New Cars

Every year the so-called New Car Show makes big splashes in Detroit, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and other large cities, grabbing tons of media attention.

I consider it the mating season for America's love affair with the automobile. There are moans and groans of ecstasy--some which seem to rival those of a Roman orgy or an episode of "Desperate Housewives." Perhaps a moist automotive fantasy is a fitting description.

The big event is something like a Super Bowl, New Year's celebration, Mardi Gras, Victoria's Secret Showdown and Fantastic Island rerun all rolled into one. Guys dream, girls giggle and parade around and swoon on the spot. Other girls and women watch the guys watching the new cars, others push the guys aside to reach out and stroke the sleek lines of a sport coupe or a hefty 4 X 4 with 22- inch wheels.

Well pholks, I haven't been to one of these "Big Time" shows in person but I remember watching news programs, special feature presentations and reading newspaper and magazine stories and drooling over some of the pictures. I admit to dreaming of owning a "car of the future" but today those dreams are tempered by reality.

I'm old enough to remember hearing about such innovations as factory installed air-conditioning, cruise control, eight-way power seats, rear-window defroster, four-speed wipers and power antennas and 300-plus horsepower engines. Those things were practical and made driving more fun and certainly more exciting.

But pholks, I just can't seem to get goose-bumpy about most of what is making so many people excited these days. So you can imagine my reaction last week as I watched a TV segment pointing out some of the new options being offered, or soon to be offered, in today's vehicles--the so-called "concept cars" which today seem to find their way into production before the ink on the word concept is dry. The "new" feature which grabbed me the hardest this year is the "hands off" parallel parking function.

A General Motors product--I didn't catch which one—allows the driver to pull up to parallel park, push a button and let the computer take control and park the vehicle.

I have learned to deal with GPS systems—I don't have one—and individual seating heating systems—which I don't have either, which I consider "extras," but in no way necessities.

But pholks I believe a person should know how to drive a car, how to park it, how to back it up, how to know where the heck he or she is going and how to get there. The word driver is supposed to mean "the person in control" of a vehicle (or horse or other means of transport).

My first driving lesson my father gave to my mother—according to what I was told, was to back up. It must have been true because backing up was a big factor in my first driving lesson from my dad. I did better in my first backing up venture than I did working the clutch which resulted in a hippity-hop quarter-mile trip on a dirt road on the ranch in dad's early 1950s green pickup. The more the truck hopped, the more I laughed and the more I laughed the more my foot hopped on the gas pedal. I continued to laugh. My dad didn't.

But pholks, I gotta tell ya, I'm sure I would not have become as good a driver as I have, if dad's old truck would have had an automatic transmission, computerized "backing up" feature, GPS, or a system to automatically parallel park.

I admit having to make several attempts to parallel park on a number of occasions but generally I had success—or ended up finding a "more fitting' parking spot.

And I've gotten lost on more than one occasion. I relied on my wife, not a GPS, to get straightened away.

I believe a car needs a "driver" not a computer operator.

I love driving. Give me a curvy rural or mountain road, a four, five-or six speed stick shift, good tires and a gutsy engine and I'm in heaven. Freeway driving is not my bag but I've gotten more used to it.