Thought: A Man Should Drive A Car.
This week, after a long succession of trucks, SUVs and crossovers, I’m driving a Genesis G80. It’s a sedan. It’s black, it has four doors, and its roofline sits between my belly button and my chest. It is a car for a man to drive.
That’s not to say that you have to be a man to drive it. Anyone is allowed to drive whatever they want, men don’t have to do certain things, et cetera, don’t be stupid. But as a standard issue middle-aged man who presents exactly that way, I found that the G80 felt good. It suited me in a way that various adventure-mobiles and luxury crossovers no longer do.
It’s not an expression of my personality and it doesn’t project an image of outdoorsiness or suggest trackday aspirations. It does not even hint at frivolity. In my black sedan, I am a man who is competently going about his business. I am normal and I have my shit together and I care about cars exactly as much as I need to.
I look over at the guys leaving their office jobs in full-sized pickups with pity. It’s not their fault they live lives that are, at the end of the day, undignified.
Vehicles are most appealing when they’re suited for a specific purpose. An airport tug can look good because it looks like it was designed to pull airplanes around. A race car looks good when it looks fast.
I have a truck that mostly gets used as a farm implement, which is what it’s meant to be. I have a Lada that gets used as a race car once a year. I have a Jeep that provides a home for a bunch of barn critters but is designed to travel over rugged terrain. I have a 911 that is an instrument of psychic torture and a Rivian R1S that is designed to project an image of responsible, Pataguccified outdoorsiness. What I need now, probably, is a car designed for moving a guy around.
I had been looking back longingly on my old Lexus GX, but I don’t know now. Maybe the thing is to have a car for driving and a truck for moving trees to the rabbitat. I am, of course, beyond broke right now so all of this is immaterial. But, maybe the answer is that, for day-to-day transportation in an environment without trains, a man should drive a car.
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