Car Guise (5.21.25)
Who's going to pay attention, to your dreams?*
I don’t know where my love of cars came from. Some people grew up with a father figure who worked on cars and showed them the ropes, or caught the bug at the Woodward Dream Cruise or some local equivalent car show. But I grew up in Asia, where such things are unheard of. In my case, maybe it was TV. Even in Singapore, we watched the most popular American TV shows, trailing by a season or two. And the 80s had no shortage of shows in which cars were as much the stars as the lead actors – there was Knight Rider (The Hoff’s Pontiac Firebird), Magnum P.I. (Tom Selleck’s Ferrari 308GTS) and Miami Vice (Don Johnson’s white Ferrari Testarossa).
The prominence of that programming coincided with my dad starting to do well in his career. He came home one day announcing that, along with a recent promotion, he would receive an allowance to buy a new car. We had a modest, but ageing, Toyota. It was more than serviceable, but this was an exciting development for the family. What followed was several weekends visiting car dealerships and evenings flipping and re-flipping through glossy brochures so we could each offer an opinion. Eventually, we “voted” (pretty sure the votes were weighted heavily in favor of dad) and a decision was made. And yes, it was exciting to welcome a new vehicle in the family, but what I really enjoyed was the process of researching, comparing and choosing.
For many years after that, I played fantasy garage, always having a mental list of cars, new and old, that I would buy should I win the lottery or have a windfall. Some cars have never come off that list (notably, the Miura, which I consider one of the most beautiful cars ever designed, though it is astonishingly impractical; and a high spec E39 5er, which is both beautiful and practical). Many car fans keep such lists. Though the cars that make one’s top 5 may vary, they are rarely surprising to others in the know; car aficionados tend to agree that certain cars “make the cut” to be worthy of consideration. What is often more fun is debating the next 5 or 10. My “B” list includes the Figaro, a Z1, and an early 2000s CL500 (even though others might consider them dinky, oddball and bougie, respectively).
Cars are an expensive hobby – one that requires money I don’t have. Before they were devastated by digital, my passion was expressed through buying print magazines (remember those?). I would spend $5 here and there for an issue reviewing a car I thought looked interesting or different. I was rarely drawn to magazines featuring supercars; I never really understood the appeal of reading about something I could never afford. But I was always a sucker for “Family Saloon Showdown” or “Which Entry Level Executive Sedan Is the Best?”.
My favorite magazine, now defunct, was Automobile. Years ago, I chanced upon a dusty issue on a forgotten shelf of a library in Singapore. Like many foreign magazines, it was prohibitively expensive on a student allowance, but I became a subscriber the moment I moved to the States. The first thing I would flip to was Robert Cumberford’s design analysis – a section in which the renowned authority picks a newly introduced car and provides unvarnished commentary on the design: good, bad and ugly. Reading that section always made me wish I had both his eye, and his vocabulary. (Here’s an example of his take on a modern car with pleasing aesthetics — and the sort of phrasing I looked forward to: "Here you see how sharply the front end is cut back in plan view and how far around the corner the transverse blade extends.")
For whatever reason, it was a hobby I largely pursued in solitude. The car bug may have bit me, but most boys my age were into British pop and reading Tom Clancy. And of course lots of boys had posters of Lamborghinis in their bedrooms, but they also happened to have attractive human beings draped on them, so their true motives were always suspect. It was rare to find someone who appreciated the digital speedometer on the 1989 Mazda Astina, or who wondered at the oddity that the only other car with one was the insanely more expensive Aston Martin Lagonda. So, this was not an interest for which I would find kindred spirits until years later. I persisted nonetheless.
Somehow, the Internet and YouTube have managed to make picking a car to buy both less arduous and less fun. There is a sensory aspect to evaluating a car, such as how solidly the door thumps to a close, how comfortably an elbow nestles into an armrest, how well twilight plays on a given shade of paint, how elegantly the taillights express the driver's intent to brake, reverse or turn, and how nicely the curve of the rear three-quarter panel adjusts to the roof’s profile as you walk around it. These important-to-me considerations seem quaint in an age in which cars are either an appliance (“how many miles does it go on a full charge?”) or an expression of vulgar excess (lyrics.com identifies 354 pages of songs with the word “Bugatti” – one of the most expensive car makes – in the lyrics; less than one of those 354 pages were songs written in the 20th century).
