And it was all worth it– the first time you saw a girl stare a little too long at your car.  Then you saw her staring at you.  That was even better.

Profiling, of course, is about all those mid-Seventies disco sleds were good for.  They barely ran, thanks to asthmatic, emissions-controlled V-8 engines that put out maybe 160 horsepower.  Cornering was unlike anything this side of Twisted Metal.  If you hadn't replaced your hooptie's shocks recently– and why would you, as shock absorbers can't be seen by casual onlookers– you hoped beyond hope that you wouldn't roll over onto the door handles if you tried to take a curve at anything close to the posted speed limit.  Need I even mention the gas mileage?  These prime examples of the North American Vinyl-Backed Road Pig make a Hummer H2 look like a Segway.

For these reasons and many others, your parents were on record as being 100% against buying a Chevrolet Monte Carlo.  Your mom thought it was just the perfect car for that nineteen-year-old with the Steve Perry hair and the sparse mustache, the one who'd already knocked over a couple Stop 'N Robs and spent time in juvie.  No way was her little slugger going to cruise the street in the official car of the Future Felons of America.  Needless to say, your dad was more practical.  He knew exactly what that Monte meant for him: “Dad, can I borrow ten bucks for gas?”  

Your mom thought you should buy the neighbors' Mercury Lynx station wagon.  Your dad noted that there were a lot of nice, low mileage Renault Alliances in the newspaper.  “Hey, son, with all you'll save on gas, you can probably buy hamburgers and Cokes for all those girls you meet on The Drag!”  Right, dad.  All the chicks dig that 1.4 liter engine. Can I have one of your Manhattan Transfer tapes while I'm at it?

You knew your strategy.  You'd spent the entire summer circling every $1200 Camaro in the classifieds.  You talked about the '72 Charger your study partner's cousin was selling– the one he parked behind a barn in 1977.  Dad, did you know he's only asking $800 for it?  After a couple months of you chasing every dumb two-door in a five-county area, the Monte you eventually found practically sold itself.  

Looking back, the idea that a Chevrolet Monte Carlo could make anyone seem cool was completely preposterous.  Even then, you may have suspected that you may not have been cool.  But somewhere deep inside, where it counts, driving the Monte felt right.  If, at sixteen years old, it only took a couple of opera windows and an elk-grain vinyl roof to give you a shot of self-confidence, what the Hell.  It was a fair trade.  It was the full Monte.

PSST… Hey you!  Yeah, you over there with the shiny new Corvette…  I have something to tell you…  C’mon over…  Now stand close so I can whisper something in your ear.  No, really… it’s a good thing.    Be sure to listen carefully.  I don’t want you to miss this.  It’s something you really need to hear about your baby.  Ready?  OK, here it is… HEY BONEHEAD!  THAT CORVETTE IS A CAR!!  TAKE IT OUT AND DRIVE THE HELL OUT OF IT!

For those Corvette owners who don't understand the concept, I need to explain.  First of all, I’m not recommending that guardians of 53’s, ’57 fuelies, ’63 Z06’s and the other 'Vettes critical to the marque's heritage should go out and thrash their historical artifacts to an inch of their lives (although I'm not against the idea).  Obviously, these vehicles need to be protected and preserved for future generations.  I’m talking about the non-treatment meted-out to your everday, garden-variety trailer queens and wannabees.  You know, the pampered bow tie bombers you see at every club meeting, cruise night and Corvette gathering. 

These seem to fall into two categories.  The first are 'Vettes with paint jobs that cost more than your average Hyundai, chromed to a fare-thee-well and displayed behind ropes like a priceless object d’arte. These are nothing more than full-scale Hot Wheel toys– and just about as useful.  The others are pimped-out stockers that bear silent testimony to what happens when an overabundance of cash intersects with a dearth of taste at the locus of an aftermarket parts catalogue. 

In both cases, you can tell the cars hardly ever leave the garage except when the owners show them off like some priceless Faberge egg.  It’s fun to watch, though.  The owner hovers nearby with polishing cloth and duster at the standby, watching warily in case someone dares touch his precious baby or a speck of dust should fall on it.  Some day I’m going to sneeze on one just to watch the owner pop a blood vessel in his neck.

Many Corvette owners who don’t participate in these spectacles exhibit equally strange behavior.  I have no problem with someone keeping their car looking good, but these people have gone beyond obsessive and now live in the realm of the irrational.  They won’t drive their car in the rain.  They spend exorbitant amounts on special waxes and beauty creams.  They wash it only in distilled rainwater and dry it with chamois from organically-raised sheep that were given daily massages to keep their skin supple.  They panic at the prospect of getting a stone chip in their extra-cost base-coat/clear-coat paint or a scuff on the (cheap) leather upholstery.  

