Fast Cars and Freedom

Being the Red, White, and Blue loving patriot I am, you could easily say that I am inherently predisposed to the 'American Motor Head' mentality. That being, as a whole, Americans have a reputation for owning road hogging, gas guzzling, speed daemon sorts of vehicles. Not that I'm complaining, because in all honesty, who doesn't like the idea of parking their chromed out chevy two-toned camo 4X4 over the sun roof of a smart car? Sounds like home to me.

Americans have long romanticized the mentality over ownership of a personal vehicle. Manufacturers pump millions of dollars each and very year into market advertising to continually foster this sense of self-pride at purchasing an automobile. We see it everyday from music (Big & Rich, Lil Wayne), to movies (James Bond, Talledega Nights), to magazines (Du Pont Registry, Motor Tread), to TV shows (Pimp my Ride, Home Improvement).

Often time the luxuriousness of a person's automobile can be indicative of their wealth, class, and status. Other times its not and the person essentially put multiple mortgages on their house so they could go out and purchase that fresh, off the line Mercedes. Regardless of how they financed their acquisition, the point is, they did.

Automobiles are an accepted and integral part of American society. Alas, such is not the case here in Europe.

I was walking to the dry cleaner earlier today and noticed an elderly man with his head under the hood of some foreign two door hatchback. I purposely slowed down for want of catching a glimpse of his motorized matchbox. As I passed, I was pretty surprised at the internal workings of this foreign wonder. The engine resembled a 2 stroke back pack blower and in all honestly seemed you could have gotten more torque out of a hamster wheel. That car inparticular is a fairly popular budget model automobile here in Europe.

Europeans hold a distinctively different view towards their 'motor carriages', as they were once called, than their American counterparts do. Vehicles serve a purely functional purpose here and as such, they give little concern to how flashy, fancy, or superior it actually is. The lack of emotional attachment to their automobiles has resulted in millions of small, functional, standard vehicles. Basically a nation of Model Ts.

Between the multiple cheap public transit options and high petrol prices, many European don't even feel the need to own a vehicle. If they do own a vehicle, there's a good chance its one per family, or even shared across multiple people.

The smaller engines, diesel fuel, less options, and essentially 100% manual transmission are all factors that play into Europe being ahead of the curve when it comes to energy efficiency and sustainability.

While the Europeans practice social and environmental responsibility by limiting their carbon footprints via transportation, America continues to bolster the personal assets by buying the next biggest model to roll out of Detroit.

I can understand where both sides come from. Efficiency v. Customized Personality.

In my own opinion I'd be happy with a combination of the two. Who knows what we'll be driving in the future. A nuclear powered jacked up 4x4? Maybe, just so long as I can still have a redneck exhaust system. However until the oil companies die out, which isn't happening any time soon, I'd say America is stuck in a energy rut with the automotive industry. Best just put it in a 4 wheel drive hang tight until the future gets here.

All good; all the time,

Thomas