“What would you be if
you were a car?” My father and I came up with this idea a few weeks ago.
While I have a hard time fitting myself into stereotypes, I
think it would be fun to place the “personality” of today’s cars and associate
them with famous American writers of the 19th and 20th
centuries.
Flannery O’Connor—2015 Chevrolet SS
One of the great American writers of
Southern “grotesque,” O’Connor was known for writing stories that could be
sometimes quite frightening, or appear to be timid at first and then shock the
hell out of you. For a literary example, read “Good Country People.” The Chevy
SS appears to be something like that—kind of average-looking sedan until you
press the ignition button and drive the car onto a busy highway. Watch the smoke
from the rear wheels appear into a cloud, then a mushroom cloud, and feel your
heart speed until a stop while the fear of an overpowered sedan overtakes you.
Mark Twain—Bentley Flying Spur or 2015
Cadillac CTS
Twain was not poor by any means, and
it is understood that he enjoyed the wealth that he built from his traveling
lectures. I had a hard time picking either a luxurious Bentley sedan or
Cadillac’s newest car, the CTS. I suppose it could vary depending on how
patriotic Twain was feeling, but with his money he would enjoy fine motoring in
some sort of luxury.
T.S. Eliot—2002-05 Jaguar X-type
Eliot and his poetic colleague, Ezra
Pound, were born in America but hated living here. Eliot eventually took up
British citizenship, which is why he is associated here with the Ford-made
Jaguar X-type. Sold only for a few years in the States, the car was probably
much less popular than his poetry about 100 years earlier.
F. Scott Fitzgerald—the President’s
Cadillac limousine (unknown year)
Scott
Fitzgerald may ring a bell in many Americans who at least received a B in their
high school English class. That’s because he is famously associated with the
Jazz age, his tremendous if short-lived wealth, and his extraordinary income
from his literature, such as “The Great Gatsby.” I figured why not pick the
President’s very own limousine.
Tennessee Williams—1966 Shelby Cobra
427
Although this is meant to associate
authors with modern cars, I could not think of a car that was more associated
with excess and drama than the king of American cars itself, the Shelby Cobra.
Equipped with a mean 425 horsepower engine, the car could rocket to high
acceleration numbers faster than anything else with plenty of noise, drama, and
boys staring at it as it drove by. Williams was a purveyor of stories but also
of drama, with his “A Streetcar Named Desire” hitting audiences in the 1950s.
His critics complained of excess drama and sex in the play, as well as other
literature he composed.