Before you start screaming sour grapes because, obviously, I’m jealous of Corvette owners and if I had one I’d understand, know this:  I own a Corvette.  I wanted one ever since I went down to the Chevy dealer with my grandfather and sat in the ‘Vette while he did his business.  When I got to the point where my credit rating could handle the hit, I bought one.  And I drive it regularly, even in the rain.  I take long trips in it.  I carry my dog it.  I may wash it once a month– in a drive-through car wash. 

Some owners would say I don’t deserve a Corvette.  I say Corvettes were meant to be driven, not pimped, primped, and posed.  Laying aside whatever you think about Chevrolet or GM for a moment, you have to admit the Corvette is a great performance car.  It offers a combination of acceleration, handling, braking and fuel economy you won’t find in many other cars.  I don’t understand anyone who buys one then keeps it locked away in the garage, driving it maybe 100 miles a month.  What in the name of Zora Arkus-Dutov do they think Corvettes are for?

I’ll tell you what they’re for.  They’re for dancing down a winding road to the music of a small block V-8.  They’re for winding through the gears flat-out when the road turns straight.   They’re for transforming high octane petroleum distillates into the most fun you can have with your clothes on.  They’re the perfect antidote for ennui, a quicker waker-upper than a cup of Starbucks’ best.  They’re for entertaining the senses, for restoring your joy of driving, for having a balls-out, catch-me-if-you-can, power sliding good time.

The same criticisms can be leveled at owners of any number of cars.  What of the poseurs driving Jeep Wranglers whose tires have never touched the bare earth?  Many drivers wear their car like so much jewelry, trying make a “life style statement.”  They want everyone to admire their cars so they can sneer “I have one and you don’t.”  People like that should never be allowed to own a proper sports car.  They’re incapable of understanding their car’s soul.  They’re too wrapped up in themselves to notice it even has one.

I drive an iconic, high-performance European luxury car.  Well, let me modify that a bit.  I drive an iconic, high-performance European luxury car made in 1983.  And so could you, for the cost of a new Kia.  It’s a Porsche 911SC coupe— a car that’s no longer rare, collectible, fast, luxurious or particularly desirable.  But it is revealing.  A hundred and eighty horsepower!  A  pair of 225/50-16 tires in the rear!  A top speed of 135 mph!  Look out Kia, here I come!  My 25-year-old Porker highlights just how far automobiles have advanced since the time when Koreans were best known for their canine cuisine.       

My SC’s 3.0-liter flat-six originally came with a fuel-injection kludge (before I converted it to carburetors, just to rub in the antiquity).  It boasted an air intake system so convoluted the oxygen entered through the front door, walked upstairs to the guest bedroom, climbed out the window, crawled back in through the kitchen window and then went down to the basement to find the combustion chambers.  The less said about the tangled exhaust and constricted catalytic converters the better.  But hey, it had dual-zone climate control!  

We’re talking two levers that resemble lawnmower throttles, one left and one right.  The levers pull rusty cables that close trapdoors in the exhaust system.  (It’s a favorite path for mice seeking to occupy occasionally-driven Porsches.)  The movement forces air to circulate around the exhaust pipes before entering the cabin.  Bonus!  Any oil that leaks out of the lower cam covers (which seal about as well as a re-corked bottle of Argentinean Merlot) instantly vaporizes and blends with the hot air warming the cabin.  And if the exhaust springs a leak, you die of carbon monoxide poisoning.

The rest of a vintage 911’s cooling/fan/defrost controls remain a mystery– even to people who have owned these cars for decades.  Some levers go left, some right.  I carry a six-inch length of dowel to jam into the fan lever at full displacement, which sometimes seems to bring the windshield defogger to life.  The air conditioning never worked well, and you had to remove and bench-press the crappy compressor to do any minor engine work.  The Germans apparently did their hot-weather testing in Provence.   

And speaking of engine work, every 12,000 miles you had to gap the valves (Stuttgart had yet to discover hydraulic lifters).  If you didn’t, bad things happened.  My friend John Phillips III (Car and Driver scribe par excellence) admitted in a recent e-mail, “I had a 1974 911S whose valves I failed to adjust at the proper interval.  This resulted in a catastrophic engine event in Maumee, Ohio.  I had to leave the car at a gas station, call a cab, ride to the Toledo Airport, rent a car, drive to Columbus, rent a truck and trailer, go pick up the car, drop it at Midwestern Porsche-Audi, and leave it there for two months.”   Amor vincit omnia.

[A Porsche dealer charged the equivalent of changing your Toyota’s timing belt every 12k miles for this trickery.  These days, amid shrieked curses, slowly spreading pools of oil and dripping knuckle-blood, I perform the job myself.  I use a feeler gauge that looks like a laparoscope tool for a prostatectomy.  It beats working for a living.]

