Intelligence and Personality in Automobiles
Created | Updated Jun 6, 2003
Okay, so that may sound a little freaky, but think about it for a moment. When someone buys a car, they are engaging in not only a very serious financial obligation, but also a sort of agreement to the vehicle they buy. Call me old fashioned (aka 'nuts'), but I'm one of those people who believes from experience that a vehicle, particularly the older models, has a personality of sorts, even a form of intelligence. As such, when I buy a vehicle, I am in essence agreeing with the vehicle that I will take care of it, and do everything in my power to keep it in good operating condition, as well as clean and shiny, as it seems to me that a vehicle appreciates being clean.
Yes, you can call me nuts now.
Seriously, though, I have observed in my vehicles a number of characteristics which seem indicative of the presence of, well, if not intelligence per se, then at least a capacity for appreciation, or the ability to appreciate things that I do for them. It is my opinion that, when this capability is taken into account by the owner of the vehicle, the vehicle and the owner can experience a certain level of trust in their relationship that can prove beneficial all around.
For the purpose of providing examples, I will give you, O gentle reader, a brief summary of my vehicular history.
June, 1998 I buy my very first car, a 1977 Chevrolet Caprice Classic 4 door sedan, for $650.00 cash. I bought this vehicle for a number of reasons, some of which later turned out to be false, but the primary reason was that it was a pre - 80's Chevrolet. I wanted a Chevy because I was raised with the knowledge that American cars were more dependable than imports, and, while being less fuel - efficient, were big enough that one could perform pretty much any maintenance work on them by one's own self. I wanted a pre - 1980 vehicle for essentially the same reason -- before '80, everything in an engine was still essentially mechanical -- no computer chips to fry, no electronic fuel injection to mess with, etc. -- just a simple, mechanical system that you could beat on with a hammer if you needed to (in fact, that was actually the procedure for a number of things -- Step One: Remove retaining ring A. Step Two: Locate retaining ring B. Using small hammer, tap retaining ring loose. Note: Some force may be required).
Now, I bought this car in part because the guy I bought it from said it had a 350 c.i.d. engine in it, which turned out to be untrue, as did a number of other things he told me, which of course annoyed the hell out of me. Nevertheless, I determined to love and cherish this car just as I would have had it been what I thought it was. I put a custom headliner in, as the old headliner was all sagging down and hanging in pieces, put seatcovers on it, tinted the windows, got new brakes all the way around, new fuel pump, alternator, water pump, starter, battery, spark plugs, wires, distributor, coil, and painted the whole thing flat black. In the end, she was a really nice car, especially after I put the stereo in -- that is, after all, one of the most important elements of a car.
It was obvious from essentially the beginning that she was going to need a rebuild on her engine soon, but I didn't have the funds for that, so I spent hours talking to her, telling her to stay with me, that I'd take care of her, etcetera. You know what? It worked! For three years, that car carried me all over the place, engaging in street races, drunken off - road 'doughnut' contests, and more than a few cross - country trips. In all that time, never once did she leave me stranded anywhere. When she broke down, she did so in a manner that allowed me to drive her to a place where I could fix her or get her fixed. In a few of the cases, this was so obvious that it was almost eerie... For instance, there was this one time in late 2001 that I and my girlfriend had taken a long day drive out on this dirt road that must have been about 50 miles from any civilization whatsoever. We drove up and down that road all day, with no problems at all. Finally, we decided to head back into town, so I drove for about an hour and got into town. Well, we stopped at this one particular stoplight that had an Autozone directly across from it, and all of a sudden the car started shaking and vibrating like nothing I've ever felt before or since. It got worse as we waited for the light to turn green, and I was beginning to get seriously concerned about being able to make it home, even though it was only 5 minutes away, so when the light turned green, I turned right and into the Autozone parking lot, with my engine feeling like it was literally going to leap out of my hood at any moment, and sounding like it might just explode first. Just as I started turning into a parking space in the Autozone lot, my car died and I had to coast the rest of the way in. I made it, though, and praised my car for getting me to exactly where I needed to go -- the parts store.
Another time, I was distracted by a young and only partially clothed female while I was checking my transmission fluid, and inadvertently topped it off with power steering fluid, which of course is not recommended. Unfortunately, the nearest place that could drain and flush the transmission was about 250 miles away, and I didn't have the time or space to do it myself. So, I drove there, and my transmission sounded more and more horrible every mile that I drove, but I talked to my car, and petted it, and coaxed it on, and it got me there. When I drove in to the transmission service place and told the mechanics what had happened, they were astonished.
"It's impossible," they said, "You couldn't drive that far with that much power steering fluid in the tranny -- it would have boiled over and blown all your seals." But, you see, it didn't. They flushed and refilled the tranny, and it was as good as new. I never had another problem with it again.
