What Do Your Cars Say About You?

By Sam Barer

Sound Classics

We always hear the stereotypes associated with owners of specific types of cars. The British owner is supposedly one part traditionalist and another part masochist, the manual transmission user thinks he’s a racer, the 4X4er likes to think he can go anywhere, and the V8 driver doesn’t care about the environment. Of course, if a guy pulls up in a sports car he’s obviously compensating, right?

Today I was watching my computer’s screensaver–a slideshow of most of the cars I’ve owned in the last decade. I started thinking–what might my cars, past and present, say about me?

Continue reading after the jump!

A few days ago a hobbyist referred to me as a “Chevy guy”, based on seeing only two out of the nine I’ve owned. Before I ever had a car with a Bowtie, however, I was in a Buick family. My first car ride ever (home from the hospital) was in a ’64 Buick Special Convertible, which was replaced in 1977 with the LeSabre that would later become my first daily driver. The next GM car in my life was the 1998 Oldsmobile Intrigue that still serves as my wife’s daily transport.

But don’t label me a “GM guy”, because two Chryslers and two Dodges have called my garage home. Ford has contributed a single vehicle with the Blue Oval badge, but also two Mazda Miatas, a Mercury Capri, and a suicide-door Lincoln that I never got to enjoy driving outside a parking lot due to bad brakes.

Even though I’ve owned nineteen American vehicles, I’ve also enjoyed eight British, three Japanese, two German, and two Italian. I suppose it means that I’m partial to practicality, traditional motoring ethos, quality, engineering, and style…all while also ignoring quality, electrical reliability, soul, emotion …and practicality.

Still there are gaggles of cars from other countries I’d like to own, but French cars from the likes of Delahaye, Bugatti, Delage, Facel Vega, and Talbot-Lago, as well as the Swiss Monteverdi, Spanish Pegaso and Swedish Koenigsegg are all out of my price range. So far, no Korean cars have floated my boat.

A 1955 Packard was my oldest car. A 2006 Toyota Avalon is my newest. Overall, I’ve had three cars from the 50s, seven from the 60s, nine from the 70s, seven from the 80s (because they are cheap – meaning good investments at this point,) six from the 90s, and two from this millennium. My collection might indicate I’m a post-war sports and muscle car type of guy, but the fact is that I love 1920s and 1930s cars. Again, my tastes exceed my bank account, plus I get to drive my father’s pride-and-joy 1929 Franklin Convertible Coupe whenever I desire.

The fact that I’ve owned seventeen two-seaters definitely proves I can’t quite admit to myself that I have two daughters who need to be carted around. Prior to my youngest daughter entering the world, my oldest logged many thousands of miles riding shotgun in Corvettes. I used to pull into those baby seat check stations outside Toys ‘R’ Us from time to time and giggle as the volunteers tried to convince me that the 2002 Corvette must have a tether anchor somewhere.

There’s no doubt that I love the wind in my hair — seventeen of my cars have been convertibles or roadsters. Three have had targa tops (aka t-tops.) I’ve only had two cars with sunroofs, because at 6’4”, the panels usually rob too much headroom.

My first four cars had automatic transmissions. Even though I learned to drive a stick when I was sixteen, I didn’t actually own a car with a clutch pedal until I was in my late twenties. (My first manual tranny car was a 1968 Triumph TR-250.) My wife can’t drive a stick, which explains why I gravitate towards three-pedal cars. In fairness, fifteen vehicles have come equipped with an automatic transmission, including two Corvettes and a Miata. My wife drove each of these sports cars once.

The rest of my cars have been stick shifts, of which eight were four speeds, eleven were five speeds, and three had six speeds. I’ve never owned a three speed manual, although I’ve spent many miles rowing three-on-the-tree and standard-floor-H-patterns. No pre-selector or sequential manual “flappy paddle gearboxes” (as Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson would say) yet, either.

The overwhelming majority of my cars have been rear wheel drive. Four cars have been front-wheel-drive, three of which I still own – two of which are daily drivers. I’ve only owned two four-wheel-drive vehicles, a reflection of a) my understanding that 4WD helps one get moving, but does nothing to help in stopping or turning and b) that I don’t drive often in deep snow or on off-road trails. My first four-by-four was the only SUV, a 1998 Ford Expedition, which was the worst modern vehicle I’ve ever owned. (It also was the closest I’ve come to owning a wagon.) The other, my current full-time 4WD 1979 Chevy K10, is the only pickup truck.

All but three cars have been front-engine. Two Ferraris currently in the stable have mid-mounted engines. I also fixed-up and drove a rear-engine 1970 Porsche 911T, which was also my only air-cooled ride (other than my father’s Franklin). I still don’t understand why people have always been so nervous of the 911’s legendary oversteer, because I found it very easy to control the car during tail-out maneuvers with its wonderfully quick steering and throttle.

Only a marketing research analyst could feel the need to blend my demographics with these statistics: I’ve owned 212 cylinders displacing just north of 135 liters / 8241 ci for an average of around 4.5 liters per car. There have been eleven four-cylinder cars (all inline), five six-cylinder cars (one inline, one flat and three V6s), and eighteen V8s. So on this alone it’s pretty impossible to pinpoint whether I’m into economy or destroying the environment one compression stroke at a time.

The highest output was 435 horsepower from a ’69 Corvette, while the ’73 and ’74 Corvettes had the largest displacement — 454 cubic inches. A 1963 Sunbeam Alpine claims the smallest displacement (1592 ccs – just slightly less than the two 1598cc Mazda Miatas), as well as the least horsepower (82), which is ironic given that the Alpine is the only non-street-legal race car I’ve ever owned.

As for engine technology, most have been pushrod (overhead valves). Ten cars have had overhead cam engines, four of which had dual-overhead cams. Twenty cars have used carburetors, plenty with dual SUs or Strombergs…and one with four Webers. Despite what people might think, I have never enjoyed fiddling and tuning any of them. Only two have used turbochargers – both fuel injected four cylinder cars from the 1980s.

The fastest car flat-out continues to be my 2002 Corvette Convertible, which tops out at 170 mph (top up.) This is also the car with the best gas mileage (34 mpg on the highway!) The 1969 big-block Corvette Convertible gets the Y-chromosome award by accelerating the quickest – delivering reliable 4.60 sprints to sixty mph. Interestingly, the fastest feeling cars have been the three Triumph TR-3s. The slowest accelerating car was probably the svelte-as-Brando after a lasagna binge Packard, followed closely by the emissions-strangled V8-powered ’77 Le Baron and ’77 Buick Le Sabre. The biggest sleeper award has gone to the 2006 Toyota Avalon, which runs 0-60 mph in near identical time to my Ferraris at six-seconds-flat, although my Dodge 600ES Turbo Convertible (the car in which I earned my license) embarrassed plenty of contemporary stock Camaros and Mustangs in its day.

I wouldn’t blame a reader — or a non-hobbyist in the neighborhood who has seem me drive all these different cars over the years, for that matter for guessing that I’m some wealthy clown. The fact is that I’ve only bought four new cars. The first one was the 1998 Oldsmobile Intrigue that my wife still drives daily. The third one, a 2002 Corvette, replaced my second one, a 1999 Corvette, after it drowned in floods caused by Tropical Storm Allison in 2001. The average age of the cars when I acquired them has been somewhere around 25 years old, which illustrates that I don’t have the money to drop on quickly-depreciating vehicles.

So all and all, what do my cars collectively say about me? In total, I’m not sure they say anything other than that I might suffer from automotive ADD.

Do your cars say something much clearer about you?