Article: What gives a car it's "personality"?

Recently, my brother and I had decided to buy a beater car, so that we can put our vehicles away for the winter and not worry about the treacherous conditions that tear away at the paint and the metal on the bodies of our cars. My brother had found a car online. A 1988 Toyota Cressida (MX73). I thought it was an awesome idea, I remember seeing those cars on episodes of Mighty Car Mods (MCM) a few years back. Watching their 1JZ swapped Cressida beat a handful of cars at a drag strip, made me super excited about driving this car. So, after about 8 hours of driving and $2000 dollars later, we finally had a Cressida at our house. I was VERY excited, not only was I able to save my Mazda 3 from the winter, I was also able to do so in this kick-ass, old-school luxury sedan of ours. Immediately, I hopped online so that I could Google all the specs of our sick, new car. Let’s see, 2.8L, straight six, just under 190 horsepower. I knew that all of this information meant nothing until I took it for a spin. So I did.

What did I think of it? It was an absolute headache! The car rides on cut springs, so the ride is very bouncy. The bucket seat stabs you in the back over every bump, and the welded differential that was put in by the drift nut before us makes the car feel like it want to tear itself apart on every corner. It doesn’t stop there, everything squeaks and squeals like a mouse caught in a trap, the body is rusting away, all except one audio speaker works, the transmission feels like it wants to fall out the bottom of the car if you aren’t shifting gently and the stage 2 clutch is so grabby and catchy, it makes Mike Piazza* look bad.

*he’s a baseball catcher, get the joke now?

I was Infuriated! The car that I had just spent good money on, was a complete piece of crap to drive. I wanted my money back, I wanted to call Toyota to tell the guys back in 1988 they had made a crap car, I wanted to drive another 8 hours to go find the guy who had sold me the car, and slap him in his stupid face for welding the differential. I didn’t do any of those things, hell, I didn’t even complain (out loud).

Instead, I drove it, and kept driving it. Something magical happened, I started to like the car, and one day, I felt it.

As the sun was going down on a cool November day, wind in my hair, Oasis on the radio as I blasted down the highway with the windows open. I had felt something, I had felt some sort of euphoria, something that I had never felt driving any other car. Something that I didn’t even feel when driving a C63 AMG Mercedes.

How was this happening? “The car is a piece of crap!” I told myself. Despite the rusted body, stubby seats and the garbage transmission, the car had found it’s way into my heart. How? it’s slow, old and it’s falling apart, why do I like it so much?*

*Relationship status: it’s complicated.

You know what? I don’t know, but at that point in time, I reflected on the car’s many flaws: the disgusting transmission, the awful differential and the long hours it took to do some repairs on this car. However, reflecting made me realize how special it felt, and how appreciated I was to be in the car at that specific point in time. It felt as if I had developed a companionship with the car.

I’ve heard the talk about cars having character, you’ll see a lot of car reviewers and car talk shows report on stuff like:“This new Jag as some serious character” or something like that. Frankly, I don’t think they’ve ever been very clear when they use that term. I used to have no idea what they were talking about; but, I think that I might just have a small grasp on what they might be on about.

MCM

A few years ago, the Mighty Car Mods channel on youtube released an episode as their season finale of their fourth season. The episode was titled: “Budget Street Cred.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7Iv42AOZIk

The plot of the episode was to take a boring old Volkswagen Golf, and make it appealing to the rest of the car enthusiast crowd, on a very strict budget of $700. The Golf’s starting street cred score, (rated by the internet) was rated at a 3.2 out of 10. Marty and Moog instantly went to work, and implemented ideas to modify their old Golf on the cheap. They rusted out the body, glued Japanese comic book pages to the side, and even poured beer and urine on the car. All in the name of making the car attractive to the car culture crowd.

They had planned to unveil their budget creation at the “EUROFest” car meet in their area. Upon showing up to the meet, they realize that that they had shown up on the wrong day, and had arrived at a Honda car meet instead. “Like some kind of strange nightmare, there were Hondas everywhere.” Despite showing up to the wrong meet with a rusted out, cheaply built car, they still managed to attract the attention of every person there. The event organizers even claimed the car as the “crowd favourite” and were getting street red ratings of 8, 9 and even 10 out of 10. How did this happen? The car is a piece of crap! It’s all rust, it was slow, and even the reverse gear was broken. How did so many people managed to like the car so much?

I think people liked it for many reasons, but the main reason was the Golf’s uniqueness. Even though their Volkswagen Golf was very all rusty and cheaply built. The car managed to attract the attention of every single person at the meet, and on Youtube as well. To this day, “Budget Street Cred” is still MCM’s most viewed video. This is because the car was different, it was unique. We’re used to seeing super clean, sporty, fast cars with hundreds of thousands of dollars being spent on them. Seeing the polar opposite of what we are used to seeing is interesting to us, it’s a rare sight, challenging the status quo and it grabs our attention.

Uniqueness? Companionship? Maybe you can see where i’m going with this, but I’ve just got one more example up my sleeve.

TopGear

If you watch Top Gear, as religiously as I have (or used to) you’ll know that they love Alfa Romeo cars on that show. Why would though? Alfa’s are know for being generally bad cars. Their known to have faults, they break and they aren’t reliable. So why do they like them?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25oiw2l-wkE

Well, those are the exact reasons why they liked them! Clarkson and May used to both own Alfa’s and they state that they were the cars that they most regret selling, they speak of losing their cars as “the one that got away.” Clarkson then says: “Alfa’s are much more human than any other car, it’s the reason why they go wrong a lot, it’s because they have faults.”

Personality? Companionship? Uniqueness? Faults? These are all human qualities and characteristics… Wait, is this what I see in my Cressida? Is this what makes up the character of my car? Is it because instead of machines, I feel the Cressida has human personality, emotions, a soul? Is it because I see it as a sentient being instead of two tonnes of metal, glass and wires?

To me, a character of a car is designated by it’s human like qualities, it’s what makes that surreal connection between car and driver. That human like connection is the reason as to why I felt that euphoria driving my beaten up old Cressida, and not the brand new Mercedes. The car’s character makes it makes it feel like a living, breathing person. These qualities made it feel as if though I was hanging out with friend of mine, it made the drive feel more real. It’s the reason us car enthusiasts care for our cars so much, we develop a relationship towards our cars.The reason why people were so obsessed with the MCM golf, Top Gear with their alfas, and me with my rusted cressida. Is that we feel this human like qualities resonate in these cars, and we are able to connect with them like no other cars out there.

It’s sad to say, but I find that personality in cars is sort of lost with a large amount of new cars made today. New cars are just too perfect, everything works, everything’s where it should be, the car doesn’t tell a story, it just really feels like a machine. It feels like it is 2 tonnes of metal, glass and wires. They don’t really feel like they’re people, like they’re human.

It’s like the relationship you had with old friends, sure, they were really annoying, they made you mad, they had problems (that you would have to deal with) and they had their faults. Sometimes, you’d also think you we’re better off without them, and upgrade to new friends, ones that didn’t have these problems, friends that were perfect. But believe me, when you’re bored with you perfect new friends, you’ll miss your old friends, you’ll miss their faults, you’ll miss the shenanigans, you’ll miss dealing with their problems and most importantly, you’ll miss the great times you had when everything was going right. Because all of these faults made your friends special.

It’s these special characteristics that make the most down-to-earth people. It’s the same characteristics that make these cars… So. Damn. Special.

Bennett Cook

IG:@performanceandluxury

Automotive Student. Automotive Enthusiast.