The 911 SC’s cruise control consisted of a soup can-size pneumatic cylinder and a Bourdon cable, most likely interchangeable with the one used for the “climate control.”  I threw all that away along with the a/c, so I have no idea how it works.  But I don’t think any electrons are involved.  Did I mention the SC’s road manners?  Probably not, since I spun the car so hard at Lime Rock last month I popped the windshield loose.  People who are serious about making older 911s handle put rods, bars, tubes, straps and welds all over the place in an often vain attempt to make both sides of the car fly in formation.

Had I purchased my SC back in the fall of ’82, it would have set me back about $35k moderately optioned: sunroof, a/c, manual leather seats, lousy Bosch fog lights, an even worse AM/FM Blaupunkt and some other stuff (all of which I’ve sacrificed to the Great God of Lightness).  That’s the equivalent of almost $73,500 in today’s money, or enough cash to buy a brand new, 325hp Porsche 911S (with no options whatsoever).

But what the hell.  Old 911’s respond to tweaking as well as a ’36 Ford flathead.  My heavily-breathed upon example puts out a dynoed 287 hp, and I love it when people ask me if it’s new.  Of course, just about any new car you can name would be faster, safer, more comfortable, more reliable, handle with greater assurance and stop quicker than a stock '83 911SC.  But it wouldn’t be better.

It’s been said that prison is years of mind-numbing boredom punctuated by sudden moments of extreme terror.  I feel that way about commuting.  Despite driving’s many pleasures, the daily commute gradually erodes all sense of joy.  All those repetitive miles, one barely distinguishable from the next.  The same old CD’s in the changer, the same dumb ‘morning zoo’ antics on the radio, same streets, same turns, same times.  You eventually lapse into semi-consciousness; unaware, unable to recall the last five, ten, maybe fifteen miles. Until your autopilot slumber is rudely interrupted by, say, an oncoming tractor-trailer drifting over the center line.

For the first long second, the truck seems like some sort of a hazy mirage.  You don’t even react.  Then, as your heart suddenly palpitates from the adrenaline rush of imminent death, the truck drifts back.  No sweat.  You don’t even mention it to anyone later.  Why would you?  It’s all part of the deal. As are the deer. Based on the zeal with which these ruminants throw themselves into the teeth of oncoming traffic, you’d be forgiven for thinking there are 72 doe-eyed virgins awaiting each of these cloven-hoofed speed bumps upon their earthly demise. Sorry; Bambi has exhausted my patience and gets no sympathy. Having suffered thrice by the whims of the herd, I now root for the hunters.

Anyway, commuting teaches us a great deal about our place in the world.  Actually, make that our micro-world.  If you really want to get to know a car, spend a couple hours each day locked in its confines, subject to its every fault and foible.  No car can live up to this examination.  No driver can stand the punishment. I’ve commuted to various jobs from various home locations over the years. Most of my commutes have lasted a half-hour or less.  But the thousand-yard stare I have now?  It’s the product of an eight year, 40-mile commute.  That’s 3800 trips in one direction or other; tedium unmatched in modern times. Except by my fellow commuters, of course. 

It was a pleasant-enough drive at first, with reasonable traffic and acceptable scenery. It was long, sure, but who’s in a hurry to get to work, anyway?  Then they took my sports talk off the air and replaced it with waiting room quality jazz. That was the first of many slights that beat this commuter into submission. Months of winter snow and ice rendered a lengthy journey even longer, slower and more stressful.  Summer months offered little respite, as flagmen and orange barrels replaced inclement weather as my personal bane.

Niggling events and inconveniences became maddening personal assaults. Why, for example, is this corridor so important that the county feels obliged to send a half-dozen patrol units down it each morning; and yet so unimportant that they can’t dispatch a single snow plow?  Or why must the window malfunction take the form of an inability to work during warm weather, but not cold? 

Even if car and driver survive a close encounter of the endless kind, they won’t be friends when it’s over.  One of my longer-term mules, an import family sedan of remarkable unremarkability, did its level best to transport me without committing offense.  And yet, after a thousand trips or so, I hated it.  Hated it right down to the frame.  Even after 250,000 miles of partnership. Even after the car absorbed hit after hit-– deer, curbs, potholes, falling branches, a mailbox and even a hydrant (do NOT loan your car)– it kept on ticking like the proverbial Timex.  What did it get in return? Disinterest. Disrespect. Disloyalty. Just . . . dissed. Hey, that’s how it goes in the commuting game.

After a while, I accepted the reality. I quit racing the clock and began sneering at those white-knuckled fools risking everything to pass, to gain one better place in the endless parade. What’s the point? We’ll just be back again tomorrow.  That was then. Thankfully, I don’t commute any more.  Life has allowed me to trade that worn-out 40-mile drive for a fresh, four-minute walk. Some days (I can’t believe I’m about to tell you this) I don’t drive at all. And when I do get back behind the wheel, I’m happier.  I actually look forward to those days when I have errands to run and thus a reason to take my car.  The time away from my former commute has given back something I’d lost: the joy of driving.

