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THERE ARE some really ugly cars on the roads these days. Every time I drive down the highway I vow to write this column, but I always seem to put those bad-dream vehicles out of my mind by the time I get home.
Now the nightmares are getting more frequent.
Americans--especially young men--have always prided themselves on their individual means of transportation. Before automobiles, a fellow always rode his sleekest horse to the church social to impress the girls or drove the fanciest surrey he could find when he went courting.
Cars offered an even greater opportunity for a guy to express his individuality. After all, you can't paint a horse bright red or jack up its rear end.
By the 1960s, women had gotten into the act and there was nothing sexier than a blonde cruising down the highway in a cherry-red Mustang convertible.
For more than 100 years, cars have been much more than tools to get people from one place to another. They have been opportunities for individuals to make public statements about themselves.
So what are the people who drive these new Mini Coopers trying to say?
Granted, I don't have the best taste in the world, but as far as I'm concerned, this has got to be the ugliest automobile to roam the highways since the Edsel.
The thing looks like a hearse for Lilliputians, a station wagon to carry the Seven Dwarfs' instruments when they go on a rock tour, a partially stepped-on tin can.
The first time I saw a Mini Cooper I thought it was a renovated 1950s Fiat, one that had been saved from the junkyard seconds before the hydraulic smasher had completely squished it.
Then again, I considered the possibility that this little dilly might be a malnourished 1956 Ford station wagon that some Junkyard Wars guy had whittled down with a blowtorch.
No, upon closer inspection I discovered that it was a real car, one that somebody had actually paid money for.
My first look at the Mini Cooper forced me to completely revamp my ugly-car list. The Mini would replace the PT Cruiser as my choice for the biggest eyesore on the road.
The PT Cruiser! The first time I saw one of these babies I again thought somebody had rebuilt an old jalopy, maybe one of those 1930s deals that the police chased crooks around with in James Cagney movies. Again I was wrong.
The PT Cruiser reminds me of a 1937 Plymouth that a guy named Red, an old retired mechanic friend of mine in Big Stone Gap, used to haul his hound dogs up and down the holler with.
Red had taken the back seat out of this old contraption, souped up the motor and given the beast a new coat of ugly navy-blue paint. When the restoration process was complete, he dubbed his rolling dog kennel "The Blue Goose."
When things got too hectic at home, Red would load his hunting dogs into the Blue Goose and head up to Black Mountain. There, on the road to Lynch, Ky., those old hounds would chase groundhogs.
Red would dig the woodchucks out of their holes, whack them over the head with a club and then feed them to his dogs--who would proceed to throw up fur all the way home.
Red drove the Blue Goose up and down the mountain chasing groundhogs until his wife began to insist that Red was out chasing women instead of groundhogs.
I could never picture Red and some woman sharing romantic moments while heaving hound dogs regurgitated groundhog meat in the rear of the Blue Goose. But you know how wives can sometimes be, so to keep peace in the family, Red retired the Blue Goose. It was rusting away in the back yard the last time I saw it.
When I saw my first PT Cruiser I was sure someone had salvaged and restored that old hound-dog hauler. But, no! This was the latest innovation in ugly cars.
Third on my I-would-never-be-seen-in-public-with-a-woman-who-drove-one-of-those-cars list is the new and improved Volkswagen Beetle, or bug.
I once owned a new 1967 VW bug (which my brother crashed into a horse one Saturday night), but I think I'll pass on the new style. That thing looks too much like an armadillo about to be squished on a Texas highway.
I have a friend who owns one--in a pukey green color--and I keep waiting for the grill of an Edsel to open up and devour it. That would be the humane thing.
I guess I should also include the Hummer on my ugly-vehicle list. Every time I pass one of those jobs I crouch down in the seat because I'm afraid the driver is some Republican looking for weapons of mass destruction.
Of course, ugly cars have always been around. My first automobile was a 1956 Chrysler Windsor with tail fins a mile long and a trunk that would hold a herd of elephants. I also owned an ugly green 1971 Datsun that still gives me nightmares.
Then, of course, there is the aforementioned Edsel, the king of ugly.
The good thing about these ugly cars is that they don't breed. Can you imagine the offspring of an Edsel and a new VW bug? Scary!
They say people often resemble their dogs and their cars. I've seen some folks that look like PT Cruisers, a few VW bugs and an occasional Hummer.
But I've never seen anyone who resembled a Mini Cooper. What's more, I hope I never do.
Happy motoring.
DONNIE JOHNSTON covers the Culpeper area for The Free Lance-Star. Write him at The Free Lance-Star, 616 Amelia St., Fredericksburg, Va. 22401; or by fax at 540/373-8455.