July 6th, 2006
Several ‘riced out’ Toyota Corollas and Honda Accords are expecting an easy day on the highways. They routinely zoom around big slow SUVs and cut in and out of traffic with ridiculous ease. It wasn’t a fair fight.
But out of the rear view mirror comes a dark blue blur. An alien design never seen on the roads before. Its menacing gaping shark’s mouth grill growing ever closer. The little engines in the Corrolas and Accords struggle but it’s no use and all they can do is get out of the way while the blur passes them by. The driver, wears a pair of wrap around dark glasses sneers disdain as he passes by.
Ok, that never happened, but it could have.
I had begun my research on a new car six months earlier. I needed a replacement for my Rodeo. Isuzu had dropped the ball and replaced the Rodeo with the Axiom, a more expensive and smaller vehicle which to me was unsatisfactory. So I made up a list of all possible contenders.
My list considered anything and everything. I looked back at Saturn, at a Chevy pick up truck, a PT Cruiser, and even a Mercedes.
I had heard of the Charger but had not really considered it. “I’m not a kid anymore” I reasoned. I needed a ‘grown up’ car.
But the Charger had grown up. The design looks like your father’s old sedan had taken steroids and now had a mean attitude. Muscle Car purists argue that a 4 door sedan can’t be a true muscle car. To which I say if ya want two doors, go get yourself a Pony Car. The new Charger lives up to the spirit of a big American car with lots under the hood.
I kept looking and looking, hoping to find something that would catch my eye. Somehow I kept circling back to the Charger.
On July 4th I got in my Rodeo and just drove until I was at a Dodge dealership. I immediately had a salesman chase after me and start the hard sell. We walked the lot looking at various Chargers.
If I had to dramatize the moment in film, it might have looked like this. Ok, that’s probably going too far, but you get my meaning. And then he showed me my car. That just sealed the deal right then and there.
So we got to haggling over price. We went back and forth for 45 minutes and three salesmen did everything short of chaining me to the floor to keep me there. Finally I got the price discounted and squeezed them for every penny I could for the trade in value on my Rodeo.
I did feel a pang of guilt as I watched my old Rodeo driven away, but the old cargo hauler was getting on in age, and each trip I took in it might have been my last.
I got in my new Charger and drove home. I found myself in a dream like state. Something akin to the science nerd who suddenly finds himself going to the prom with the head cheerleader.
“Was this really my car?” The Charger handled like a dream. The pungent new car smell mixed with the aroma of the leather seats. I could dash past anything on the road, and had to restrain myself from going flat out on city streets.
The Charger was ‘the’ car of 2006. Everywhere I went there was this “jaw dropping” reaction. People would actually stop and stare as I drove past.
I came out of the supermarket and on the windows was a row of little nose and handprints where little kids had pressed up to look inside. An older lady in her 50s at my office asked to sit in it because she remembered her boyfriend in the 70s had a Charger and this was way more comfortable.
Time has passed. We have had many adventures and have spent many miles on the highways of Texas. Mainly though I drove the 50 mile round trip back and forth for 4 years between my home and office piling up many miles.
I still have the Charger and I plan on keeping it for now. I may however get something small for in town use and let the Charger out on the weekends to enjoy the rush of the highway.
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