 These days, driving brings back the feelings I had as a teenager, when jumping into a car meant endless possibility rather than endless responsibility. So I’m recovering day by day. It’s a shame that so much of the driving we do today is rote commuting.  Our cars deserve better, and so do we.

When people say a car has “character,” they mean one of two things.  First and foremost, the word is deployed to praise gross ergonomic errors.  We’re not talking about minor design quirks: Saab ignitions on the floor, CR-V shifters high on the dash, horns on the wheel spokes.  Pistonheads trot out the “C” word to heap praise upon those interior peculiarities that stand up and demand you notice them when you should be doing something else, like driving.  While enthusiasts have been praising these automotive “eccentricities” for years, it’s time for carmakers to write this character out of the program.  

I once read an editorial criticizing GM for finally placing the headlight controls on a stalk on the wheel.  The writer claimed The General was surrendering its “American character” by following some (but not all) foreign manufacturers’ lead.  Nonsense.  The dash-mounted light switch was ergonomically inefficient; stretching forward to turn the lights on/off was both uncomfortable and dangerous.  Even worse, the switch provided no feedback whatsoever.  GM’s light switch remained out of reach simply because of bureaucratic inertia and corporate parsimony.   

That’s no more “character” than Land Rover’s decision to locate their CD changer under the passenger seat (pre-Ford).  Did Volkswagen feel obliged to continue the “character” of its cars by building them without heat?  If a function or design is ugly or inconvenient to its user, it can only justify its existence by offering some form of compensation.  Saturn’s panel gaps may have been visible from low earth orbit, but that’s the price customers paid for dent resistance.  But hide my radio controls behind a menu– hide ANY controls I need to get along– and we’re going to have words. 

“Character” is also a term meaning “horrific quality.”  Cars with “character” must have at least one good feature– go like hell, turn on a dime, look like sex, etc.– along with a myriad of defects and problems.  Alfas didn’t have “character” because they were built out of compressed rust; their electrical and engine faults earned them the right to the descriptor.  Old British cars are notorious for having bags of “character.” Although credit is usually laid at the feet of the “Prince of Darkness” (Lucas electrics), the fact that anything and everything else mechanical was equally susceptible to a sudden interruption of service made them “memorable.”   

This brings the whole “character” issue (and the people who use the term) into focus.  If a flaw is predictable and universal, there is nothing special about it.  Real “character” comes from design so poor that you literally don’t know what can (or face it will) go wrong.  And if every problem is different, the car and by extension its owner are unique.  Jaguar owners’ clubs often given an award called “the cat’s bite” to the owner who had the worst breakdown in the last year.  “Please, tell us just how capricious, how temperamental, how “special” your catastrophe was.”    

Ordinary drivers often feel disconnected from expert car reviewers’ opinions.  How many mainstream motorists power slide through turns or assess aerodynamic stability over the ton?  But if car writers are narcissists and libertines, then “character” people are unfathomable masochists.  From a safe distance, S&M appears to be a more normal (and probably safer) practice than driving a car that “may” work every other weekend.  Besides the uncertainty, there is also the expense (special mechanics, special parts).  The driver/car relationship, seen from the outside, appears completely dysfunctional, even abusive.  Intervention can be tried, but success is doubtful.   

Of course, this love of “character” leads to strong, nay zealous devotion to a marque by a small group of loyalists.  The “believers” don’t love the vehicle in spite of its flaws; they love it because of its flaws.  Ordinary buyers may not see the appeal of a brand that can't build straight. But the sheer strength of the fanatics’ adoration builds the automaker’s image to the point where it can seduce an otherwise sane multinational car company into buying the entire company (Jaguar again).  

There is something to be said for this insanity.  As demented as it may be, the sheer devotion of these fanatics is almost touching.  More importantly, their desire for uniqueness reminds us of the appeal of the car, the individuality that comes with going where you want when you want.  I salute them for reminding us of the century-old roots of auto appeal, and I damn their judgment for doing it in a vehicle only slightly more dependable than those pioneering machines.  

In my wilder moments, I dream of driving some of these famous crocks.  I wouldn’t mind getting behind the wheel of some Paleolithic British roadster, but I’m not crazy enough to buy one.  My family had a Chevy Vega and a VW bus back-to-back.  That’s enough “character” for anybody.

