If you are into car collecting and celebrities, or either, you probably know that Jay Leno is a huge car collector.  We're not talking about the kind of car collector your grand daddy was, with a couple of antiques sitting in the workshop.  We're talking about a whole other level.  But if this is your thing, then this website will interest you.  Of course if you are really into it, you will have heard of it already.  Either way, enjoy the heck out of it.  

This is the second installment of Car Tales.  Read the first one here.   

It is natural for a teenage boy to want to explore.  His sense of adventure is part of who he is.  It is no surprise then when one goes looking for such adventure in the midst of a suburban culture that doesn't really provide it.  It was during one of these times of dissatisfaction that my friends and I decided the Super Nintendo was not going to cut it, and that we needed to go on a road trip.  Now everyone knows that teenage road trips, by their very definition, are incapable of turning out positively.  No money, no planning or vision, and no purpose.  Not a real solid business plan.  But there we were, 4 teenagers with $30 between us and a wide open highway.  We had our wits, our snacks from home, our music, and our illusions that our lives were so stressful that we just needed a break.  We wanted to get out of the nest and test out our wings.  We wanted to enjoy our youthful sense of trailblazing adventure.  We wanted to boldly go where no high schooler had ever gone before!  It only makes sense, then, that we would drive to Oklahoma City, the apparent cosmopolitan culture hub of our immediate region.  

With the pedal to the metal in the Silver Bullet, we set off at 10pm on our 2 hour journey north from our hometown of Denton, Texas.  No one's parents knew they were going.  We were on our own.  As is appropriate, Born to be Wild was playing.  Side note: We thought we identified with all classic rock from the 60's and early 70's, assuming that the musicians and artists of the movement were wise, and not realizing that most of them wrote their stuff when they were 19 and on drugs.  As mentioned above, we had no idea what we were going to do in OKC.  We assumed we would find either a party or a really cheap motel.  We didn't find a party.  We did find a cheap motel.  We never made it to our destination.  

It was about halfway through LA Woman by the Doors (we thought Jim Morrison was a "genius") when the steering wheel jerked over to the left, and I lost control of the Silver Bullet.  We ended up in the grass median of I-35, right outside the cozy little town of Pauls Valley, OK.  Far short of our destination, we coaxed the Silver Bullet back across the highway and on to the off ramp, up to the intersection of Highway 19, and turned right to find the Garden Inn of Pauls Valley, which would be our home for the next 3 days.  We were told that the CV Joint was "messed up" on the Bullet, and that it would take a few days to repair.  Our dwindling food supplies and low cash flow meant that we might have to bring our parents up to speed on our little road trip.  But we weren't ready to give up.  Instead, we hatched an elaborate scheme where friends from home would shuttle cash, food supplies, and people back and forth.  We were all working in shifts to keep the dream alive.  In the meantime we would continue to lie to our parents through phone calls purporting to be from Denton.   

After three days we got the Silver Bullet back in working condition.  By that time there was about 10 of us loitering around Pauls Valley, and we headed back in caravan fashion.  We had almost made it out of Oklahoma unscathed...almost.  As it turns out, the one friend who had done most of the shuttling traded places with me and had his car break down.  It was more than all of us could take.  Our funds exhausted, our teeth rotting from eating Star Crunches and Twinkies for 3 days straight, and our heads longing for our suburban pillows, we were forced to call in the parental reinforcements.  They swooped in, mopped up, and bailed us out.  My poor friend got the worst of the backlash.  He lost his car for months, and we had to shuttle him around Denton like a 15 year old.  

Was it worth it?  Who knows.  It wasn't really that fun.  We didn't do anything all day but watch the 3 fuzzy channels in our motel room.  But it was OUR motel room.  It was OUR freedom that was being excersized.  And it was OUR sense of adventure that was satisfied.  After our 3 day tour of duty in the real world, we were content to crawl back into our big houses with our video games.  But our contentment was not to last.  If anything, this ill fated trip opened up a new frontier of exploration for us, which in the near future would prove to hold many other poorly planned adventures in the Silver Bullet.   

Stay tuned...

With superstar drivers getting most of the press, grizzled NASCAR vets like Larry Gunselman never see the light of the media day.  It was surprising then, when I ran across this article.  I have to be honest, I have never even thought about the life of a NASCAR driver, let alone the hardworking road warrior who never gets noticed and doesn't make a ton of money.  Thank God for this blue collar NASCAR driver who is a living reminder that all of us are not going to be president of the United States one day, or apparently anything better than 36th place, and that as a result the world is not going to end.  

This is a real question that I find myself asking when looking at purchasing a new car.  Do I pay extra for the more "kid proof" leather?  Or do I go with the cloth, which looks good for about 5 mintues until my daughter takes the lid off of her sippy cup and dumps her milk on it?  Read here to help you make the call on the pros and cons. 

For anyone with too much money, a love of Formula 1 racing, a Hot Wheel fetish, no kids, no spouse, and no friends, then Ferrari may have just the car for you one of these days, or something close to it.  Introducing the new Zobin design, "an aerodynamic single seater with compact dimensions."  See article here.

The Daily Gazette of Schenectady, NY has a great article on the staying power of certain toys.  If you have a son you are probably familiar with the ever present Hot Wheel.  If your son is like mine, you are also familiar with finding them lodged in between the couch cushions, buried in the ground, tied together with strings (for some reason), and of course, the obligatory impossible jump from the kitchen table to the couch on the other side of the house.  With a limited concept of physics and reality, my son can make his Hot Wheel do anything, including numerous right angle turns in mid air, and of course, as with all toys in his private world, carry on full conversations in robot voice.

It's encouraging to me that boys are still boys.  I didn't teach my son to play with Hot Wheels.  He just likes them.  Mattel is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, and they estimate that "the average kid owns about 41 Hot Wheels cars."  I think my son lost 41 of them over the last few months.  What an ode to the staying power of the masculine identification with machinery and speed.  These numbers exist in the midst of a slew of available technology that would seem to be more attractive.  And while boys certainly have more options, Mattel's success with the Hot Wheel indicates that at the end of the day, some things will never change.  Read the article here. 

The Silver Bullet
My first car was a grey two-toned 1982 Honda Accord, which my friends and I dubbed “The Silver Bullet.”  Forget about the fact that it wasn’t silver.  We didn’t know the difference.  It was given to me by my then new step-mom, Sharon, who in spite of my horrid treatment of her during the early years of her marriage to my dad, somehow managed to overlook my insolence and let me have her old car. 

The Silver Bullet served me well throughout my high school days.  Of course every 16 year old boy would like to have a brand new monster truck with mounted machine guns for his first automobile, or an old muscle car he rebuilt with his dad out in the garage.  But that wasn’t to be.  Machine gun mounted trucks are illegal and dad sells insurance.  He leases cars.  He doesn’t build them.  So I was like most suburban kids.  My first car was given to me.  It wasn’t ideal, but it was free, and it ran.  In addition, the speedometer said it went to 120mph, which made the car seem a little more high-end (even if it really topped out at 80 going downhill). 

To come are some now legendary tales of The Silver Bullet.  They are stories of adventure, friendship, and self sacrifice.  You will meet friends and you will meet villains.  Of course you will come to realize that all of it is nothing short of a study in adolescent idiocy.  So get in your time machine, turn on your high school music (Metallica and Rage Against the Machine for me), and put on your seatbelt.  We are going for a ride in my first car, The Silver Bullet. 

 Talk with you soon...