Horse Accessories

Using Engines, Horse Power, Mufflers And More To Measure A Man

In order to understand the very diverse men in my life, I try to size them up employing their personal relationships with their autos.

My father is outdoorsy – a geologist by profession, although now retired. Nick a rock here. Collect a fossil there. He is a man’s man, but has never showed any fondness for machinery. Although brought up to be a gentleman, engines and gears had a way of bringing out the inner beast. Some of my earliest memories involve my dad bent over some motor, cursing out the Industrial Age.

My father would always change the tyres on our Volkswagen camper, but I never saw him fawning over aftermarket center caps or grille work. While he would now and again dab some Rust-o-leum onto rusted spots on the van or put water in the radiator, you would never see him take a Q-tip to the dashboard knobs or scrub the headlights with a toothbrush.

Then Again, my father-in-law is a complete car man through and through. I wouldn’t be stunned if he knew every make, model, and year of every vehicle that ever travelled the Pennsylvania turnpike. He is happy to spend a Weekend afternoon checking out cars at an Antique Car Club Show or scrubbing the whitewalls on his car.

Growing up in rural northern Pennsylvania, he rapidly graduated from teething ring to pliers and pitchfork. Farm boys acquired the ABCs of mechanics along with animal farming at an early age. The affinity with motors and wheels and all the associated gizmos stuck, although fondness for animals did not. He left the farm to go to college and never looked back.

My husband is a professor, just like his father and my father, but that is where their similarities finish. He doesn’t meticulously clean his cars, collect rocks, or go camping. He likes to spend Saturdays enjoy coffee at a local Starbuck, marking papers, and catching up with friends on Facebook.

He has no problem putting petrol in his car, but he would probably keep his American Racing center caps as paperweights in his office before he would pimp his ride with them. No disrespect if you’re a center cap mind you. He makes the time to vacuum his car every other season and doesn’t mind riding around with the words “wash me” scribbled somewhere in the grime on his car.

The young man that my daughter dates is a pepped up version of my father-in-law. When I have the chance, I am going to send them to an auto parts store together so they can speedily bond. My daughter gave her boyfriend a performance exhaust kit for his birthday and he is thrilled that the exhaust rumbles deeply. He says it lets everybody know he’s arrived. My daughter grins saying, “I can hear him coming from more than a mile away.” It’s obvious that she’s in the throes of young love!

Yes, men and their relationships with cars are complicated. Sometimes their relationships reflect an expression of a man’s maleness, while others treat cars as a foe – a needed nuisance to conquer or at least endure.

Some men blaspheme their cars and some name them. Many men give their cars plenty of TLC while some fight for bragging rights because their vehicle has the highest mileage or is the most beat up. Men exchange car stories over beers, just like war tales are shared around a campfire.

Why else is the auto industry capable of selling billions of dollars of chrome, mag wheels, seat covers, backup sensors, window tinting, upgrade headlamps, dashboard accoutrements and aftermarket center caps, tailpipes, hoods, auto alarms and decals?

Whether the wheels in the drive are fodder for cussing or cooing, I believe there’s some inevitable mechanistic mojo going on – something akin to “If you build it, he will come.”

HORSE ACCESSORIES – HORSE SADDLE RACK and PADS