For enthusiasts, true passion involves taking risk. I remember deciding – as an utterly non-mechanically inclined, bookish, literature and economics-loving, future corporate lawyer – that I was going to retrofit paddle shifters so I could directly control the gear shifting on my car. This was not an option offered by the car manufacturer. It was developed by a third-party firm specializing in such modifications, known in car parlance as a “tuner”. The tuner did not have a representative in Singapore, and so I was going to be the first person in the country to attempt this modification.
And you know what?
The job mostly went well, except for the part where I put everything together again, and the car wouldn’t start.
You see, I couldn’t afford to (was too foolish to) pay a mechanic to learn how to do a one-of-a-kind job, so I decided to do the installation myself. (Bear in mind, the most mechanically-inclined thing I had done before this was assembling an Ikea Billy bookshelf.) I imported the kit from Racelogic in the U.K., and purchased a device to flash proprietary software onto a special kind of chip, known as an EPROM (erasable programmable read-only memory). I would then need to partially disassemble the intake system of the car to access the housing for the transmission control unit behind the firewall of the engine compartment. Using a special set of screwdrivers, I would open the TCU and — taking care not to fry the circuit board with static electricity — would replace the transmission chip with the EPROM with the new software, which would recognize and take instructions from the paddle shifter. Once this was complete, I could partially disassemble the dash and mount the paddle shifter to the steering column. Because I lacked any sense of my own limitations, I also decided to hand-shape and clearcoat a carbon fiber fascia for the paddle shifter.
For an experienced mechanic, this would not have been a difficult job. But I was not (and still am not) an experienced mechanic. I think I was just strong-headed, and wanted to try certain things and achieve certain things. I mean, the instructions didn’t look that hard. Fast-forward to the part where the car doesn’t start. Panic. More panic. Did I just brick a car I had poured my savings into? How was I going to get this towed from my girlfriend’s house to the workshop? (I was, even then, smart enough not to attempt this in full view of my parents). Breathe. Think. Retrace. Working backwards, I found a loose wire. Ok, maybe, just maybe. Methodically, but impatiently, I put it all back together yet again, got into the driver’s seat, and turned the ignition. Magic. It started. Not only did it start, but the shifters worked great; my carbon fiber fascia fit like a charm, and I had a one-of-a-kind ride, the only car in Singapore fitted with a Racelogic paddle shifter.
Looking back, I’m not sure where I found the gumption to attempt such a thing. But succeeding in the effort – including having the presence of mind to slow down and fix my mistake – helped establish confidence to try new things. A few years later my girlfriend (now wife) and I sold the car and got ready to move to the other side of the world to give my career a shot in a bigger market with more interesting opportunities. It would be the single most influential decision in our lives, other than having children. But you miss every shot you don’t take, right?
In the decades since, my passion for cars has died down somewhat. That’s partly because I’m juggling so many things right now between work, writing and life disruptions, that I don’t have much time for hobbies. But also, I find today’s cars uninteresting compared to those of my youth (“try-hardy” is the word that comes to mind). I still subscribe to enthusiast publications (yes, in print) – but mainly for classic cars. And I do occasionally contemplate picking one car from the fantasy garage and making that fantasy into reality in retirement, maybe a 1987 635csi, or a 1995 850csi, both of which do a nice job sending out mid-life crisis vibes. But I’ve wanted one ever since they were new in showrooms.
What’s my takeaway? Maybe just this: it’s ok to fall in love with something just for what it is, even if nobody else gets it. If you find something beautiful or fascinating about it, take some risk and open yourself to it; all love worth pursuing involves risk of some kind. The lessons learnt through such pursuits, whether you succeed or fail, sometimes set the stage for bigger life decisions, and may tip the balance of your journey in fundamental ways.
I wish you grace and favor in your most passionate endeavors.
J.
* Drive, The Cars (1984)
Nice! When other kids had their noses pressed against the window of the local bakery, I had my nose pressed against the window of Roth Brothers Imports, the neighborhood car company. I still like cars, old and new. Thanks