My relationship with automobiles is something similar to the manner in which a cat decides to go about its day. It sleeps in the sun for six hours, then proceeds to make confetti out of everything you own before stinking up its litter box, purring, sticking its ass in your face, and doing it all again the same day. Yeah, like that.

My viability of cars as a child was through my father, and his taste in family cars were marginal at best. But what he couldn’t put in the driveway he put in Hot Wheels and NASCAR, and I grew up to the noises of stock cars and suntanned men shouting inbetween swigs of beer. This was, unfortunately, one of the many contributing factors to my continued pledge not to ever start drinking, but I retained a love of anything that went fast. Regrettably, my choice in cars hasn’t been stellar either, mainly due to money. I was given a 1990 Chevy S-10 truck in high school, which for Glastonbury meant I was more redneck than anyone within a 50 miles radius. I didn’t seem to mind though, except in the snow. My first real purchase was a 1998 Pontiac Grand Prix. Say what you will about Pontiacs, that was a tremendously awesome car. It served me on all those early con trips, the V8 consumed gas and drove fast, and ended its career with me with about 150k on it before passing on to another person. But it was expensive, $400 alone was spent to fix the half-axle after a CV boot split. The rear shocks were almost gone, which I didn’t fix. The alternator died. But you know what? It was still more reliable than my ex’s Nissans. Course all I had to do to achieve that was not hit someone else. My third car was a Jeep Grand Cherokee, and unfortunately it lasted a week before being totaled by a Spanish kid who thought he’d be funny and tell the cops he was going 25 around a sharp bend in the rain. He hit me, ricocheted at 360 degrees off me, hit another lady, and then a guard rail. They didn’t buy that story, before AND after the co-efficient drag test. Being poor in my first apartment at the time I went the next year and a half or so without a car, taking buses and hitching rides with friends to get to work. Then, in 2006, I took out a bank loan to buy a 2002 Dodge Neon, which I still drive today. The car is now ten years old, I got it at 37k, and I’m at 93k. Six years and still under 100k for a bit longer. It’s rap sheet has been a little rocky though, spark plug shot out of the engine and almost broke it, had to replace the radiator, wheel-bearing issue on it right now, it still leaks radiator fluid a little, but it still runs pretty well given all of that.

I’d like my next car to be something I really want, something fun to drive, and I’ve been considering a hatchback. I’ve tossed around a Volkswagon GTI, Mazda 3, Ford Focus, and an Suburu Impreza. I’m also wanting to learn stick and buy a manual if possible, but for some of those that might be tricky, often they’re either too expensive, too many miles, or both. So it’s not a show-stopper, but I’d rather like to be able to drive manual, because that’s what cool kids do. I’m not a fan of SUVs or trucks, mostly because they don’t make much sense for me currently. I don’t have kids and I don’t have the need to haul things around on a semi-daily basis, so they’re uneconomical to me. A hatch seemed like a good idea because 90% of my driving is solo, the other 10% with my girlfriend. As long as it can fit two-three people and some things, it works for me.

This is, in fact, one of the reasons I enjoy watching the UK version of Top Gear. Any car website, magazine, or other publication can talk about cars, and they can talk about cars in great detail. I am a fairly technical person, but unlike most stiff-shirted nerds, I occasionally like to ADD out and not pay attention to what you are talking about. So presenting information in a manner in which I will be bothered to listen and take note is critical, and their show does just that. Their presenters balance each other out by presenting a car in different ways. Clarkson drives it like a lunatic and cares mainly about its ability to drive fast. May talks about how it feels, what is moving under the hood, and lots of technical details. Finally, Hammond is concerned about its looks and how he will look driving it. Every person drives a car with one or more of those notions in mind, and I switch between all of them. In fact, their reviews of hatches like the GTI, the Focus, and the Mazda 3 were very helpful in figuring out why I might like to drive one, simply being the fact that it is a small, economical car, that drives fast, and corners well. I imagine I would like that very much.

Sure, it isn’t a WRX STI, or an Evo, but I am also not a pretentious faggot who wants to be Asian. I would still like to own and drive an WRX STI someday, but frankly, this next car may be the last fun car I’ll get to own and drive before I’ll be forced to drive mini-vans for at least the next twenty years. Hopefully though I might be able to hold on to the car and it still be in decent shape to give to one of my kids, maybe even learn how to work on cars proper and show them how to do it themselves. That was probably the one thing I sometimes hoped my father would have done more when I was a kid, but instead he got me into computers and technology, so really, it wasn’t a bad deal in the end. But I still would have loved to drive that Camero at least once. It probably would have been fun.