Virtue signal

Fahrvergnügen

It can’t all be about subjects of great political and social import. Today it’s about cars.

My dad was car crazy. In the baby book my grandmother kept, she noted that when he was 2, they were driving past a car dealership when he looked through the window at the cars in the lot and exclaimed “I’m going to need to get me a car.” His dad was a Ford mechanic who built and raced stock cars on the side, so I guess it was in the blood.

As for me, I learned how to change the spark plugs in my dad’s Mustang before I learned to ride a bike. Spending all my time in the garage meant I didn’t have to help with housework. Double win. I’ve owned a lot of different cars. Each of them I’ve loved and hated. Each time one of them left my life, I felt like I was saying goodbye to an old friend. Probably the hardest was losing my Jeep Cherokee. I named it J.P. Creek, and we’d had so many great adventures together. I’ll never forgive that soccer mom who ran a light and broadsided it. I cried when I went to the police impound lot to gather my belongings and say goodbye.

My current car is a VW Jetta. I bought it lightly used, and it was love at first sight. It’s a standard, of course, always my first choice. Over the months, as I’ve driven it, I’ve learned its personality and idiosyncrasies. Somehow, this little white car embodies Germany and German-ness in a way that’s hard to describe.

There’s the lack of aesthetic, for one thing. It’s not an ugly car, but it’s not pretty either. With Volkswagens, form follows function, every time. This is not a car for someone who wants to impress the neighbors. I’d lose it in the parking lot every day if I didn’t have bumper stickers on it.

But the beauty is there, for someone who appreciates automotive design. The gears shift with just the right amount of resistance, neither silky smooth nor clunky. The dashboard is well laid out, including a tachometer of course, which serious drivers demand. The steering is responsive – there’s no play in the steering wheel, this car knows what you want as soon as you do. The engine is efficient but eager, geared just right for a daily driver, quiet but not too quiet, smooth but with just the right amount of vibration so that you can feel the mood of the car. The cabin is sized for four average sized people; We’re not throwing parties in here, we’re going to the store or the office. Of course, there’s that fold-down space in the middle of the back seat so that your skis can fit through, a requirement in any German car.

When I drive my Jetta, I am enveloped by German competence - engineering prowess coupled with practicality with a nod to the enthusiast. When I get into a German car, there is no hesitant fumbling for knobs and buttons. Everything is where it should be, with a gentle smile to any fool who would ever think to put it somewhere else.

I thought it is the opposite of my old Jeep, but then I realized I was wrong. They are both absolutely perfect for what they were made to do.

So maybe there is a deep thought in there somewhere, but I’ll leave it up to you to decide what it is.