The Perfection of an Art

In 2011, the sleepy and gentle nature of my tastes were brought violently awake by an explosion of style, grace and elegance.

As far as cars are concerned, I think that I’ve been an aficionado for somewhere around 15 years. I still remember the first time that I fell in love with a car. It was a 1996 Jeep Grand Cherokee and it was owned by someone with an extremely obscure relationship to me. I was riding in this car with my grandmother and my obscure relative to go and get some medicine or baby formula (looking back, I’m not quite sure why I was included in this car ride). What I remember is the sunshine coming through the windows onto the tan leather, the comfort of the seat against my back and the coolness of the air conditioning on the hot summer day.

After that, I couldn’t help but see these cars everywhere I went. I would be riding with my family in our 1992 Dodge Grand Caravan (Black Cherry in color) and observe these fantastic cars going to and fro carting their ultra-fortunate passengers to whatever destination they might have in mind. I told my mother that someday I would own a Jeep Grand Cherokee. That evoked a hearty laugh since I was about 7 years old and she probably anticipated that the world would implode on itself before I ever earned my driver’s license.

From there, I started noticing more cars. I loved the 1998 Pontiac Grand Prix that my family rented when our van had to go into the shop—it was red and shiny and the first modern full-sized sedan in which I had ever sat. I loved the 1987 Cadillac Deville that my grandmother’s friend picked us up in to go to their senior citizens club so that I could clean up at pitch. It was ugly and beautiful in its own right and aged with a grace equal to that of the two white-haired women who occupied its front bench seat.

As I grew older, I was given a subscription to Car and Driver. From 2004 until I left the house for college, I was addicted to reading technical articles and ‘comparos’ the way that Richard Simmons is addicted to being overly excited about exercising. It was something that I thought about day and night (whenever I wasn’t analyzing projectile motion or calculating spring constants for physics class). In 2005, I rode along for a test drive in a 2003 Mach 1 Mustang.  When we were done, I was absolutely convinced that I needed one. Before that moment, believe it or not, I knew nothing about muscle cars. I couldn’t tell you the difference between a Chevette and a Chevelle. But, afterwards, it was almost as though I had accidentally stepped into the wardrobe and found a completely different world waiting for me inside. I couldn’t consume enough information about the new Mustangs, the Camaros and Firebirds that had gone out of production in 2002 or any muscle cars that preceded those. Thus began my long love affair with American Muscle that still persists to a much smaller extent to this day.

But boys grow into men, and when that happens an odd change stirs on the dusty plains of gentlemanhood.

I had just graduated college in May of 2011 and was at family dinner. I hadn’t been staying up-to-date on the automotive industry because I couldn’t afford a subscription and it was, quite frankly, painful to know that I would always have a difficult time affording almost any of the cars that I saw in the magazine. My uncle announced that he had purchased a 2012 Audi S4 and would be taking delivery sometime in the fall. Now, the last time that I had paid any attention to Audi was in 2007 when they were bulbous and painful looking. You know, when they looked like someone had taken a Volkswagen Passat and given it four nose piercings. Because of this, I paid no heed to his excitement and carried on with my salt potatoes.

When he took delivery and came to family dinner on that fateful September day, though, my world halted and for the first time in my life I believed that the Greeks got it right when they said that there were gods for everything. The god of cars had played a personal part in the sculpting of this beautiful, Panther Black machine of destiny.

Every line was absolutely breathtaking. The sweep of the front quarter panel that continued through the doors to the rear quarter panel was like a song that drifted casually and beautifully through a calm summer night. The symmetrical protrusions of the horns on the front fascia gave it a gentle malice which dared you to try something, no, anything that would allow the driver to unleash all 330 horses from the supercharged engine out the quad-pipe exhaust in a symphony of raspy perfection and glory.

He offered to take me for a ride and I almost cried. We got in and I couldn’t breathe for a moment. If I thought the exterior was art, then the interior was the perfection of it. The controls were so cleverly placed, the fit and finish were so perfect and the seat hugged me in the most gentle and reassuring way. It told me, “You are not worthy, but you are here with me and I will keep you safe.”

We left the neighborhood and neither of us said a word. He understood where I was—he grew up a poor kid who had worked his way to the top. For all that I knew, he had the same experience when he was my age which had propelled him into greatness. What I did know was that we had turned onto a long and deserted back road. He stopped the car completely while I waited. Utilizing several controls within the cabin, he activated sport mode and waited a second before mashing the accelerator in a completely unadulterated fury.

He might as well have given me ten thousand dollars for the rush of excitement. I felt the Quattro all-wheel drive dig mercilessly into the pavement and we were off like a shot. The only thing that brought me back was his menacing pounding of the suddenly firmer clutch pedal and his dramatic shift into second gear. With the windows open, I could hear the gravelly howl of the exhaust like a Bruce Springsteen encore for a grateful audience. The shift to second and then third came and just a moment later I felt him shut it down and apply the brakes gently.

Returning to our neighborhood, I looked at him. To this day, I’m not sure if I was grinning or somber faced but I offered a very pregnant, “Thank you so much.” Within that expression of gratitude was a young man consumed by the back seat of a Jeep Grand Cherokee and later a Cadillac Deville longing for a more artful and simultaneously visceral automotive experience without even knowing it. Within my words was an essay on how that ride had changed my entire life, changed me from a skirt-chasing muscle car obsessed teenager into a man who needed art, not just speed.

In that short car ride, the boy inside of me was finally put out to pasture, and I became inhabited by a man obsessed with experiencing more expressions of the perfection of an art.