Raves for Retro

Not that I have anything against driving old looking new cars. I am, in fact, driving one today.

I backed my used-to-be new car into the same brick wall I backed into a month ago. I dented the same place. Not as badly this time, but still. The bumper once again doesn't have that pristine, I'm-so-goddamn-new-I-could-scream look.

I have, yet once again, left it with my new best friend, Ron's Auto Dent. Where he informed me again that since the bumper is made out of plastic, I really don't need to tidy it up because plastic doesn't rust.

I don't care. I won't drive a new car that has more dents and scrapes on it than the old one did.

And I have recalibrated the spot in the carport where I park so that the brick wall is no longer a threat. The car will get dirtier faster, but I can wash my car. I can't re-paint.

And so, once again, I needed a ride from Ron's Auto Dent over to Enterprise.

Ron said, "I'll drive you there."

I said, "Okay, thanks."

He walked over to a small yellow car. A very snazzy, small yellow car. Kind of 1930s, in an old Triumph kind of way. "I don't drive this car enough, so I've started using it more," said Ron.

It turned out to be a Crossfire, which turns out to be made by Chrysler, using a Mercedes chassis…or something.

I thought it was an old car, it was so small. There was this cool guy in college one year who blew onto campus driving a red Triumph. We loved to ride in his red Triumph.

That is, I did. My boyfriend had a cool car of his own, a 1962 Porsche speedster. It lasted until that weekend we roared it up into the Sierra Nevada. We were running for our lives. It was the weekend the Manson murders occurred. And then somebody in our neighborhood took to shooting his gun. So we looked at each other and thought 'gee whiz, Lake Tahoe sure sounds like fun.'

The trip ruined our car forever. We didn't give up on it until my boyfriend's father ripped it screaming from his hands, just before my boyfriend spent his last red cent on yet one more, astronomically high repair job.

So today, I slid into this little yellow confection, the Crossfire, and was almost back to 1970. I thought the car must have been made around then. But no, this was a new car, as in a real car, manufactured even after my own children have grown up. It has an art-deco-ish look, hence my confusion. It looks like Fred Astaire could have driven it.

But, as I always had in the old Porsche and in the red Triumph, I felt too close to the ground. I felt in danger of being run over by a truck. Laguna Canyon Road is rife with trucks. When I was in college, I felt beyond slick in little sports cars. But in the Crossfire, when it came time to emerge, I had a moment's panic that I wouldn't be able to get out without the help of a crane.

I was duly brought round, per my request, to their smallest, cheapest car. And there sat a small white square, high up off the ground square Volkswagen, looking more like a small French bulldog than a recumbent, aging whippet.

He handed me the key, which in itself brought tears of nostalgia to my eyes. The windows hand rolled down, which did cause a flurry of consternation as I drove home. I never noticed how often I lower and raise my windows. The heater was like a volcano, too hot, and in my face, rather than the anemic and fussy heating system I have in my used to be new car.

I fell in love with the small white, practically retro car.

Today, while out and about, I will enjoy feeling like it's 1970. When cars were still cars. When bumpers were real men, and one could back into a brick wall, and the bumper took it…like an astronaut.