Of course, now it's dead. She just couldn't go any further without a rebuilt engine -- there's a lifter noise that is so horrendous you don't even want to start the engine, even if you could, which is very difficult because she also has a broken flexer plate. But that isn't the point. The point is that this car, which badly needed a rebuild from the day I bought her, stuck with me for three years, against all odds and some extremely adverse conditions. Why? Well, obviously, that's open to discussion, but what I believe is that she became as loyal to me as I was to her. It is the only explanation I could come up with that takes into account all of the times she pulled me through to wherever I needed to go, against all odds. Owning that car made me a believer in the theory of vehicle personality.
December, 2001 Because my beloved Caprice has died, I buy a 1979 Cadillac Seville, V8, 350 cid, electronic fuel injection, power windows, seats, etc, for $450.00 cash. Initially, I thought this was a really excellent deal. The car had a number of issues, including the fact that the computer module had burnt out (why I don't like cars with computers in them), rendering the headlights, cruise control, and digital speedometer nonfunctional. Other than that, though, everything seemed fine on it. It had new brakes, no body damage, no major leaks, and the interior was in good condition. So, yes, I bought it, and immediately tinted the windows and installed my stereo, and had a pretty pimp Caddy for a while.
Then it started acting funny. Nothing that you could really nail down as being caused by anything in particular, just little oddities. This made me curious about the car's history, so I called the guy I bought it from, and he explained to me that he had originally bought it for his girlfriend, who had driven it for several years and never had a problem with it, but every time he had driven it, it had acted "funny". They had broken up and, as he couldn't drive it without something wierd happening, he had decided to sell it.
This convinced me of something I had already begun to suspect: This car was a he.
I should probably explain at this point that, at least in America, it seems customary to assign a sex to our vehicles. Females tend to assign a male sex to their vehicles, perhaps for the feeling of protection and comfort they offer, whereas men tend to assign the female sex to their vehicles, because most men are secretly in love with their cars. I, whether for better or worse, am no exception -- my first car was a very distinct female, and I had mistakenly assumed that my new Caddy was as well. I was wrong. My new car was male, and it didn't like me.
Sound paranoid? Yeah, well, possibly it is, but the nagging feeling remained.
I wasn't really put off by the revelation that my car was male -- I figured I didn't really care, I could deal with it -- after all, it is a car above and beyond everything else, right? Right?
Well, about a week later, my radiator sprung a leak. I put stopleak in it, and it stopped leaking. Everything was good.
A week after that, it started leaking again, and I was forced to leave it and hitchhike into town to my house, about 25 miles away from where I had to leave it. Not really a big deal, but it was worse than anything my Caprice had ever done to me -- at least she always got me where I was going. Nevertheless, not that big of a deal -- I bought some more stopleak, went back out the next day, refilled the radiator, put the stopleak in, and drove it back to my house. Everything was good.
The next morning, I went out to start it and found the radiator completely empty -- sometime during the night it had apparenty decided to inexplicably empty itself. Breathing a deep sigh, I took the radiator out and took it into a shop to have it fixed. There was a leak found, and the guy fixed it. I took it back, put it back in, filled it up, and drove it for a while. It didn't leak at all, and everything was good.
The next morning, I went out to start it, and the radiator was empty. By now extremely annoyed, I cursed repeatedly, then filled it and drove to a mechanic. The mechanic determined that, while the radiator was now fine, sometime during the night a freeze plug had inexplicably rusted out.
For those of you who may be unfamiliar with vehicles, a freeze plug is literally a metal plug that is pressure - fit into the engine in the cooling chambers. There are usually two to four of these freeze plugs, and their purpose is to protect the engine from damage should the coolant freeze. Because water expands when it freezes, these plugs are designed to pop out in that event so that the expanding water has someplace to go and doesn't just rip the engine to shreds.
Glycol antifreeze, however, prevents the water in your coolant from freezing, so as long as you have enough antifreeze mixed into your water, it will never freeze and the freeze plugs will never be used.
This freeze plug had not blown out because of the coolant freezing -- rather it had simply rusted to pieces, which was very odd because the other three were all fine. Nevertheless, it wasn't a big deal -- replacement plugs cost about $2.00, and including the labor to put it in, it'd cost about $40.00 to fix. So, of course, I told the mechanic to go ahead.
Unfortunately, the mechanic broke the oil dipstick tube in the process of replacing the freeze plug. Replacement of the tube itself is simple -- it costs about $5.00. BUT the labor involved would cost about $600.00, because it is necessary to drop the oilpan to replace the dipstick tube, and it is necessary, on older GM vehicles, to raise the engine in order to drop the oilpan.
