Scandinavian Sparks Blog

I have a few significant men in my life that are all very distinct. In an effort to size them up, I have employed the relationships that each of them has with cars in order to understand them a little better.

My father has now retired, but was a professional geologist. He has always been very outdoorsy. He’s known for chipping a stone here, gather a fossil over there. He is unquestionably a man’s man, but has never been very attached of any kind of machinery. Gears and engines have a way of producing his inner beast even though he is a real gentleman. I can think of times when I was very young, watching my dad with his head under the hood of a car and hearing him swearing at the Industrial Age.

My father would regularly switch the tyres on our VW camper, but I never saw him fawning over aftermarket center caps or grille work. While he would occasionally dab some Rust-o-leum onto oxidized spots on the van or put H2O in the radiator, you would never see him take a Q-tip to the dashboard knobs or scrub the headlights with a toothbrush.

My father-in-law, on the other hand, is a car man all the way. He knows make, model and year of everything that’s probably ever travelled the Pennsylvania turnpike. Scrubbing whitewalls or ogling a 1962 Chevy at the Antique Car Club show is his idea of a well-spent Saturday.

He grew up in rural northern Pennsylvania and graduated rapidly from a pacifier to a pitchfork and pliers. Where he grew up, farm boys were expected to learn everything they could about animal farming and automobile mechanics. He has maintained his passion for gizmos, wheels, and engines, but has no interest in animals. He left the farm, never looking back, and attended college.

My husband is a teacher like his pop and his father-in-law, but that is where the resemblance finishes. He does not camp, collect rocks or meticulously clean his vehicles. His idea of a good afternoon is sipping coffee at Starbucks, grading exams and traveling along the bunny trails that are Facebook.

He keeps his car full of gasoline, but would in all probability use his Chevy center caps as paperweights on his desk, than as a cool way to floss his ride. Not that he has anything against anyone who obsesses over their center caps. He vacuums his vehicle twice a year, but is satisfied to ride about town with “Wash me!” scrawled above his rusty bumper for a year at a time.

The young man that my daughter dates is a pepped up version of my father-in-law. When I have the chance, I am going to send them to an car parts store together so they can speedily bond. My daughter gave her boyfriend a performance exhaust kit for his birthday and he is thrilled that the exhaust growls deeply. He says it lets everyone know he’s arrived. My daughter smiles saying, “I can hear him coming from more than a mile away.” It’s obvious that she’s in the throes of young love!

There’s not doubt that the relationships that men have with their cars can be complicated. On occasion, the car can be a reflection of a man’s maleness, while other men act as if their vehicles were an enemy that are a nuisance to be subdued or at the very least, endured.

Some men blaspheme their cars and others name them. Some men give their cars heaps of TLC while some fight for bragging rights because their car has the highest mileage or is the ultimate beater. Men swap car stories over beers, just like war stories are shared around a campfire.

This is the reason the auto industry sells billions of dollars worth of window tinting, aftermarket center caps, dash accessories, chrome, seat covers, rims, car alarms, backup sensors, hoods, tailpipes, and decals.

Whether the wheels in the driveway are fodder for cussing or cooing, I think there’s some inescapable mechanical mojo going on - Kind of like to “If you build it, he will come.”