Character & Soul
It’s been something i’ve been meaning to write about for some time, but never really took the time to do so. A question i’ve been faced with and i, myself, have questioned on more then one occasion. What gives a car character?
What is it in a car that gives it a form of ‘character’ or ‘soul’? What is it in certain cars that just gives us a buzz everytime we start them, drive them or plainly, just look at them.
Personally, that emotional aspect of a car which just cannot be defined because as much as every individual is unique, so is the same for cars. Could it be the power, speed or awesome handling? I doubt so, as much as i love Ferraris, Lamborghinis and every other exoti-carbon-fibred vehicle out there, sharing that garage in my heart are also the Fiat 500s, Mitsubishi i’s and my E30. I have a theory though, cars we usually define having ‘character’ are all flawed. Think about it, in life, how many of us ever rooted for the Mr Know-It-All or the Mr Super-High-Achievers. We all know these people are going to succeed in life anyway, so why bother. There’s nothing really exciting about rooting for the expected. (F1 with Schumacher?) As humans, somehow, we usually root for the underdog. It just makes things all that little bit more interesting, all that little bit more exciting. It connects us to our emotions, cheering on for the unexpected.
So where does all that talk about emotion relate to automobiles? Why are cars with character flawed? Well, if we were to relate cars to people, the perfect car that does everything well is Mr I-Know-I’m-Better-Than-You, it’s going to be a great car, it’s probably even going to be the car of the year, ticking all the right boxes in automotive surveys and tests. But does a great car make a car with a soul? I doubt so. So why are cars with soul flawed? Why must it that for a car to have character, something must be wrong?
Maybe it’s something about a car that isn’t perfect that somehow connects us on a personal level, as humans, we are all flawed. So maybe, somehow, a flawed car just makes it seem more ‘human’. A flawed car falls sick just like everyone of us, a flawed car sometimes has trouble getting up in the morning, it’s just like us. So somehow, we probably on some level, managed to associate all these problems with it having a ‘character’. But of course i don’t mean all cars that keep breaking down are soulful, otherwise we’d probably have Lada Samaras on our living room walls. There’s where the balancing of good and bad comes in, a car can have flaws, but only if it is balanced out with a sprinkling of an eagerness to make up for it. It might break down once in a while, but when it finally gets up and starts running, you’ll know the journey is going to be a blast. You’ll know that the little engine running in there will give what it can to make you happy, even if it breaks again a few miles down the road. The way a car delivers feedback to the driver’s inputs will be their conversation. This eagerness could probably be loosely translated as a car being ‘fun to drive’.
We all know by now that speed doesn’t equate to ‘fun’. Otherwise flying in planes will be the most enjoyable part of any journey. I’ve had the good fortune of being able to drive (though for a very short time) 2 very different cars within a short (relatively) span of time. It’s most likely going to be a matter of contention but let me state again, this is my own personal view. That’s what i think matters most anyway, your own personal view. Everyone has different opinons so there is no wrong or right here. One grabbed my heart and refuses to let go even till this day, another just kept making me wonder why am i not falling head over heels for it. The cars in this example are the BMW Z4 M and the 335i Cabriolet. I know everyone is going to shout at me about how different these 2 cars are, but hear me out. I love them both, they are both great machines with amazing engineering.
I could never really explain the difference between these two beside mumbling stuff about handling and raw power versus refinement and all that journalist-ish stuff. But as a person, i am deeply in love with the Z4 M. That car has a soul, it has passion, from the moment you start the key, you know it was built by people who love cars. That tingle of excitement i get everytime i drive the car and rev it up to the redline, i can never forget. That car to me, is a car deep with heart and soul. I don’t want to bother about power figures or how it handled at all sometimes (even though it was in fact fantastic on both counts), the car in fact was just plainly “exciting”, and that to me, is all that mattered.
The 335i Cabriolet, is a great car no doubt, it does everything well, it even sounds superb. But somehow, it never really captured my heart, i struggled to understand why. It handled pretty good, it was fast, powerful and looked nice even in that golden-ish hue. It had a fancy roof which folds into a 3-piece sandwich and the girls love the car. (Shopping bag space and all) Me? For some reason, i didn’t. It just felt so, proper and almost too good for it’s own sake. I didn’t love it because it was boring. It did everything that mattered but it didn’t feel like it was trying. Floor the throttle, let’s go, ho-hum ho-hum. It is in fact, one of automotive’s Mr-Know-It-Alls, i didn’t want to root for it. A fantastic and great car, but sadly, lacking in passion for and from me. Park these two cars next to each other and the 335i will probably be the one all knowledgeable with her nose in the air and the Z4M will just respond with a middle finger waving wildly.
Thinking about all the cars i’ve ever loved in my life, there isn’t a car in that list which i cannot pinpoint a flaw, too uncomfortable, too small, too big, too ugly, too outrageous, too hard to drive, too loud, and the list of complaints just goes on and on and on. But the fact of the matter is, i love all these cars with a big chunk of my heart. Even my old E30 gives me a smile once in a while.
In closing, all that i’ve written is probably just a view from me, one person. Which kind of brings me to this conclusion that cars do not by default come with a soul or a character, rather, it is us, who give them their character. It is us whom associate feelings and emotions with these machines, giving them a life of their own is entirely, our doing. Why then flawed machines? Perhaps it is cars which are flawed which get our emotions involved in the first place.
I’m sure everyone has their own opinion on what gives a car soul. Maybe it was their first car, or maybe, it was the car you used when you first met your wife?
So everyone out there has their own story. What’s yours?