I like to clean.  I’ve never met anyone who can clean as well as I can.  Of course, there must be better cleaners out there.  After reading that English-born footballer David Beckham lines-up all the Coke can labels in his ‘fridge to face forwards, and only allows even numbers of cans, I reckon he’d be a worthy competitor in the rubber glove world cup.  But neither of us could hold a mop to Horacio Pagani.  After visiting his Modena Design factory, there’s no question that Pagani puts the “fast” in fastidious. 

The Zonda’s magnificent meticulousness snuck up on me.  When RF and I arrived at the supercar maker’s Milanese factory, I was not impressed.  Sure, the two-story glass building was a big step-up from all the small-volume English automakers’ filthy sheds, but Pagani's HQ was one of those generic structures that only looks good next to a small reflecting pool.  The interior had all the charm of a ‘60’s hotel: lots of tile, glass and hard angles.  If Zonda was trying to liberate Gulfstream go-getters from their money, I figured he’d have to do better than Arab chic.   

And then I saw a small, smear and dust-free glass case, just off a hideous central staircase.  Inside: a small group of metal die-cast cars, Group C racers, all carefully parked in the same direction, positioned in some non-chronological order known only to their owner.  Who was, of course, Horacio Pagani.  I later learned that these toys were Pagani’s Rosebud: the childhood icons that inspired his rise to greatness and gave him strength through his long and difficult climb to recognition (e.g. designing aluminum caravans and trailers).   

The fact that these toys had never been lost (most likely thanks to a doting mother of an only son) was revealing.  The fact that the models were chipped and beat-up was even more instructive.  Clearly, Zonda was a man who could live with imperfection—as long as it was arranged, ordered and contained in a perfectly clean receptacle.  My kinda guy, really. 

Not surprisingly, the Zonda was my kind of car.  My first Zonda had its rear carbon fiber panel open, revealing the most perfect arrangement of engine parts I’d ever seen.  Today’s high end cars use engine covers to make a semi-literal statement of bulletproof engineering.  The Zonda’s engine bay was a naked, unabashed and unadorned display of mechanical perfection.  Listen: the carbon fiber weave was exactly aligned and completely symmetrical.  That’s… crazy.  And yet, all Mercedes V12 engines deserve that kind of home. 

With the panel replaced, it was easy to see that Horacio had never lost his affection for those Group C cars, with their strange fighter jet canopies and long flat rears.  And then Horacio started pointing things out in short bursts of strangely-accented Italian.  See this line here?  Where the wheel arch meets the door?  Almost impossible.  You see that seam in the seat?  No machine can do that.  And yet it’s as perfect as a machine.  He had us peer, feel, listen, touch and yes, smell every detail of his creation.  

The cabin was a disaster: as tastelessly designed as it was scrupulously constructed.  The toggle switches were a joke, but a finely-machined, snick satisfying joke.  And the driving experience was seamless.  When RF surrendered the reins, I was amazed at how easy it was to drive the Zonda F at speeds so monumental I wouldn’t have been surprised to turn a corner and find Chartres Cathedral ahead of me.  There was an ease and simplicity to the experience that told me that Pagani's obsession with order was more than skin deep.   

After that experience, I’ve had a hard time driving so-called supercars.  I expect them all to be perfect.  You might think that climbing into an Enzo is intimidating, but I only felt a disturbance in my personal force when I discovered wires hanging loose under the dash (and got over it).  When bits of an Aston broke off in my hand, it was like watching a supermodel break a nail.  When we had to duct tape the Murcielago’s sunglass holder shut, you could almost hear my sigh over the engine’s howl.   

These days, I’ve started looking along panels for paint bubbles.  I shut doors four or five times, raise and lower the windows, just to get a sense of how a car's mechanisms negotiate the final territory between open and closed.  Strangely enough, given Mr. Wilkinson’s post, I’ve discovered that the passenger’s side vanity mirror is one of the best tests of a car’s depth of engineering.  How soft is the light?  How easily does the plastic cover slide across?  How smoothly does it move through its arc?  

The Zonda has ruined my ability to accept mediocrity— if, indeed, I ever had any.           

I remember spending an agonizing afternoon on my back, butt and knees on the cold concrete floor of my dad’s garage, trying to coerce a transmission, axle and wheel assembly back together. We’d just replaced my Jetta’s clutch, fried by a combination of adolescent exuberance and insensitive pedal technique. But, like some twisted Rubik’s cube, the various pieces defied logical integration. As afternoon drew into evening, my dad had a brainwave. “Let’s try again in the morning.” The next day, the parts simply fell into place; final assembly was as obvious as a pimple on a prom date.

That timeout was the trick that helped everything flow. It’s a technique I still use when confronted with seemingly insoluble problems: mechanical, psychological and spiritual. Like any boy who spends quality time working on cars, I learned a lot of life’s lessons in my Dad’s garage. Strange, then, that home repair, this crucible of character, this once pervasive American right of passage, seems endangered. I wouldn’t have expected our society to give up its garage culture without a fight. But then I wouldn’t have expected its original benefactors to be the same people conspiring to take it away.

