What is it with you and cars?

Recently I have been asked twice, in as many months and by as many friends, "What is it with you and cars?"

In the spirit of James T. Kirk from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, "I have always liked cars, and I always will." While on the subject of cars and Star Trek, two Pontiac Fieros are in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, and I remain unsure of what year the second-generation Chevrolet Corvette is in Star Trek (2009).

Saying that I like cars without qualifying my degree of enthusiasm or fanaticism about automobiles is like making some other comparative analogy. I lack the mechanical inclination to be a true, pure "gear-head", "motor-head", or "petrol-head". By lacking mechanical inclination, I mean to say that, perhaps to my detriment, neither am I willing to get dirty, nor to risk breaking things, nor to hurt myself, nor to risk making myself feel stupid, nor to "look the fool" in order to actually work on a car.

Arrogantly I suppose that I am too proud, too lazy, and too much of a nerd to be a true, pure car fan, the kind who changes his or her own engine oil or belts, or installs performance-enhancing equipment like cold-air intake, exhaust and blower kits.

I have to a little chauvinistic, and also say I am not a true car guy, because I cannot operate a manual transmission. The only time I operated a manual transmission was in high school in the driver education class; I killed the simulator repeatedly.

I also wish I knew as much how things mesh in a powertrain and drivetrain today as when I wrote an essay called "How to Start a Car" in tenth grade.

Among my friends at the Super Bowl® party, I was the one most excited for the Dodge Charger commercial and the Kia Sorento commercial, although I am not sure that anyone there was excited for any commercials. Of course the fact that I knew about either commercial is because I daily read Autoblog, a habit dating back to 2006. I am also strange to share the same amount of enthusiasm for either model of car.

In saying all this, I still have not answered the fundamental question, so I will repeat that I do not know for how long I have liked cars, but the condition appears to be chronic.

Back in my day, TV shows often had a car for the star of show, although disputed in the case of The Dukes of Hazard. Like many children born since 1960, I have watched plenty of TV. Among the shows that I watched as a child, The A-Team featured a full-size GMC van, B.J. and the Bear featured a Kenworth, The Dukes of Hazard featured a modified, orange 1969 Dodge Charger, El coche fantástico (Knight Rider) featured a 1982 Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am coupe (K.I.T.T.), The Fall Guy featured a GMC pickup truck, Magnum, P.I. featured a Ferrari 308 GTS coupe, and Simon & Simon featured a red 1982 Chevy Camaro coupe and a Dodge Ram pickup truck. Apparently for most of those shows, Glen A. Larson was a producer. Glen A. Larson or any of those shows may be subjects of future posts.

Of course in mentioning TV and cars, I would do a great disservice to myself and everyone around me, if I failed to mention The Transformers, of which the protagonists, the Autobots assume the forms of cars, alternate to their robotic forms. The Transformers and their many incarnations may be subjects of future posts.

I remain unsure that I have answered the initial question, like your girlfriend.