I can remember when I first thought about being 40. My mother turned 40 in 1983, when I was 11, and on the advice of Hallmark I bought her a card that read, "39 and holding!" -- 40 just wasn't somewhere you wanted to go.
Sometime in my 20s or 30s I decided that I had one goal to achieve before I turned 40. I wanted to be the owner of a 1967 Camaro. All of the other achievements of being 40 were assumed: health, fitness, husband, children, house, job, money..and never warranted specific goal-making. Unfortunately, that means I can't tick those goals off the list. Nope. There's just one item on my list, and the check box is blank.
It's a Family Thing
My love affair with muscle cars comes from early childhood. When I was born, my parents were the proud owners of a 1967 Mustang and a Triumph Spitfire. The Mustang had been painted Panther Pink and my mother toted me around (unsecured in the front seat, natch) to nursery school, grocery shopping, Friendly's, and her hair appointments, after which I always got a stick of rock candy. I even have a recurring dream about that car. My childhood friend David and are waiting in it outside of the hair salon. Our mothers are inside. We play-drive and accidentally start rolling it down the hill. End.
My father would stuff me into the tiny back "seat" area of the Triumph with his flight case, and remember loving that tight-fit place and front-row the view of the shiftier as he maneuvered it through the gears.
My very first car was a muscle car of sorts -- a 1979 Monte Carlo with a 350 under the hood. (The one in the pic isn't mine, but except for the color is an exact match. Ours was yellow.) It was rear-wheel drive and my dad taught me how to do donuts in a snowy Greeley, Colorado parking lot when I was 15. I drove it for my driving test on a snowy December 16, 1987 and walked out of the DMV with my license. Dad let me do skids on the way home. The speedometer topped out at 95, but it pegged slightly over.
My list of cars owned since then in severely lacking in coolness:
Chevy Citation
1988 Toyota 4Runner (current, but Evan's)
Mid-Life?
My parents still have cooler cars than I do. When he lived in Florida, Dad drove a convertible, and how he has a sport Chevy Cobalt. Mom drives a Saturn -- one with the instruments in the middle dash. It's not a Mustang, but it's not a white minivan either, which is what I park in my driveway each night. (Yes, our 4Runner is cool, but that's really Evan's baby.) My parents even made their Chevy Corsica feel sporty next to my rides. I mean, have you seen a Chevy Citation? Behold:
But is it Materialism?
As the countdown to 40 keeps ticking and the reality of a Camaro-less 40s sinks in, I am not surprised that many people scoff at my mourning. Very few of my friends, it turns out, are "car people". They drive completely Colorado-ish, utilitarian vehicles. Toyota 4Runners. Minivans. Priuses (or Prii). When the new Camaro was introduced I was hunting the streets to get a glimpse of one person. I even stopped and flipped a u-turn to take a picture with my camera phone. My husband thought it was cool; other friends played along but mostly had no idea what I was talking about or understood why I cared. It's just a car.
It was just a car, once. My first love in high school was dual: A high school senior with long black hair and his 1967 Camaro, which looked much like the one pictured below. It probably wasn't quite a show car, but it lives in my memory that way. (Also, it was an SS, not an RS, but I'm willing to bet no one reading this aside from Evan knows how that makes the photo inaccurate.)
That boy did not reciprocate my love, but I did get a few rides in the car.
Any New Car is a Luxury
Most of my friends and family have an ethic about cars -- they don't buy new ones until it's absolutely necessary, and they make their buying decisions based on need, not desire. Our last vehicle purchase was the minivan -- we needed it because we had a new baby and Evan needed to fit at least three giant coolers of salsa in the back. It was 5 years old at purchase and had a cool factor of Absolute Zero.
Ten years later we still own it. The a/c hasn't worked for 5 summers, there's a CD stuck in the player that won't play (we lost track of which CD it is); the side door doesn't lock; the wipers come on randomly; 3/5 stereo buttons don't work; the driver's seat is ripped; and every once in a while we have to manually disconnect the battery to reset the computer and avoid complete system shutdown.
So I scoff at charges of automotive materialism on my part.
A Car or a Symbol?
Some people, including me, have argued that not having the Camaro at 40 isn't a big deal. This is true. If I make a list of all the things I do own, my needs are most certainly met, including my transportation needs. So the Camaro isn't and never was a necessity. But if the Camaro is just a symbol, than not having one is actually worse than if it were just a materialistic acquisition. The Camaro is my personal symbol for having "made it". It's a stand-in for youth, power, financial security.
Six days away from turning 40 I have not earned the freedom or power to buy that symbol, and that's what stings, regardless of what is sitting n the driveway. I know some people will never get it. Maybe if the physical representation of the goal were one that more of my friends could empathize with, it would click.
For now, I will flip the calendar soon from December 16 to December 17 without a new vehicle purchase. Maybe I'll even give my Camaro Matchbox and Hot Wheels to the kids as an example of letting go of the covetous impulse.
There comes a time, after all to set aside childish things in favor of 401Ks, college funds, braces and retirement savings.
The minivan can still do a nice skid around icy corners, though. At least there's that.
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