"You can't work on a car yourself anymore." It's true: you can't. Even small garages would be lost without sophisticated and expensive diagnostic computers. Beyond that, imports have raised the electro-mechanical game to a level of near-total non-intervention. For decades, nothing could have been further from the truth; hundreds of thousands of cars received their regular maintenance and repair at the hands of their owners. One 1920's product manual urged owners not to be afraid of tackling these jobs: "Our company service men have no more brains than you do."

Now, all products are disposable. The impulse to fix instead of replace is gone, destroyed by the unstoppable efficiencies of mass production. Basic maintenance is either cheaply provided or rendered unnecessary. Change your own oil? About as likely as writing a personal letter. Check the transmission fluid? No way to do it on my car. The last time I bought wiper blades, the guy had installed them before I left the parking lot. Today’s corner garages are for pumping gas, slapping on an inspection sticker or parking.

All is not lost. In my Michigan locale, home garages and shops bigger than the houses they accompany are de rigueur. There are nearly as many auto parts stores in my neighborhood as there are gas stations. Those kids with their tuner cars, jeez. Even when Sears was having its recent troubles, the Craftsman division was still going strong. And there are custom bike and hot rod shows on TV every day of the week. All this seems to indicate that garage culture isn’t dying– it’s just entering a new phase.

The ambition for something better– faster, cooler or just plain different– continues drawing us back to the garage. Pistonheads are still entranced by the tools that make them feel productive and powerful. Attracted to the atmosphere that makes them feel vital and resourceful. It's labor, workmanship and expertise, but it's also escape and toys and play. It's a sanctuary. And important things happen when we return to it. We need those times. We need those lessons.

As the day-to-day drudgery of human existence is erased by the machines we create, it leaves less and less for us to do. Less to accomplish. Less to endure. We risk becoming idled and isolated. But the garage teaches us otherwise. It reminds us that the machine is an extension of the human. It is of the human, by the human and for the human. That's a lesson growing steadily in importance, as modern machines continue to elude our individual understanding and deny their dependence.

As machines become smaller, cheaper and more ubiquitous, they erode our general attitude of self-reliance. The garage teaches us otherwise. It demonstrates that we can overcome obstacles and alter our fates. It puts us in control and teaches both confidence and humility. It prepares us to look within ourselves for solutions and urges us to persevere. We need the garage. We need the sights, sounds and smells. The artifacts, rituals and garments. The benchmarks that help us understand and appreciate the social hierarchy built on knowledge, skill and craft.

We live in an age in which the quality of life for those of even modest means exceeds that enjoyed by almost everyone who has come before us. But modern conveniences take as well as give– sometimes before we even realize the importance of what’s been taken. We need to witness the automotive miracles worked and the mechanical souls resurrected. We need it for our sanity, and for our survival. We need the garage.

Driving with my windows down, a strange sound suddenly filled the cabin. "What's that noise daddy?" my six-year-old called from the backseat. "Look over buddy and you'll see." He turned quickly and blurted "Ferrari!" Although my son had taken some of his earliest steps in front of a televised image of Michael Schumacher's F1 car, before that moment, he'd never seen a Ferrari F430 in the flesh. Yet one glimpse of that scarlet red perfectly-crafted Pininfarina body, one earful of that wailing eight, and he knew he was in the presence of the prancing horse. That, my friends, is what you call branding.

Everything I ever needed to know about cars, I've known since I was five. I'm not going to argue that children possess inherent wisdom; I've listened to far too much senseless whining to buy into that. But it is true that kids look at cars from a less "burdened" perspective. They're not influenced by questions of finance, insurance, depreciation, maintenance and reliability. Although they're status conscious, their concept of "cool" has more to do with intrinsic appeal than ego gratification. By five years old, they have an instinctive understanding of which cars have "got it," and which cars don't. For example…

My two children can spot a Porsche 911 from a mile away. Despite the Carrera's constantly evolving form, no matter what the vintage (of car or kid), they know a 911 when they see one. Sure, they'd had a lot of imprinting. We've sat in Porsches at auto shows. We've stood together in awe, listening to a 911 driver crank-up that husky-sounding flat-six. Someday, if I raise them right, they'll be able to make the kind of 911 model and year distinctions that pistonheads use as a kind of secret handshake. But for now, my four and six-year-old see a Carrera and race to shout "911." Inevitably, the one who doesn't see the car first cries.

Look at children's car drawings. There's a startling similarity of form: large wheels, little overhang, sleek beltline and chopped greenhouse. These are the elements that comprise our earliest understanding of what makes a car desirable. Somewhere in our early-adulthood, we figure it's OK to sacrifice the basics– so long as we get the business case right. In other words, we give up the purity of our emotional connection because, well, we have to. We love our car but covet something else. Something a lot more expensive and a lot less responsible.

