So I’m writing to you from behind the wheel of a car I’ve never seen. In person, anyway. But this car, she’s beautiful. And smart. And completely irresistible. I’ve kind of fallen in love with her. I’m sitting here behind the wheel of Neil Young’s LincVolt (in my mind), just drumming my fingers on the steering wheel, and thinking. I’m trying to figure out why she matters so much to me. LincVolt is a 1959 Lincoln Continental Mark IV currently being converted to an eco-friendly vehicle that will achieve more than 100MPG with zero emissions.
She is the most unlikely eco-friendly vehicle you will ever see. At more than 2½ tons and 19½ feet long, she has been lovingly referred to by her owner as “The Flying Brick,” an apt moniker. The ’59 Lincoln, designed at a time when American cars were at the height of tail fin and heft absurdity, was chosen by Neil for that very reason: If this car can be earth-friendly, then surely yours can be too. That’s cool, right? Move on. Right? I can’t! I keep thinking about her. I’m in love! I had to find out why.
Maybe LV (that’s what I call her) matters so much to me because I love Neil Young so much. Well, yeah, sure, that’s part of it. Anyone who knows me would tell you I’m the Number One Fan of The Man From Tennessee, uh, Omemee. I’m pretty sure there’s a wanted poster with my picture on it in his manager’s mailroom. But it’s more than that, somehow. Maybe it’s Kevin’s fault.
Kevin, my older brother and only sibling had one passion and one passion only: cars. I spent my childhood playing with not dolls but Matchbox cars, whiling away the warm September evenings not hand-in-hand with a boyfriend but trailing after my brother and best friend, trolling the lots of every car dealer in town, inspecting the new models the day they rolled off the trailer. Family road trips meant, for my brother and me, one of our two favorite games: Name That Car!
The year, make, and model of the other cars on the road shot out of our mouths as if our lives depended on it; if I could beat my brother to the punch on even one, I had won. The latest fashions in tail lights, tail fins, and bumpers were as familiar to me as the painter’s pants, Earth shoes, and maxi skirts I tried to keep up with in the hallways of our big public school. (The other favorite game of ours, well, uh, his, was Car & Squirrel. You can imagine how that one went down. You know. Who played the car and who played the squirrel? Ugh. Sometimes it’s hard to be the youngest.)
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Article comments
1 - Lisa McKay
Speaking of poetry and sparks, Karen, this is a wonderful article. Thanks for writing it -- you've managed to take an important, but invariable dry, topic and make it speak to the imagination (not unlike the LincVolt itself). Thank you!
2 - thrasher
Hi K,
Nice. Very nice.
The LV crew is smiling somewhere up above.
We've had another fork in the road.
Got to get back to the garden, the age of romanticism and the age of wonder.
bye, LA. LMYR.
out where the pavement turns to sand,
t
3 - Geldolf
I love articles that can keep a story personal and intimate while still discussing larger and more complex issues. It makes traditional dry material come alive. Susan Sontag and HS Thompson are two other writers that come to mind who have that gift. Keep on writing in the free world
4 - Eileen F.
Wow. Great stuff, Karen. I just ordered James Hillman's "The Soul's Code" on amazon and then read this! I'm sure this extensive experimentation with electricity is as coded in Mr. Young's DNA, as writing is in yours. Now, if *I* can just figure out what I was put here for... : )
5 - Deadbeat Dads
Great story. How's the project coming? Do you have progress pics on here somewhere?