Drive, She Said: Auto Adolescence

Excerpt from my piece at Garage Magazine. I'd run the whole story, but I'd like people to still buy magazines. Also, there's other great stories inside.

"Come on dad, give me the car tonight..."

Some of my most vivid teenage memories were wrapped in chrome and steel. My first accident, in an old '71 VW baby blue Bug, found me breaking the windshield with my face. I recall stumbling out of the wreckage, dazed, but wandering around with nary a scar (a bad concussion would come later), quipping quite seriously:  "I need a bigger fucking car." And I did. I'm a soft shell. I'm a girl. If I can't count on anyone to protect me from life's numerous perils, at least my car can. Like Scarlett O'Hara gone gearhead, my mind dramatically proclaimed something like:  "As god as my witness one day I will own a Ford Torino." And damn if I didn't honor that teen dream.

But then I also remember my obsession with smaller speedsters -- chiefly spying a friend's older, mustachioed neighbor's collection of beautiful Z cars. Somehow I found the courage (or stupidity) to shoulder tap him for alcohol and not surprisingly, he declined. He wasn't an idiot. I got some other jerk to drive me to the mini-mart (and not in a 240 Z). But that guy had to know those vintage Z cars worked like sirens to us impressionable teens -- multi-colored 240's, 260's and 280's beckoning us like Black Snake Moan.

And then there was my first real boyfriend and big time love. I was 16 he was...somewhere in his early 20's. Yes, I suppose it was wrong. But he looked like a young John Doe and he thought I was 18 (well, for one day he thought that). After I fessed up, our relationship became many a feverish night of me sneaking out of my bedroom window and jumping into his black '70s Camaro (I can't remember which year) to talk and of course, make out. At the drive-in, in the woods, outside my parent's house -- wherever. One time he knocked on my window, face covered in blood saying "My car just got in a fight with a tree. The tree won." He found himself in trouble (for something), got a truck, and we broke up before ever fully consummating the relationship (honestly). He felt like a creep. He was worried my mom would find out. He was tortured. I hated him for dumping me. That guy broke my heart. Now, I get it.

But it left a life-long impression on me. Now any black Camaro, any year, transports me right back to those nights, and the images flicker in my head like a movie, furthering my understanding of why I co-mingle cinema and classic cars and maybe even sex, so much. Live your life, drive with your memories...turn them into movies.

Which is why cars are such an important machine in teenage life, and one we've seen in cinema for years. Speeding, parking, screwing, show-boating and perhaps most importantly, escaping - escaping from school, from your parents from whatever teen demon you are quite literally, driving away from, cars are potent adolescent film fodder.  From the depression era survival of Wild Boys of the Road  (those kids driving and necking! in the 1930s) to the tragic chicken run of Rebel Without a Cause to all that sexy American muscle (and Aerosmith tickets) of Dazed and Confused, cars can work like central characters in teen movies, propelling action and aiding in some major life decisions.

Like Natalie Wood's drunken, sexually tortured parking lot looseness in Splendor in the Grass or Badlands' Charlie Starkweather inspired Kit grabbing 14-year-old Caril Fugate (named Holly and 15 in Terrence Malick's masterpiece) and heading out on a killing spree via automobile, the car isn't just a chunk of steel, a thing to get from one place to another, it's often a powerful, seductive force, tapping right into that hormone addled and excited part of the teenage brain. No wonder those kids in Over the Edge were so frustrated -- they were in junior high, and rode bikes.  I completely understand why, at the end of the movie, they smashed up and lit their parent's cars on fire.

There's more to this story. But please purchase the latest issue of Jesse James' beautiful, different Garage Magazine to read this -- my current piece and layout for my column, "Drive, She Said." Revery turns to movies, with my mind driving straight towards teens and their cars in the aforementioned pictures like Rebel Without a Cause, Splendor in the Grass, American Graffiti but most importantly, and personally to me, Badlands.

Pick up Garage Magazine at your local newstands and various stores including Barnes and Noble and 7 Eleven. Thanks to Jesse James and Amy Norris for putting together my layout -- all lovely night shots. And thanks to my great photographer, Krissie Gregory for the pictures. Look at more of Krissie's photographs of our Garage shoot here.

Read more Kim Morgan at Sunset Gun.