I’m the proud owner of the perfect car. I make this boast to give a boost to other men transitioning from midlife to three quarter-life crisis.
Growing up in the era of the muscle car while lacking the bread to buy one, I had to turn off “Shutdown” and “409” and turn instead to college, career, marriage, children, and the attendant ownership of sensible vehicles. My car life became a sequential monotony of family sedans and station wagons—competent, reliable rides but nothing like what was once parked in that Pasadena granny’s rickety old garage.
Then one day while cruising the web, I came across a company called Hahn Racecraft, at that time just a short drive from my Chicago area home. Hahn transformed ordinary cars into fire-breathing beasts by installing custom-designed turbo systems. One such car was the Chevy Cobalt SS, a four cylinder compact that was quick, not fast, in stock supercharged trim. Hahn pulled the supercharger and squeezed in a turbo, upping the horsepower from the low 200’s to the high 300’s. I had to have one before I hit the nursing home.
So I spent a few weeks on internet car buying sites and found a well maintained, one-owner, five-speed 2007 Cobalt SS coupe offered for sale in a small Wyoming town. I did the title search, had the vehicle inspected and test-driven, and when it passed muster, agreed upon a purchase price and had the car trucked to Illinois. You can’t beat these car buying sites for convenience, all of these steps having been accomplished on the keyboard. I then delivered the car to Hahn Raceraft for its monstrous makeover.
Total out-of-pocket came to a shade over twenty grand, and what did I get? A time machine on wheels, an American mini-muscle car that would have blown away almost anything on the street in the 60’s: 0 to 60 in less than five seconds, standing quarter in less than thirteen, close to 30 mpg around town to boot. When you add in the creature comforts—leather seats, leather-wrapped steering wheel, sun roof, seat warmers, premium sound system, etc.—you’ve got the most automotive fun for the least money that I can imagine.
I see an open stretch of road, downshift to second, press the pedal…and I’m gone! Unrelenting acceleration, tires struggling for traction, blow-off valves adding percussion effects, scenery blurring like a shift to light speed in the Millennium Falcon. That V8 pony car pulling next to me at the stop light doesn’t have a prayer, and if we’re both in the mood, he’s in the rear view mirror while I’m still in third, easing back with a smile and a belated bow to public safety.
Somewhat dangerous? Yes. Rather childish? Sure. Politically incorrect? Obviously. But at some point in this nanny state, which will soon have us walking around in foam rubber body suits lest we fall, an aging boomer should consider doing something crazy to recapture the exhilarating freedom repressed so long ago. The lyrics have changed, but the Beach Boys still rock in my autumn years: “She’s my little Hahn Cobalt, you dunno what I got.”
newtonfinn 
Newton, one finds inspiration in many corners. I like your story. I’ve never driven a car, more for your safety than mine, but how nice it is to venture out and explore the thrills of just living. That is one of the more important messages in my little book on consciousness: The soul is nurtured more by satisfying desire than it is by abstinence, unless it is abstinence that you desire – all, of course, with the right measure of moderation. My guess is that you enjoy written expressions like these essays. Perhaps when you return to the blog, it will help to keep you in good health.
Dear Newton and Robert,
“childish” is not your feeling of excitement when you get pushed back in your seat – that’s a physiological phenomena. “Childish” is your thinking that you believe your doing (“car fetish”) is grounded in the repressive “nanny state”. Are you really such a wimp that you can’t even take responsibility for your actions anymore? Aren’t you the one who grabs every opportunity to drop the phrase “I take responsibility for myself, and others should to the same/follow my lead”?
More to the point: “Childish” (at your age) is being unable to wrap your mind around the idea that it wasn’t the nanny state who took you by the hand but the “freedom promising/selling” market (“free” market) which convinced you freedom is felt when you drive (after paying!) one of their cars, smoke a cigarette/cigar etc.
PS: Jesus (btw living in a much more repressive society) would have shown you other avenues of “exhilarating freedom” (i.e. poor community project – in which the nanny state would even given you some encouragement with a tax deduction). But you “prefer” to listen to preaching of the self-declared “freedom-fighter/-giver”, i.e. advertisement/PR.
PPS: Thanks for drawing my attention to the writings of Edward Bellamy!
Haha. I bought mine at a bit younger point than you. I bought a 1990 ZR-1 Corvette. Then had South Georgia Corvette get another 100 HP out of an engine that was already AMAZING. I had a true 200 MPH car. And, like you, I had it for around $20,000.
It was stolen from me a few years ago. I don’t even miss it. I’m very content to drive a reliable pick-up truck.
Still, the need for speed cannot be denied.
I get the rush vicariously now when i watch my daughter “hit the gas” on the thoroughbred she is currently competing. She calls him “the world’s slowest thoroughbred” but went she asks him to turn it on it’s just like the Corvette. And by the way, he is just as expensive to buy and even more costly to maintain than a Corvette.