Like many car lovers, I sometimes pass the time by reading reviews of vehicles I’ll never buy. It’s like reading travel pieces about climbing Machu Picchu. I’m never going to do it – I’m more a “climb into a Bimmer and drive to Cabo” type – but it’s fun to imagine. Over the past few weeks, I’ve read about the new Audi A4 and the 2017 Dodge Challenger, which a critic called a “meathead of an American car.” Recently, I was gripped by an old review of the 2016 VW Beetle Dune, a sporty convertible. Its headline read, “Fun to drive, not fun to be seen in.”
Poetry. “Fun to drive, not fun to be seen in.” Those nine words sum up an overlooked category of automobile.
We all know cars that are fun to drive and fun to be seen in. These are the luxury vehicles with names that are interchangeable with the names of the children of the affluent people who own them: Bentley, Porsche, Lexus, Mercedes.
We all know vehicles that are not fun to drive and not fun to be seen in. These have the word “family” used prominently in any advertising copy. They have names that sound like real or imaginary exotic places that the exhausted people who drive them dream about escaping to: Pacifica, Sienna, Sedona, Metris.
There are even cars that are fun to be seen in but not fun to drive. Stretch limousines fit this description. Can you imagine parallel parking one?
The fun to drive, not fun to be seen in category, however, is more opaque. For instance, Hummers fit this description. Hummers are fun to drive and, in the right conditions, are cool to be seen in, such as war zones or remote areas where their design allows them to handle terrain. But when you’re cruising around downtown Hamilton in a Hummer, it seems out of place. You’re trying too hard. Not cool.
Until around 2013, riding a moped would have been in the fun to drive, not fun to be seen in bracket. They weren’t associated with environmental awareness – they were associated with a lack of hygiene and bad life choices.
When a driver turns his or her car into a rolling billboard then it automatically becomes fun to drive, not fun to be seen in. There’s something desperate about it. You’re either shilling for some big corporation or you’re trying to promote your own business and, like any Canadian, I find public attempts at self-improvement uncomfortable.
Time is a factor. Cars that were once solid fun to drive, not fun to be seen in vehicles can, as the decades roll by, become fun to drive and cool to be seen in. Case in point: the AMC Gremlin. In the 1980s, this was a car that no one wanted to be seen in but was actually kind of fun to drive. My friend Pete and I would do donuts in empty icy parking lots in his Gremlin. Very fun. Today, anyone driving a mint-condition AMC Gremlin would be met by adoring stares from the hipster community.
How often you drive said vehicle also determines whether a car is considered fun to drive, not fun to be seen in. I would love to drive one of the six active Oscar Mayer Wienermobiles on the road today (Oscar Mayer executives, are you listening?). That would be fun to drive and undeniably fun to be seen in. When you see the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile in person you know it’s going to be a good day and you envy the dude driving it. That said, if I had to drive it to work every day then the fun-to-be-seen-in factor might fade – but only a bit.
Which leads us to the Beetle Dune. The model the reviewer tested came with a gold exterior and that turned him off. For me, that’s not a problem. It doesn’t matter if it comes in gold, brown, zombie green or depression black, it’s a convertible and that makes it fun to drive and fun to be seen in, no matter what.