do you know why i stopped you?

An interesting little tidbit on Wired yesterday shows that Hummer drivers get nearly five times the traffic tickets than the average driver.

It's definitely food for thought for me, because I firmly believe that only certain personalities consider purchasing a Hummer. I mean seriously. People who don't care about cars get cars that make that statement: the "I don't care" car can be a number of different makes. The Ford 500 and Chevy Cavalier are classic "whatever" models. People who care about speed buy fast cars, people who care about the environment (or care about being perceived as caring about the environment) buy hybrids. So what kind of person buys the Hummer? And are they really less careful drivers? Do they attract the wrong kind of attention from the law? Or, as the article dismisses at the very end, are they being unfairly targeted by the police?

I have to believe that there is a personality type behind the wheel of the Hummer that leads to these statistics. Obviously someone who drives a Hummer cares very little about what people may perceive as politically correct, and has a desire to sit head and shoulders (quite literally) above the rest of the traffic fray. Perhaps the Hummer simply imbues its drivers with a sense that the usual rules just don't apply.

Or maybe it's just really hard to tell how fast you're going when all the other motorists look like tiny ants from where you sit.

panic in detroit

I adore car shows. I have been to the Twin Cities and Denver ones but never to Detroit. However, it is sounding like Detroit this year is a bit of a bummer. With their fate in the hands of federal lawmakers, American automakers do not have a lot to celebrate with the 2009 show.

But it looks like Conan O'Brien had some fun at his visit, and it reminds me of the silly fun I've had at autoshows in the past:

rising to the challenge

I am a purist when it comes to muscle cars. I don't consider my own old Cutlass a true member of the breed- it lacks the bucket seats and big block engine but the styling was dead-on. No, in order to be a muscle car, a vehicle has to meet certain specific requirements. It has to be a V-8. It has to be a BIG V-8. It has to be built for comfort, but mostly for strength- hence the bucket seats. It has to have a somewhat reasonable starting price- back in the day, any kid with a summer job could get a decent deal on a GTO or a Chevelle. And finally, it has to have that sound. That throaty, dig-dig-dig sound that says "whenever you need me to, I can chew up this road like a rottweiler will take to a plate of bacon."

It has been a long time since the death of these great giants. Camaros and Mustangs have long since dissolved into over-the-top eighties miscalculations and concerns over efficiency and emissions. But at long last, Dodge has finally brought America a muscle car for the age of the Prius. Behold. The Challenger.

It would have been easy to simply recreate a big, lumbering V-8 driven sedan and tried to pass it off as a muscle car. And Dodge did, and they called it a Charger (and everyone who had ever owned a true Charger collectively sighed in disgust). But the Challenger is decidedly different. Take the styling for starters. The perfect marriage of curves and heft without relying on cheap plastic body kits. That expansive grill, reminiscent of the old Plymouth GTX.

But what's under the hood is the most innovative thing to come out of Detroit in a very long time. Of course it's a Hemi. Of course it's a V-8. But it's a Hemi V-8 that can switch off half the cylinders if necessary (in stop and go traffic, slow traffic, whenever you don't need all eight cylinders tap dancing under the hood), thereby saving gas and cutting emissions. While the system is nothing new (it's another little bit of thievery from the Daimler-Chrysler days) it makes the Challenger more politically correct without sacrificing power where a muscle car is at its best- on the wide open straightaways.

It's been a long time since I've been this fired up about an American car. Especially an American car with a base price around 22k. But there is something so beautifully American about this baby. Something so nostalgic and yet so new. This is what Detroit has always been about, and it brings me hope for what American carmakers are still capable of.

generations

First, an introduction.

I am a vehicle dealer. My grandfather was a vehicle dealer, my uncles were vehicle dealers and mechanics, my father is a weekend mechanic and my great-grandfather started a vehicle dealership in the 1920s in Luverne, Minn.

My father was born in Pontiac, Mich., when my grandfather was a marketing and advertising executive for GM.

I have always been around cars. I grew up at car shows, at my grandfather's dealership, and in heated dinner table discussions about transmissions, body style, new innovations and old classics. I'm a car girl.

My first car was a Volvo 240 GL with a sunroof and not much else. But I loved it for all its Scandinavian squareness. The second car: a 1973 Cutlass Supreme. And the current car, a 1996 Saab 900 Convertible.

But this story isn't about cars I've had. This little plot of cyberspace real estate is about the cars I want, the cars I see, the cars I learn about. The thing is, America's obsession with cars rarely has anything at all to do with the cars we drive. It is about the very American endeavor to obtain the next car. It's always about next year's model, the shinier chrome, that New Car smell.

This is a blog about desire.