May 03, 2011
1964 Ford Galaxie
I looked out my bedroom window last night and saw Will Smith stepping into a 1967 Ford Galaxie. He was leaving the old-timey diner across the street with Tommy Lee Jones because they were shooting scenes for the upcoming Men in Black sequel.
For three days our entire street has been lined with cars from the 60s and early 70s. There are Chevy Novas, old Mercs, and breathtaking Dodge Darts with their reverse fins jutting out the back. After walking through the set today on my way to work, I laid eyes on a 2010 Volkswagen Touareg and puked.
When exactly did cars become cough drops? The Galaxie was more than a cool-looking car. It defined Western opulence. It was a proud example of why we are and always will be the best. Today, this sense of pride in design has been replaced with aerodynamic minivans manufactured solely to transport middle-class children to well-organized soccer games where shin guards are mandatory.
I”ve been screaming about this while drunk in bars for a long time and have finally reached a conclusion: It’s women’s fault. After being liberated out of the kitchen, women expanded their rules to include major family decisions such as whom to vote for, where to live, where to send the kids to school, what kind of car to drive, and where to drive it. Castrated men are happy to hand over the keys and even ask the wife what book to read while she’s driving. Women buy up to 80% of fiction books, and my colleagues tell me even the books men read have been procured for them by a lady friend. If you see a guy reading Adam Carolla’s In 50 Years We”ll All be Chicks, odds are a chick bought it for him.
Over a third of all cars bought in the United States are purchased by females. So when a salesman is looking for an angle he’s more likely to go with “This car is nice to the trees” than “This car is badass,” no matter what the numbers say. Soft, aerodynamic shapes that purport to be gentle on gas outsell hard edges.
Newer cars are always better for the environment than older ones because the technology is better. A Hummer probably consumes less gas than any of the cars on the film set outside my house. It’s all about what’s inside. You could take the guts out of a new Jaguar, stick them in an old Jaguar’s body, and the mileage would be about the same. The false idea that aerodynamics significantly cut down on fuel consumption has single-handedly ruined the way cars look forever. Women’s love for eco-bullshit has turned our roads into an endless parade of hideous eyesores.
Men hate these new cars and would happily pay a few extra dollars a year in gas in exchange for some hard edges. I recently met a marketing-company producer who told me she was assigned the task of handing out Touaregs to “tastemakers” around New York. She told me the Beastie Boys got one but handed back the keys a day later, explaining the car was in a ditch somewhere off the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. She was stunned by their apathy but I wasn”t. Men like soft edges in the bedroom, not on the road. Unfortunately, women adhere to the philosophy of folk singers such as Ani DiFranco, who proudly exclaims, “Who says I like right angles? These are not my laws. These are not my rules.”
I”m not big on research so I called my car dealer whom I”ve known for many years. His shop is called Heavenly Bodyworks, and he knows more about cars than anyone in the world.
