Seeking an Identity and Air Conditioning

Fred looked deep into my eyes. “If I could get $2,000 for your car,” he said, “can we make a deal today?”

I could feel the heat rise in my face. I hate that.

Few things in life are quite so disagreeable as negotiations with a “closer” in the auto trade. But it’s part of the process if you want to buy a new car--or, for that matter, a new “pre-owned” car, such as the ’93 Maxima I’d been eyeing the past week.

It’s nice. Very nice. The color is “charcoal pearl.” The odometer is just over 13,000. And it’s “top of the line,” as they say, with a premium sound system, a spoiler and power everything, including “moonroof.” Looked brand new, save for that tiny dent near the back right wheel hub. “We can pop that out,” Rich, the salesman, assured me.

It lacks leather, but of course has air conditioning. And now that I do most of my driving in the Valley, a/c has become a priority.

The problem is, this Maxima might be too nice--and not just because the price is at the center field wall of my ballpark. Five words keep pressing against my skull: You are what you drive. Am I just shopping for a car--or seeking a change of identity?

This much is obvious: I haven’t been myself lately.

It all started when I started having transmission trouble. Why spend $650 fixing a ratty red ’86 Mustang LX convertible that has an L-shaped scar in the ragtop (so styled by an unknown burglar) when you don’t want to face another Valley summer without a/c? Determined to dump my Mustang as a trade-in, I borrowed a company car--an aging Pontiac Grand Am with a bent front fender--and set out on my search.

With each car lot, with each test drive, I came to realize I wasn’t merely shopping for wheels. It had become a mission of self-discovery.

Who am I, anyway?

At first, of course, I was essentially my parents’ youngest. At 15 1/2, they put me behind the wheel of the ’69 Dodge Dart, teaching me to drive in a local cemetery. Once I cut a corner too sharply. “You’re running over dead people,” my father scolded.

It was a bland car, not me at all. So I rebelled by seeing how fast it could go on the freeway. Would you believe 104 m.p.h.?

At 17, when my brother went bumming around Europe, I happily adopted his persona--a hot little VW bug, with custom purplish-blue paint and gold spider mags.

At 18, I had the first car I could truly call my own--an 11-year-old ’66 Datsun wagon with a flaking aqua paint job. A scruffy car for a scruffy teen-ager.

It was a birthday gift from Dad, who had bought this little number from one of his buddies at The Swinging Door for $400. A fair price. I could putt-putt-putt down the road and, because the gearshift sock was missing, I could watch the street pass below. On one rainy day, I drove into a flooded intersection and watched the water burble through the hole, puddling at my feet. But the car didn’t stall.

The car had an inglorious end--knocked 100 feet north after I had left it on the freeway shoulder after running out of gas. The hit-and-run driver had given me a Datsun Accordion. But at least Dad collected $396 on the insurance--which, come to think of it, he kept. In the end, that birthday present cost him $4.

At 23, I severed the automotive umbilical cord. My first real, full-time job required a real, full-time car. But the size of my paychecks and sticker shock pointed me to Toyota’s cheapest Tercel. I drove this little red tin can like a sports car and still got almost 40 miles per gallon--until the first tuneup. And then I met a young woman who drove her folks’ old Country Squire station wagon--a symbol of solid family values. Life was good.

But it didn’t last. The Country Squire-ette disappeared. Self-destructive tendencies revealed themselves in my neglect of the Tercel. It started to guzzle oil. And eventually, to quote the mechanic, “it threw a rod.”

I was towed to the closest dealership. My choice was expensive surgery to an engine with 77,000 miles, towing the car elsewhere, or buying a used car on the spot. I chose a brown Mazda 626 with an odometer reading of almost 50,000 miles.

Looking back, I can see that this was a transitional car, perhaps a therapeutic car. Never did I equate the Mazda with myself. I didn’t choose it; the fates forced it upon me. But this time, at least, the fates were fair and functional.

The Mazda was decent to me, though it never had a garage. In time the sun burned a streak down the middle of its roof, which made it look vaguely like a skunk. The upholstery started to fray; the odometer stuck. I have no idea how much mileage it had racked up when the engine died. For $300 I sold it to my friend Lita, who knew a mechanic. He worked such wonders that Lita eventually drove that Mazda home to Guatemala. Her father still drives it.

Ah, but the Mustang. Having just turned 30, I was determined to treat myself to a red convertible. And the Mustang, I thought, was me , with the wind in my thinning hair. Fun. Sporty. Not too macho. (We’re not talking a muscular 5.0-liter engine here. Insurance costs put the brakes on that idea.)

It mattered little that this Mustang once was a birthday gift to a 16-year-old girl from Alaska who had a rather successful and generous daddy. She was a 19-year-old USC freshwoman ( co-ed being a slur these days) when I bought the car. There are few better examples of trickle-down economics than my Mustang and my old Mazda.

At first, the Mustang was great. I would put the top down and drive through Topanga out to Malibu. But putting the top down on a hot day in a traffic jam offered no relief. In Alaska they don’t need a/c.

And now the Mustang is looking more like an albatross. A valve job six months ago cost $800. The radio stopped working, and it needs a new top and two new hubcaps.

*

And so I sat before Fred, trying to whittle away at the price of the Maxima, envisioning the cool comfort that could be mine. It would be my first really nice car. It would be my first car with power windows. Driving it made me feel like I should be wearing my best suit, with a fresh polish on my shoes. And that, it occurred to me, was part of the problem.

“The question is,” Fred said, “do you want the car or don’t you? You’ve been back here three times. I think you want the car.”

Maybe it was the summer I worked as a “lot boy” at a dealership and hated taking orders from salesmen and the manager. Maybe I just decided the Maxima wasn’t me.

I walked.

But it was 97 degrees in Van Nuys the other day. So maybe I’ll be back.

After all, as Freud might say, sometimes a car is just a car.

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday.