My car may be obsolete, but to me it still has relevance

I love cars. Always have, always will. But the cars I like to drive tend to be old. Some were built when I was in high school. The one I keep in the garage was built before I was born (I save that one for sunny days and car shows.) Oh sure they break now and then. One has a slight oil drip that I need to tend to before too long. But when the repair is either beyond my ability or I simply don’t have the time and therefore it has to go to the shop, sometimes my dear wife complains and says it would be nice to have the bank help us get something new or near-new. Something that we don’t have to worry about breaking. And I can see her point…especially when they break at the most inopportune time (middle of winter or we’re low on funds). But that’s when I remind her (and myself) that the $500 I just shelled out for repairs still beats the more than $400 per month I would have to burn on car payments.

New cars have all the cool gadgets. The camera that tells shows you how close you are to whatever is behind you. The heated and cooled seats and cup-holders. Lights all over the interior that you can change to suit your mood. Neat. But I know that while this year has this or that and looks all swoopy and pretty…the auto manufacturers already have next year’s model all planned out and ready to go. Probably the next few years too. It’s called “planned obsolescence” and they’ve been doing it since the 1950s. By 1959 big tailfins were the vogue and everybody ran out to buy a car with them. But the models for the next four years were already on the board and they knew — even as they debuted the 1959 models — that tailfins would be “out” in the coming years (they would market their cars to make sure of that) and everybody would want to rid themselves of their 1959 models for the newer, sleeker cars. And so when I see a car commercial showing you all the awesome things this year’s truck or car, I just shake my head knowing that that “amazing technology” will be on its way out the door in just a couple years.

And speaking of technology; have you seen the new cars with their automatic braking systems? The car will slam on the brakes if anything jumps in the way. Cool. Until it breaks anyway. What happens when a whole new generation of drivers comes to rely on that and then, oops, it fails and they rear-end me? Even worse are the self-driving vehicles that are on the horizon. Like that’s not a disaster waiting to happen. “Hey, look at that Kenworth doing 100 mph and veering all over the highway. Must be a glitch.” Gosh how I look forward to that. Won’t be too long before we have people that no longer know how to operate a car safely because they’re reliant on the computer doing it for them.

No, I like the old stuff. I like to feel the road through the rack-and-pinion steering…no computer-controlled dampeners in the way. I like to experience the suspension and drivetrain working in harmony as I maneuver my machine down the road. I like to open the hood and see the engine; valve cover, head, block, alternator, fuses and know that what the parts are and how to maintain them. Open the hood of a modern car and simply seeing a huge chunk of plastic with a computer wrapped around it (the engine is in there somewhere I’m told) is depressing. I even like the old crank-up windows, manually-adjusting seats and knobs that I actually have to turn. Less to break that way. (Laugh at me all you want….but come winter remember me when you see that car ahead of you at the bank or fast-food drive-through with the door open because the driver can’t get the window to go down.)

My car may be obsolete, but to me it still has relevance. It has character that a new car can’t even come close to matching. It has personality. It has history, indeed it is history and every line, every faded spot or scuff only adds to its uniqueness and solidifies its standing as something more than just a “car.” It is old, getting a little worn, but still holds value to some. It is … me.

Ben Compton is a Palmer resident and publishes his column as “Compton’s Corner,” the same title used by his grandmother, Phyllis Compton, a longtime Frontiersman columnist. Contact him at bcompton1971@yahoo.com.