Quickly! To the Bat-Trans…uh, Bat-Am!
Got the Trans Am (and the Mazda 6) all washed down good today, so both cars are looking spotless both inside and out. After finishing up the wash, darkness was falling (thanks to last night’s time change out of DST) so I decided to go for a quick run up to the town center to get a couple of pounds of air in two of my tires. They have a free air pump up there. (Gotta watch out though; I think the thing was designed to pump up tractor tires. You squeeze the trigger for three seconds and it packs in a walloping ten PSI.)
Anyhoo, I’d forgotten it was Halloween—as I got up to the town center, I saw tons of cars, familes and childen all camped out like they were waiting for fireworks to start. Turns out the homes up near the town center circle have a “Trick-or-Treat Night” where everyone gets together and provides a safe, local means for kids to run around and get some insulin shock—I mean, some candy. Since I have to circle through the parking lot to get to the air pump, I swung the T/A into the driveway and carefully growled my way through, making sure I didn’t hit any little kids dressed like Cinderella or Tigger or whatever else. I had my headlights and fogs on, and there was just enough of the setting sun left to bathe my T-tops in a light pink reflective hue.
As I cruised past the crowds, I heard somebody nearby say, obviously in reference to my car, “That looks like the Batmobile.” To which another voice responded, “It sure does.”
Heh…and I wasn’t even driving KITT, either! (Many Knight Rider replica owners say people always think that their car is the Batmobile.) It was a nifty little reminder that one of the great things about driving a cool car is that people are wowed by it, especially kids. I still remember, the week I picked up my Trans Am in the summer of ‘98, on one of my daily evening drives, I went down to a park on 5 Mile near Farmington. There were some kids playing ball down there and they all totally stopped what they were doing to watch me cruise past. “Nice car!” shouted one of them as I went by. Dude, thank you very much. I always think about how I felt when I was a kid that age and saw a sweet ride cruise past…it inspires you, I think, to one day own such a piece of automotive art. That’s the difference I still hope I can make today.
Categorized as Cars