With the wisdom of hindsight, I realize why so many of my first dates were also my last: most women would prefer to spend an evening sharing a beautifully cooked meal and a fine Chianti, not talking about crankshaft bearings or the compression ratio of a Porsche 356.
Such was the life of a young gearhead. Only after the age of 25 or so did it dawn on me that there was a vast gulf when it came to the dreams and expectations of men (at least the ones like myself) and women (at least the kind my friends and I were drawn to). My circle was a collection of hardcore mechanical buffs whose idea of a good time was tearing apart a transmission or installing a set of Weber DCOE carburetors.
The women we were attracted to, unfortunately, ran to the sophisticate end of the scale: well-educated, fashionable, with superb taste and a balanced approach to life. These were women who envisioned intelligent conversation, vintage wines and shadowed afternoons at vine-covered stone villas.
But my friends and I didn't exactly offer an Under the Tuscan Sun experience.
Like many men, we somehow believed that our vehicles actually made us more attractive to women. Such was not the case.
This first dawned on me during my second year in journalism school, when I moved in with my good friend Ian after breaking up with my girlfriend of the time.
Ian's apartment, located above a store on Spring Garden Road in Halifax, was a shrine to the sacred (and filthy) art of motorcycle repair. Ian powered his Norton Commando motorcycle up the staircase, and parked it in the bedroom. The air was filled with the scent of parts-cleaning solvent, and the front door was marked with a long stripe of black grease where Ian had hung a chain for cleaning (a surefire turn-on for any woman!).
The fridge was empty, and the temperature in the apartment hovered just above zero – since we spent our money on the essentials (like tools and motorcycle parts), we had to enforce strict economies when it came to luxuries like food and heating oil.
While living with Ian, I recalled a story about the Manhattan bachelor pad of New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath. Joe's pad had built-in bookcases, glass-topped tables and a white shag rug so deep that it had to be cleaned with a rake. And, as far as I could tell, it had plenty of heat.
Joe was renowned for both his football chops and his magnetic appeal to women. Ian and myself were not. Unlike Joe, we weren't rich, famous, good looking or skilled. But maybe our lifestyle was also hurting our chances at female companionship. Ian had an engine case in the sink and I was baking some springs in the oven so the paint would harden up properly.
My obsession with machinery started early. I started taking bicycles apart when I was 9. By my early twenties, I was on a path that could have kept me single for the rest of my days. I drove a modified Beetle that had no heating system (I tore it out to cut weight and make way for a performance-enhancing exhaust system). My Beetle was an engineering dissertation, but women hated it – rock-hard suspension, no radio, no sound deadening … go figure.
Almost every cent I earned was spent on Snap-On wrenches, arc welders and a parts collection that filled the basement of my rented house, spilled over into the backyard and began to invade the living quarters.
Most of my friends were the same. My cousin Greg MacCluskey had a rented house packed with motorcycle projects and buckets of greasy bolts, rusted brackets and ancient wiring harnesses. In Greg's backyard was a 1970s VW wagon that he was restoring. To visiting women, the ambience was about as inviting as that house in The Silence of the Lambs.
In my third year of journalism school, I purged most of my mechanical collection. I sold off my spare engine cases and the Bilstein shocks I'd been hoarding. I gave a local mechanic my bins of spare bolts. All I had left was one toolbox, and a single car – a 1967 VW Beetle.
All the work on the Beetle had been done. I had rebuilt the engine and transmission, replaced the wheel bearings and brakes and installed new shocks and tires. The paint was good and the windshield wipers worked.
This was the car I owned when I met Marian, the woman who would become my wife. The Beetle was a humble, ordinary machine. I had built faster, better-handling cars. But Marian loved my Beetle. It was royal blue. The heater worked. That's all that mattered to her. You take the Tuscan sun where you can find it.
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