Special to the Star

Jul 17, 2008

The upside is that when I do motor around in something new or exciting, I get to look out the window and appreciate more things than gear ratios and turning radii.

Last summer, I was offered pretty much any car I wanted. I instantly asked for a Mini Cooper, my youngest son Ari’s favourite car. Christopher, 16, looked at me dumbfounded.

“Any car you wanted, and that’s what you picked?” He stumbled from the room shaking his head, while Ari gleefully packed an overnight kit and we headed out of town together.

I have been reminded ever since that I owe Christopher a ride in a high-performance something-or-other. I can never remember what it is he likes.

Another writer in these pages, Peter Bleakney, came to my rescue. Over dinner at fellow writer Nika Rolczewski’s one weekend (yes, we all stick together. Who else would have us?), Peter casually mentioned that he would be driving an M3 the following day.

“An M3 what?” I enquired. Christopher rolled his eyes.

“Mom, it’s a BMW. It’s only my favourite car. Thanks for remembering,” he continued.

In Christopher’s quest to get his licence, he is entertaining all the usual fantasies of what he will eventually be driving. As visions of BMWs and Audis dance through his head, I nod at the minivan in the driveway and crush his dreams.

As gas prices have rocketed and insurance rates have soared, fewer and fewer of his friends are driving, and the future they are envisioning is far different then the one I held at 16.

It’s actually kind of refreshing to hear him consider things like expensive commuting nightmares, and the future of automotive technology and the impact it will have on generations to come.

I have been sensing a general easing away from the status car habit I have never totally understood — and have incorrectly predicted the demise of — and am happy to see my kid be more responsible in a changing world.

Then, Peter pulled into the driveway in a brilliant red BMW M3.

Almost trampled on the front step as Christopher leapt out the front door, I watched my son circle the car with the same instincts that once made men kill mastodons. I glanced at Peter.

“Is it a stick?” I asked him.

“Yup,” he replied. With no small sense of relief, I told Christopher to put his G1 licence back in his wallet.

As they climbed in for their test drive, I offered Peter gas money.

“Nope, don’t worry about it. I just put a hundred bucks in,” he said. I gulped. I further lamented that there really wasn’t anywhere they could drive the car to appreciate its full potential.

I glanced at Christopher to see if he was absorbing all these limitations to his dream date. Instead, he was mucking with the stereo, and doing up the seatbelt that the car had just handed to him automatically.

They pulled out of the court, considerations of green technologies and public transit in their wake. When they returned an hour later, Christopher was grinning like a Cheshire cat.

“I will live in an apartment forever. I will not have kids. I will not eat. I want that car,” he announced. Peter shrugged, smiling.

“Sorry,” he said.

Lorraine Sommerfeld’s column appears Thursdays on Wheels.ca. www.lorraineonline.ca

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