This was simply too much. I didn't even pay that much for the entire vehicle, and I had a sneaking suspicion that this would not be the last problem I had with the Cadillac, as it was clear to me that it didn't like me anyway. So I gave it to a junkyard after ripping my stereo out of it, as I didn't want to have it sitting in front of my house waiting for someone who wanted to buy it.
Now I was desperate. I had no vehicle, and since I work 30 miles away from where I live, the lack of a car was going to be a problem.
January, 2002 Out of the above - mentioned desperation, I buy a 1991 Mazda Protege 323 from one of our employees for $450.00 cash. It had extreme body damage to the front and driver side, and some on the back, but overall it was a surprisingly nice little car -- 5 speed, 1.8L 4 cylinder DOHC. It actually hauled buns, come to think of it, but I immediately hated it. Not that it was a bad car, just that it was tiny, and didn't have the nice massive steel bumpers that I had grown accustomed to, and I couldn't really work on it myself because it was all computerized, etc., etc. It also seemed to be entirely void of any personality whatsoever -- in retrospect, I think they stopped making cars with personality back in the mid 1980's. Anyway, I treated the car pretty well overall, although I confess I didn't really ever find the motivation to wash or vacuum it. I guess it just seemed pointless, as I was unable to find any place in my mind that actually cared about it.
Two weeks after I bought it, the brakes went out.
I took it to a mechanic, of course (not the same one who broke my Caddy -- I'll never bring anything back to him -- it's just the principle of the matter) to get an estimate. He discovered that the brakes were entirely shot all the way around the vehicle, and that it would be about $700.00 to get new ones, because all the brakes were these really special Japanese pads and rotors that had to be special - ordered direct from Japan.
Cursing most foully, I went home to think.
I decided that this car wasn't worth it. First, it was going to cost, again, more than I had paid for the entire vehicle to get it fixed, and this car was not worth that much money. Second, it was an import car, which I inherently distrust. And third, the car just had no personality, and that also led me to distrust it. I've found that if I can identify a car's personality and get to know it, I can establish a mutually trusting relationship with it and know that it will get me to where I need to go. But if there is no personality, how could I trust it? There is nothing to trust.
So I kissed that car goodbye (well, technically, it's still sitting in front of my house, but for all effective purposes, I ignore its existence).
February, 2002 I buy a 1970 Chevrolet Caprice Classic for $1700.00, financed through my bank, and I'll tell you one thing: She is gorgeous! Yes, she is definitely a she, which I am glad of because I get along well with females. She's Metallic Midnight Blue, with Baby Moon rims. V8 350 cid, 4 bbl carburetor, factory dual exhaust, with about 44000 miles on a rebuilt engine, and about 22000 miles on a new TH400 automatic transmission. 300 Horsepower stock engine! Oh, I tell ya, she's beautiful. The best part is, I'm fairly sure we already have an agreement. We don't completely trust each other yet, but we both know that we'll take care of one another, and that, I think, is the start of a wonderful relationship.
I suppose that there is no concrete evidence presented here for the existence of automobile personality, seeing as how all of this is strictly my own experience and many people who know me would doubt the scientific value of such experience, seeing as how I really do enjoy mind alteration in its many forms and this, of course, weakens the credibility of my experience.
Nonetheless, I do believe that this possibility is something to be taken seriously. Has anyone else ever noticed that their vehicle runs better after it's been washed? Clearly, there could be no possible connection between the two, as the external appearance of a vehicle cannot logically affect its internal performance... yet I've observed this phenomenon repeatedly. I've also observed my car responding better after I've done something else, like put a stereo in, or repainted some trim, or fixed a rust spot in the body. It's as if my car actually appreciates the energy that I put into it to make it more beautiful.
Of course, I believe this to be the case, that my car does possess the capability to 'feel' appreciation for such things. Call me nuts if you will, but before you do, go see for yourself. Open your mind to the possibility of some form of consciousness within your vehicle, and then go drive it when it's dirty, outside and/or inside. Then, go clean your car.
Wash it, wax it, vacuum it, whisper sweet nothings to it, get all the trash out of it, pet it fondly. Then, go drive it again, using the exact same route that you drove it while it was dirty. Pay attention to how it feels, and how it responds to your actions, in the steering, acceleration, braking, everything.
I would bet that your car feels much better, and that it responds to your actions smoothly and more quickly than it has before, because your car appreciates what you have just done for it.
Or not... I could merely be psychotic. But if you do these things, write me and tell me what your results are. It would be comforting for me to know that others are experiencing the same thing, that the discovery of a new kind of consciousness may be looming on the horizon.
On the other hand, if I'm merely psychotic, well, it would be good to know that, too.
