About that Corvette ...

I had thought politics was the subject that drew the most traffic to a blog. I was wrong. It's cars! Cars! Cars! Cars! People love their cars. I've gotten by far more email on that car post than on anything else I've ever written. And that was true even before it was linked on Instapundit. But I'm not much of person to be writing for car buffs, because I've been driving the same car for five years. And it's a relatively modest car, a New Beetle. It's certainly a sensible car. My previous car, which I kept for twelve years (including some years of overlap with the Beetle) was the most sensible, modest car possible, a Honda Civic. The only other two cars I've ever bought were a VW Jetta (in 1983) and a Chevette (the year Jimmy Carter was elected President). No, the Chevette didn't last from 1976 to 1983. I sold the Chevette (which at least was red) after less than a year and moved to New York City where I lived without a car. It was perfectly fine not having a car. So my lifetime car story is an amazingly modest and dull one. The only cool car I ever drove was the 1961 seafoam green Chevy Impala convertible that I drove to school every day when I was in high school, and I have my father to thank for that. And how little I appreciated that -- and just about everything else about my father -- in those days!

Now, I know the traffic -- good word for a car post! -- that has come to this blog over the "Should I buy a new car?" post was largely stimulated by the prospect of my buying a Corvette, the Audi and the Beetle being obviously much more sensible choices. It is the very lack of sensibleness that excites people. (It's like voting for Nader ... and, uh, Kerry's the Audi ... no, Bush is the Audi ... no, Bush should be the Corvette ... analogy abandoned ....) And the idea of buying a new car at all sprang up because of the Corvette brochure that came in the mail last week. And if you look back over that car-buying history of mine you can see that there's a Chevrolet theme. My father gave me the fabulous, classic Impala and, much as I rejected his values and believed in buying a small, fuel-efficient car in the depths of the fuel-shortage 70s -- the Impala got 6 miles a gallon -- I still bought a Chevy. (Hey, I still remember the Chevette jingle: "Chevy Chevette, it'll drive you happy!")

Doesn't it seem that some mystic force larger than myself wants me to get the Corvette? There's just one more thing I'm waiting for: Chevrolet, Oprah-like, gives me a Corvettte!