Marque apologetics

"therotaryisdeadlonglivetherotary" (therotaryisdeadlonglivetherotary) 02/05/2014 at 00:50 • Filed to: None

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At some point in time most car lovers have had to defend their choice of car. We're not all millionaires that can buy whatever car we fancy: we've made compromises. Sometimes family matters or monetary matters make more of an impact on our car purchases than we would like and we end up with minivans or SUVs that have little to do with our ideal car. But still, one of the first questions car lovers ask when they meet a person of like mind is: what kind of car do you drive?

Because we all are passionate about cars most of us hold passionate negative opinions along with our positive ones. I, for example, can't stand Porsches. It's not a popular opinion, but it's one I stick to. I know Porsches are supposed to be one of the best driving cars &c. but I think they're a boring car for middle aged men going through a mid-life crisis. A Porsche says, to me, I have no imagination and so bought the car every one goes crazy about. You may disagree, but you'll have a hard time convincing me. Which is all to say that when you tell someone which car you drive you may be called to defend your choice.

So here's my defence, my effort at car apologetics*.

I drive an '83 RX-7. It has seen better days, both aesthetically and mechanically, but I still love it. It has low compression so that it doesn't like to start, especially in the cold, of which there is a lot in Canada where I live. It doesn't have gobs of power: 100hp when it was new and much less now. Those (now) double-digit horses are ridiculously thirsty. It's hampered with a solid rear-axle and a steering box which has been called by its fans 'wonder steering' as in 'I wonder where I'm steering'. The original paint is now a flat black, and what isn't original has been lovingly sprayed bombed a slightly different shade of flat black. And finally, the rotary engine itself has many detractors.

So why drive it?

The first is the same reason every car lover has for their halo car, a variation of the poster car desire: I had a micro machine of it when I was a child and loved it then. My father, who is an autobody mechanic that has spent a lot of time restoring some very neat cars, also had an RX-3 before I was born and he used to talk how my mom would race American cars off the line and beat them, the redline-buzzer singing its tune while she did so. That is a large factor in why I am saddled with a slow car that drinks too much fuel and is slightly uncomfortable.

The second reason is one I've found myself as I have grown up surrounding myself with the ephemera of any car lover (magazines and car specs). I wanted, and still like, a car that has the least amount of padding between me and it. My car doesn't have power steering. It has a manual gearbox (thankfully, because a torque converter would eat the few pound feet of torque the 12a produces). It's a raw car, loud inside and smelling of gas and exhaust slightly. I can remember stories, perhaps from my dad, perhaps from a car magazine, of older men who remember tooling around in English sports cars, reminiscing about the time someone else drove their car and the door fell open in a particularly sharp corner because the latch was broken. The owner of the car knew the latch was broken and held the door closed in tight corners, knowing it would open if he didn't. The car was broken. Today, if we had a car with a door that would pop open we would fix it immediately or get rid of the car. Yet the story was nostalgic, a good memory. The perfect car, the one that goes when we hit the gas pedal without fuss, and stops when we put our foot on the brake and does all that other stuff we expect it to do quietly leaves our memory after a few years. It's not exciting. I want a blower Bentley. It's slower than a lot of cheaper cars out there today and it would be uncomfortable, but I met a guy who was part of a contingent of rich(ish) Europeans that were rallying their cars from New York to Alaska. He had a Speed 6 and a huge smile on his face. He was happy to talk about his car and his adventure. You could probably do it faster in a Camry and cheaper (he said he had to bring jerry cans to fill up the car in between gas stations it was so thirsty) but you wouldn't remember it. Often the things we see as negative at the time are what sticks in our memory. I've had to do a lot of work on my car and it has taught me a lot. It's sentences like that I'm writing about. There's a relationship there; the same one Clarkson rattles on about every time the crew buy cheap cars to go somewhere. The car becomes the subject of the sentence, the instigator of an action instead of the means of doing something else. Your focus has changed from what the car can do to what the car is.

Third, the engine. It has it's flaws (but so does the rear-engine of the 911, Porshephiles) but I love that Mazda has the balls to continue working on an engine no one else makes. Marques are quickly losing their individual flavour in an effort to get as many customers to buy their product (not car, product) as possible. Mazda's still got that spinning dorito flavour though, despite the fact it requires a bit more knowledge about your car and a bit more personal investment with your car (both pluses in my book, despite the fact I may curse them at the time).

Fourth, I'm young and can still afford a couple dumb decisions and I'm keen on hitting my allotment. Once again the car has atrocious fuel economy. It only has two seats, which puts great restraints on its use as a means of transport. It has a rotary engine which mechanics will turn away if I turn up with a problem. It's a stupid car, and that's why I love it.

Also, I'm a journalist at a small town paper, and that ain't the job that'll buy you an FD.

*Apologetics according to the Oxford Dictionary of English: reasoned arguments or writings in justification of something…