The Identity of a Car

12/02/07

Do you name your cars ? I don’t mean your RC cars, I mean your real cars. But if you do name your RC cars I would like to hear about that too…….
If you don’t name them, do you feel cars, or specifically your car, is gender specific? Do you say “he’s quick” or “she needs a bath” when talking about your daily driver?

We went out with TCD the other night, J and I rode in his new VW. In the parking lot, TCD spotted a car that was the smaller version of his car, and proceeded to park near what he referred to as his car’s “little sister. ” It wasn’t until we approached him with his own comment, that he realize what he had said.

When I was younger, my first car was a male, it was a sporty coupe, had to be a male. My mom’s car that I learned to drive on, to my friends and I, was also a male, maybe because it was often loaded down with girls on the way to the beach…. but it’s not the destination that makes a car have a gender. It may not even be the type of vehicle that makes the owner think …. boy… or …. girl.

And we all know cars are not delivered by storks, even though, for most of us, RC cars are like our babies.

It is the owner that decides the gender of a car, my first car was named Bob. It was a great car, but that was high school…. the car I had in college, it didn’t have an official name, but basically I called it a lemon, sometimes lemonade, nonetheless, you get the idea….

I think it is interesting that most guys refer to their cars as females – does this sound like you ? do you fee like your RC cars have a gender? if so, do you find that you impart the same gender on your real car and your RC cars? are they all boys or all girls? Are the big ones the boys and the small ones the girls?

Cars are all so very different, and yet all the same, both real cars and RC cars, they all perform the same function, and yet they manage to take on a personality, a bit of life is breathed in to each car as it takes to the road, or to the track. So while cars are built and manufactured in to a repetitious, yet unique model that only differs with the VIN number and the package equipment, I love my car and it is my “baby” — I am just glad I don’t have to breast feed it!

~ Ali