“Classic mistake,” she said. “You’ve become emotionally attached. I mean, I can see why I’d be attached to my Mercedes, but not that old thing.” “I happen to like ‘that old thing’”, I replied. (“And fuck your Mercedes,” I nearly added, before managing to hold my tongue in the interest of family harmony.) She warmed to her theme. “You’d be better off replacing it now. It’ll let you down eventually.” I considered my response. “So what?”, I replied.
Everything lets you down eventually. Entropy wears away the invisible fabric of the universal blanket, comfort slowly turning to decay. Things fail. Life lets you down, hearts stop beating, lungs fail to reflate. Maybe I am emotionally attached, but I’d feel like some kind of eugenics-inspired fascist monster if I traded my car for a newer model simply because of a few quirks. The quirks are what bind us together. They’re an affirmation of life.
My car is, inevitably, symbolic of broader themes in my life. I bought it when I took a career break four years ago. It was going to be a little runaround for six months until I got another job, company car obligatory. It was a small taste of slumming it. At the time I’d been driving a top of the range Audi A3, which cost considerably more money than I now earn in a good year. Buying a second-hand car for £900 was a conscious act of rebellion against my former life.
The new job never materialised. I realised that my life needed to be quite different. Sometimes I wonder whether the car taught me that lesson. I loved it from the moment I saw it. It’s black, like its predecessor. Its body shape is understated, mirroring the solid, pragmatic workmanship of its dashboard. It’s fifteen years old – and leaving the confines of full-time work, I too suddenly felt fifteen years old again – unencumbered, free, potential stretching before me.
I know nothing about cars… when I was buying it, my only two criteria were that it must have a CD player and must not sound like a rusty nail. However, those who appreciate these things tell me how well it has worn for its age, how sweetly the engine purrs, despite the fact that it’s approaching 150,000 miles on the clock. Its bodywork is past its prime, new battle scars emerging by the year, but then its owner has always had a thing about scars.
I’ve always named my cars. Or rather, I’ve articulated the name that they came with. It’s right there in front of you on the registration plate, you just have to squint a little sometimes. Or drive around for a while, get to know it better. I’ve never referred to a car as “he” or “she” – it’s always an “it” – but that doesn’t mean they don’t have personalities. My car is The Joker, a fun-loving prankster that hates routine and delights in upsetting the natural order of things.
The Joker and I have a long history of escape. We got to know each other on lazy drives to the beach during the summer of 2006, both of us returning home with sand in our boots. We cemented our relationship while driving around the north of England the following year, following the mad Irishman’s incongruous tour with the Royal Shakespeare Company. We flee the capital on a regular basis, heading down the M20 in search of fun, family and collaboration.
The honeymoon period is over. The Joker now treats me with the same careless disdain with which we both approached the world when our relationship was new. It is cranky and unpredictable. One day in the not too distant future I will drive it to a scrapyard and a man will give me £20 for its rotten carcass. We both know it. A new car will be purchased, a new personality will enter my world. Until then, we speed forward… as driven and restless as each other.
My car’s name was ‘sick one’ (from its model, SC1) – same deal, 150,000+ and still racing strong. Best car I ever owned. Gave it to my mother when I moved to London (I know, I know).
I think becoming emotionally attached to cars is easy. More do it than don’t. It’s an extension of you, like a body over your body. And says something about you, as you’ve seen.
Yeah, I guess. I’d always thought it was a cliché I’d managed to avoid, yet here I am. There’s no such thing as a throwaway act or an insignificant choice.
Mate, I remember the Lada with the Motorola radio, just passed driving tests, flat out down Nott’m Road, screaming out of the windows and attempting to squirt windscreen washers at unsuspecting pedestrians. My first owned car was a Triumph 1500, bought from my grandad for 115 quid. He saw me coming!
God, yeah! The embarrassment factor for a teenager driving that car was high… bad behaviour was the only option. Having moved to London and depended on public transport for a while, my own first car was one of my mum’s later cast-offs in the early 90s – a rusty Mini Metro with no sound system at all (we used to take the boombox from the kitchen and stick it on the back seat).