Why do mainstream motors look like they were based on a survey of a large group of randomly selected people from a broad cultural and economic demographic– other than the fact that they are? Modern manufacturers seem to take all their prospective customers' rational answers, blend them into a vehicle soup, and then "hone" the design until it has been assigned all the brand-defining character lines and sun catchers that the sheet metal can withstand. If you want to see the ultimate expression of this "a camel is a racehorse designed by a committee" aesthetic, check out the Pontiac Aztek.

Meanwhile, every time I drive by our local Hummer dealer, my kids fight for the best view. "Look, there's a new orange one" says my son. "I want that one,' my daughter cries, referring to a dubbed-out, flippity-flop purple-turquoise example. How do they know that the Hummer is the ultimate expression of machismo this side of Jurgen Von Strangle? They just do. In fact, by the time a nascent pistonhead reaches five, he or she can distinguish the authentic cars from the intenders. They spend hours lining-up Matchbox, caring for the good ones, giving them names and identities, racing them around a little orange track, sorting the miniature wheat from the palm-sized chaff. There's your ideal focus group.

Large organizations analyze, scrutinize and complicate their cars to death. They pay lip service to the importance of "car guys" and hire "car czars" to counter the "bean counters." When push comes to shove, originality and authenticity gets pushed and shoved straight out the door. An automaker can offer a car with the best gas mileage, the longest warranty, the fastest zero to sixty time, the most distinguished badge and the curviest body. But they can't simply dip into the global parts bin and create something that touches that primal place that started in childhood, and still exists within all of us.

Last week, my son and I encountered a swooping 1967 Chevrolet Corvette in glitter-flake blue. "Whoa!" my son whispered, as his hand started stroking the curvy hips of the old-school exotic. "Don't touch it," I replied. "It's not ours." But in a way, it was.

I once read that a person with experience caring for horses knows more about what it meant to be a human in the last thousand years than anyone without. Similarly, anyone who's driven a Model T knows more about what it felt like to be an American in the first half of the 20th Century than anyone who hasn't. History records the Model T as a two-fold blessing: it created the American working class and it put them behind the wheel. Again, the map is not the territory. To fully appreciate the Model T's impact on American psychology, you have to get behind the wheel.

Easier said than done. It takes a slim person to squeeze between the Model T's steering wheel and driver's seat. Most modern operators have to enter from the passenger side and slide over. Once there, only the Model T's helm works like a contemporary car's controls. The Flivver's throttle is on the column. Forward speeds are moderated by an unfamiliar lever and pedal combination. Another foot pedal shifts the car into reverse and doubles as a second brake. Before any of this, drivers of Model T's built before 1926 face the daunting prospect of using the 'Armstrong Starter' or hand crank. A second lever on the column retards the spark timing; which makes the starting procedure a bit easier and safer. (Broken wrists and arms eventually led to the development of the electric starter, and many older cars were retrofitted with the device as soon as they became available.)

Once modern passengers crest 20 mph in a Model T, many conclude that the car is a fragile and dangerous Rube Goldberg device. Not so. The Model T was a fully realized automobile built to cope with the challenging conditions of its time. Ford produced more than 15 million of the so-called Tin Lizzies. And while they clatter and squeak interminably, the car could take a real beating. Even the roughest patch of modern roadway is a blessing compared to the nominal 'roads' that T's ably traversed.

Taking the wheel of a nearly 100-year-old car puts one in a museum gallery frame of mind; you expect the machine to behave as carefully as you do. But a Model T is not as hesitant as its novice driver. One would not suppose that 4-inch-wide tires propelled by a 20hp 2.9-liter four-cylinder engine could keep up with a lawn mower, let alone snap your head back on take-off. But Henry Ford knew what he was doing. While it's no quarter-mile champ, a 'T' is unexpectedly quick-– a fact emphasized by the open-air cabins found on most of the early models.

The Model T has three speeds – faster, slower and reverse. With time, the modern driver's mind recalibrates, confidence grows and the little car starts to seem quite nimble and fun. You begin to understand why the Model T was such a beloved vehicle. They were incredibly versatile machines that integrated themselves into their owners' lives in surprising ways. After a few years on the road, many T's found work in the fields as hardy and affordable farm tractors. (The conversion could be done in the barnyard.) And for a car famous for its uniformity– any color you want so long as it's black– most Model T's were highly customized with dozens of available accessories.

Ford produced the Model T from 1908 to 1927. Its impact on American society is impossible to overstate. For example, the Model T helped America win World War One and Two. While German soldiers were often forced to abandon their exquisitely engineered tanks and trucks, millions of American soldiers could fix their internal combustion-powered equipment, thanks to their hands-on experience with the Model T. Writer and essayist E. B. White mourned the Model T's gradual disappearance from the American landscape, saying that "the old Ford practically was the American scene." For better or worse, the Model T changed the world.

