I’m A Car Guy

A few years ago, I was having early morning coffee with Steve Coonan on South Congress street in Austin, Texas. He was staying a few days after the Round Up for a little “r & r” and I was still in town doing job interviews. I saw it as an opportunity to pick the brain of someone I have a ton of respect for and did so with reckless abandon – question after question. At one point, my questioning went towards writers. It was then that Steve blurted out one of the most memorable quotes that I’ve ever heard.

“You can find writers and try to make them car guys or your can find car guys and try to make them writers. Finding someone that is both is more than rare.”

To this day, when I think about Steve’s quote my mind tumbles off within itself. I think about all of the great books I’ve ever read – The Godfather, The Art of War, The Adventures of Huck Finn, The Great Gatsby, The Catcher In The Rye, etc… See if I’m one thing in life, I’m a realist. I like to think I know myself and my own limitations pretty well. And if there is one other thing I know, it’s that I’m (without any doubt) a car guy.

So if Steve’s quote is fact, and I believe it is, then the chances of me being a REAL writer are pretty slim. It’s a disappointing realization for a guy that essentially makes his living with words, but it is one that I have come to terms with. See, I believe writing for the sake of writing is art and writing for the sake of communicating to a specific audience is a science/art mix. I’ll never be an artist with words, but I believe I can communicate to my audience as well as the next guy. I can live with that.

This realization has also helped me classify my own heroes with a pen – the guys that took me from a kid purely interested in going fast professionally to a young man with a deep running passion for old cars. They may or may not be writers of the same caliber as Mario Puzo, but in the end it really doesn’t matter. Their words made change. Here they are:

1. Rob Fortier. It’s easy to claim a bias here as Rob is a good pal of mine, but Rob actually reached me before I knew him. He was writing for Custom Rodder and I was a teenager with no real knowledge of cool. With nothing more than attitude, Rob taught me what cool was.

2. Pat Ganahl. If I remember correctly, Pat was the name Steve brought up as a guy that actually had both within. At that point, I had never met Pat and still don’t know him on any level, but feel as though I do simply because I can relate so well to everything he writes. Pat manages to write about the present and give it so much importance that it feels like you are reading history.

3. Don Montgomery. He was the first guy that was writing about traditional hot rods that I ever really read. His seemingly low budget series of books covering the early days of hot rodding literally pushed the quick release Momo steering wheels out of my hands and thrust a Bell 4-spoke into them. His simple words covered a simple time and made everything seem so picturesque.

4. Dean Batchelor. I saved my favorite for last. In English, Dean quite simply wasn’t a writer to everyday folks. He was, however, more than a writer to a guy like me. He was a guy that lived the life of our dreams and had the ability to express those experiences as well as any Norman Rockwell illustration could. You can’t read a Batchelor book without wanting to strap on a leather helmet and smash the throttle to 200 mph with obsolete technology behind you and a real risk of death in front of you. Dean Batchelor made this world.

Even after writing the glowing words about my heroes above, I’m still a realist. I know they have (or had) their short comings just like we all do. More than anything, I’m glad that they all are (or were) car guys and I’m appreciative as hell that they weren’t afraid to write about.