My Ride is Tougher than Yours

Quote of the day:
"Both the cockroach and the bird could get along very well without us, although the cockroach would miss us most."
--Joseph Wood Krutch

Yesterday Ford announced it is manufacturing a new limited edition of the Shelby-modified Mustang that Steve McQueen drove in “Bullitt.” They are calling it the "Bullitt."

As much as I love the amazing chase scene in that movie, I will not be buying one of the cars. Thank you very much.

Ford is burnishing its cool-muscle-car image with baby boomers, and I guess it expects that image to bleed over into other products and age groups. Dodge will soon do the same with a nostalgia-inducing Challenger.

In the 1980s I owned a 1965 Mustang for a while. I loved the way it looked, but it drove like a tank and could be loosely classified as a piece of junk. It was a very good day when I traded it in for a small fun-driving Nissan with AC and a radio that worked.

“Mustang” is a terrific car name. So are “Barracuda” and “Cougar.”

These days, non-alphanumeric car names can be a tad ridiculous (so can the letters and numbers, but that’s a different story). I especially love the “biggest and strongest” names that car makers give their vehicles: “Armada,” “Titan,” “Avenger,” “Magnum,” “Nitro,” “Avalanche,” “Tundra,” and “Sequoia.”

Now, that’s what I want. To drive a large tree. Or a vast frozen wilderness.