Of Men and Cars

So what is it about men and cars? “It’s a man thing,” my husband tells me, “you wouldn’t understand.” And he’s right--I don’t; which is not to say that I am content with yet another point of friction between the genders. I can’t just sit back with a boys-will-be-boys smile while the men in my life--my husband, my brother, my uncle--swoon over horse-power and cylinders and pick-up speeds. I’ve struggled with a deep-felt desire to make some kind of sense out of it, to decipher these testosterone driven exaltations into terms more accessible to us, female bystanders. I’ve thought long and hard, trying to come up with a female analogy to the man/car relationship. Diamonds and us, maybe? Nah. We hardly sit around discussing the refractive and defractive angles in their cuts, or even care to know what mine they came from, really. Hell, it’s hard to get past the fact that we own one, if we do, that is. How can I, how must I explain this, then?

I’ve come up with a theory. It’s a deep, psychological thing. Notice that a man often refers to his whirring pride and joy on four wheels with a feminine pronoun: “She’s a beauty, ain’t she?” or “Fill her up please.” His car (or jeep or truck) embodies the female traits he sorely misses in his life; it’s a perfectly safe way to project all his otherwise tabooed fantasies. He can rub and caress his machine, dream about it all night, whisper sweet nothings to it, and never have to feel guilty about cheating on his wife or girlfriend. And wait, it gets better. The sleek, shining beauty never talks back, never gets PMS, never complains about his greasy fingers under her hood. She’s so acquiescent, he’s delighted to do things for her without having to be asked: the oil-changes, the tuning, the six-month buffing, are religiously performed, and God forbid if he’ll ever let the fuel drop to less than a quarter tank.

And then there are different kinds of cars for different kinds of men, or rather, the different kinds of women missing in these men’s lives.

The man who’s passionate about his Volvo probably has a dangerous woman in his life, happy-go-lucky, unrestrained. He finds comfort in the reinforced, side-impact-resistant doors of his boxy car. The rather hefty man bulging out of his Miata needs a sense of control in his life. His wife is too bossy, and maybe even too large. His Miata shrinks under him; he’s reminded of the days when his size really meant something. When he walked into the school playground, the other kids gave up their swings for his pleasure. “Oooh--you’re so big...” he hears the girls say again. The Saab owner doesn’t want to admit it, but he finds his woman too regular. She might be pretty, well-educated, and probably even popular, but she’s not different. She fits in a little too well, and he misses the exclusivity of what we call the acquired taste. He’s ready, even hoping, for those guarded concerns about his machine-girl’s body shape, her overpricedness. He wants to stand up for her, defend her honor with his own.

And how could a discussion like this leave out that middle-aged man in the shiny red sports car, his elbow pointing out of the window, and two fingers resting ever so lightly on the gleaming steering wheel? Now this man makes the strongest case for my theory. Needless to say, his wife is, as we so cruelly put, past her prime. She ain’t red hot anymore; she doesn’t scream like she used to when he makes love to her. He doesn’t see his own sagging belly, or at least finds comfort in knowing that his Corvette-babe would never notice it. If he’s divorced his wife already, his chick-on-wheels helps his backward transition into this world of the young and the restless. But wait. Maybe he’s not such a jerk after all. He loves his wife, wouldn’t dream of leaving her, and just wanted to fill that void of quiet air which creeps up in their bedroom during their most intimate moments. He wanted screeches and screams, agile mobility, a tight hot bod. He longed for this but not at the expense of hurting or deceiving his wonderful wife of thirty years. So he got himself a fast car. Let’s give the guy a break.

My own husband went out last month, and traded in his Accord for an all-black, ‘97 Jeep Wrangler. “The Honda made me feel like I had become too settled in life,” he told me. “The jeep’s a rough ride, but at least it’s something different, exciting.” By the way, my husband is just an impulsive person; he hardly fits in any category of personality profiles. For his case, I ask that you ignore everything I’ve just said.