The reality of this history is almost lost in the mists of time. But not quite. Although we can't understand what it was like to glimpse a Model T for the first time, that same sense of wonder and freedom still greets the Model T driver when they take the wheel. I don't know how many of the 15 million T's produced are still on the road. But if you can finagle a drive, seize the opportunity with both hands. You'll make a personal connection with one of the most influential and important Americans in our national history.

Blasting down the autocross track at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway in a BMW M3, wringing that mad motor to the max, I still couldn't catch the rat bastard in the car ahead. My Teutonic ride had more than enough juice to gain ground during the straights. But the second a twist appeared my target slipped away like a thief with a knife. At some point, courage got the better part of valor; I switched off the DSC and drove well beyond what any rational human would call "safe." Wrong answer. Without Bimmer's Nanny riding shotgun, my car control disintegrated. The Dodge Neon SRT-4 pulled away, leaving me in the dust.

Before spending two-days at the Skip Barber High Performance Driving School, I was convinced I was a reasonably skilled driver. I had no idea how bad I sucked. Lucky for my ego, I wasn't the only one to make this realization. Wealthy sports car owners from all walks of life swaggered into the Vegas heat full of piss, shit and corruption; convinced they could pilot Bimmers, Porkers and a Viper with confidence and élan. One-by-one, Skip Barber's Neon-driving instructors disabused them of the notion. As we struggled through a tire-smoking orgy of spinning, understeering, knocking over cones, missing turn-in points, choosing the wrong gear, braking at the exact wrong time and place, we all came to the same conclusion: none of us could drive for shit.

Skip Barber teaches you how to steer a car with your feet, master the art of progressive trail-braking (to both induce and correct oversteer), pick the proper line through a corner, shuffle steer, heel-and-toe downshift and not to freeze-up and/or lose it when all Hell breaks loose. While it would be easy to see these high-speed Skipcapades as nothing more than a fun day out for testosterone-crazed pistonheads; or a wrong-headed indulgence for members of Hoonatics Anonymous, every single tip and technique we learned applied to real world defensive driving.

For instance, shuffle steering, where you feed the wheel from one hand to the other, ensures that no matter how the car is pointed, your hands are in the most advantageous position (9 and 3 it turns out, not 10 and 2). The technique also prevents the airbag from knocking your crossed wrists through your skull. Trail-braking ensures that you have loaded the vehicle's weight onto the front tires (the ones that do the turning), making emergency maneuvers safer. Proper heel-and-toe allows you to get away from an impending accident. Even understanding the proper race-line means that your car will be more stable at speed. Five AM coke binge or not, this is life-saving stuff.

By the end of the Two Day High Performance School, we were all… better. More importantly, we'd gained a measure of much-needed humility. In fact, it's too damn bad Skip Barber's class costs nearly three grand (plus travel and accommodation). Once upon a time, only rich bastards could afford cars with more than 200hp. These days, anyone with a reasonable credit rating and a day job can buy a Dodge, Chrysler, Pontiac, etc. with 400hp. And, of course, they're killing themselves. Oh sure, the media focuses on the Ferrari-halving Erikssons and the SLR-compatibility testing Prince Naseems. No one talks about the average schmoes running their performance cars into a tree. Nor for that matter, soccer moms in 400hp 'Slades slamming into the rest of us.

As I spun the Viper through a ragged 720, a thought occurred to me: US driver's Ed blows. It's the automotive equivalent to abstinence-only sex-education. Does anyone seriously think that knowing how to parallel park a car is more important than learning how to correct a skid before you slam into a tree? How many driving instructors spend their entire time in a fruitless attempt to convince hormone-crazed teens to drive slower, when they should be teaching them how to drive faster better? What's more critical to ensuring a new driver's survival: a viewing of the gory automotive fatalities featured in the "Red Asphalt" film series, or caning Mom's SUV through some cones?

The current system is, of course, all about money. In Germany, it costs 80 billion dollars to get a license. In the US, our free market simply wants as many people buying cars, paying for insurance, servicing their rides and sucking as much gas as possible. You can take the written exam in Farsi, for fuck's sake. Think hard; have you ever met a soul who was denied a driver's license? Me neither. Corners are cut, poor decisions are made, lives are lost. While safety campaigners talk about enforcement and passive safety and compatibility, the truth is that it's all post-horse escape, barn-door closing bullshit. If we want to stop 40k civilians dying on highways every year, there's only one way to do it: real-world training like Skip Barber's.

[The <a xhref='http://www.skipbarber.com'>Skip Barber Driving School </a> waived its $2695 tuition fee for this article.]