>If there's one thing this nation needs, it's bigger cars. That's why
I'm excited that Ford is coming out with a new mound o' metal that
will offer consumers even more total road-squatting mass than
the current leader in the humongous-car category,
the popular Chevrolet Suburban Subdivision-
>the first passenger automobile designed to be,
right off the assembly line, visible from the Moon.
>I don't know what the new Ford will be called.
Probably something like the "Ford Untamed Wilderness Adventure." In
the TV commercials, it will be shown splashing through rivers,
charging up rocky mountainsides, swinging
on vines, diving off cliffs, racing through the
surf and fighting giant sharks hundreds of feet
>beneath the ocean surface-all the daredevil
things that cars do in Sport Utility Vehicle
Commercial World, where nobody ever drives
on an actual road. In fact, the interstate highways in Sport Utility
Vehicle Commercial World, having been abandoned by humans,
are teeming with deer, squirrels, birds and other
wildlife species that have fled from the forest
to avoid being run over by nature-seekers in multi-ton vehicles
barreling through the underbrush at 50 miles per hour.
In the real world, of course, nobody drives Sport
Utility Vehicles in the forest, because when you
have paid upwards of $40,000 for a transportation
investment, the last thing you want is squirrels
pooping on it. No, if you want a practical
"off-road" vehicle, you get yourself a 1973
American Motors Gremlin, which combines the advantage of
not being worth worrying about with the advantage of being so ugly
that poisonous snakes flee from it in terror.
In the real world, what people mainly do with their Sport Utility
Vehicles, as far as I can tell, is try to maneuver them into and out
of parking spaces. I base this statement on my local
supermarket, where many of the upscale patrons drive Chevrolet
Subdivisions. I've noticed that these people often purchase
just a couple of items-maybe a bottle of diet water and a two-ounce
package of low-fat dried carrot shreds-which they put into the back
of their Subdivisions, which have approximately
the same cargo capacity, in cubic feet, as Finland. This means there
is plenty of room left over back there in case, on the way home, if
these people decide to pick up something
else, such as a herd of bison.
Then comes the scary part: getting the Subdivision out of the parking
space. This is a challenge, because the driver apparently cannot,
while sitting in the driver's seat, see all the way to either end of
the vehicle. I drive a compact car, and on a number of
occasions I have found myself trapped behind
a Subdivision backing directly toward me, its
massive metal butt looming high over my head,
making me feel like a Tokyo pedestrian looking
up at Godzilla. I've tried honking my horn, but the Subdivision
drivers can't hear me, because they're always
talking on cellular phones the size of Chiclets
("The Bigger Your Car, The Smaller Your Phone,"
that is their motto). I don't know who they're talking to. Maybe
they're negotiating with their bison suppliers. Or maybe
they're trying to contact somebody in the same
area code as the rear ends of their cars, so they
can find out what's going on back there.
All I know is, I'm thinking of carrying marine flares, so I can fire
them into the air as a warning to Subdivision drivers that they're
about to run me over.
Although frankly I'm not sure they'd care if they did. A big reason
why they bought a Sport Utility Vehicle is "safety," in the sense of,
"you, personally, will be safe, although every now
and then you may have to clean the remains
of other motorists out of your wheel wells."
>
Anyway, now we have the new Ford, which will be even larger than the
Subdivision, which I imagine means it will have separate decks for the
various classes of passengers, and possibly,
way up in front by the hood ornament, Leonardo DiCaprio showing Kate
Winslet how to fly. I can't wait until one of these
babies wheels into my supermarket parking lot.
>
Other motorists and pedestrians will try to flee in terror, but
they'll be sucked in by the Ford's powerful gravitational field and
become
stuck to its massive sides like so many refrigerator
magnets. They won't be noticed, however, by the
Ford's driver, who will be busy whacking at the side
of his or her head, trying to dislodge his or her new
cell phone, which is the size of a single grain
of rice and has fallen deepinto his or her ear canal.
>
And it will not stop there. This is America, darn it, and Chevrolet
is not about to just sit by and watch Ford walk away with the coveted
title of Least Sane Motor Vehicle. No, cars will keep
getting bigger: I see a time, not too far from now,
when upscale suburbanites will haul their overdue movies back to the
video-rental store in full-size, 18-wheel tractor-trailers with
names like The Vagabond. It will be a proud
time for all Americans, a time for us to cheer
for our country. We should cheer loud, because
we'll be hard to hear, inside the wheel wells.
|