In yesterday's "Springtime in New England" post I mentioned that my car had a name. Not "The Purple Rocket"--that's just a nickname. No, my car's name is "Vanessa". Vanessa is a 2003 Chrysler PT Cruiser GT 2.4L Turbo in a metallic burgundy-purple shade that Chrysler calls Deep Cranberry Pearl. She's my very first new car (since 1983 I've owned/operated many used vehicles, some junky, some not so junky--topic for another day). I love this car.

I'm not really a car nut. At least I thought I wasn't. I've always liked the look of the more shapely vehicles (Corvettes, Miatas, Porsches, both versions of the Beetle, the Neon, etc.) but I've never gone bonkers over an automobile. My wife got her first new car (a forest green 2003 Subaru Outback) a year ago, and I think it is a very full-featured vehicle, but I certainly didn't go nuts over it. Vanessa is a different story.

I purchased Vanessa from Robert's Chrysler of Fitchburg, sight unseen. I walked in there with a grocery list of features that I wanted:

I got to hand it to those guys, they bent over backwards to find my car for me. They kept coming back with cars that almost fit the bill, and I kept gently urging them to keep looking. Eventually they found Vanessa at a dealership 70 miles away in New Hampshire. The search software that they were using returned it as the only match on the east coast.

The problem was that somebody was in negotiations to buy the vehicle from the other dealer, but they were having second thoughts and stringing the other dealer along. Before the contact at the other dealership would agree to let my dealer take the car, we had to get his boss's okay. That took a day or so, but eventually the way was cleared and I started the buying process. Within a day, a staffmember from the dealer went up to New Hampshire and drove my new car back to Fitchburg, they registered the car, I signed my life away, and she was mine. The dealer told me that the employee who had driven my PT back from New Hampshire called the experience "a blast".

On my way out of the dealership I bumped into the guy who had driven the car back from New Hampshire.

"Are you Chuck? The guy who bought that cranberry GT?", he asked.

"Yeah, that's me!" I answered.

"Listen," he said with a grin, "keep it under a hundred."

If I were to describe driving Vanessa in one word, that word would be "Zoooom!" With her powerful little turbocharged engine, Vanessa is much more responsive and spritely on the road than my previously standard fare of Honda Civics and Toyota Corollas. I have not determined the car's maximum speed, and I have no intention of doing so. Suffice it to say that I have caught myself driving at speeds that not only could I not reach before, I never would have considered reaching before. As a result, I put the cruise control on a lot so as to keep the car at a safe speed.

A friend at work had cautioned me that because she is a turbo, the car would have handling issues in the snow. I'm happy to report that she handles GREAT in the snow, and her traction control system is a wonderful asset.

The car has a 6-disc CD player mounted in the dash, and the night before picking it up at the dealer I burned six CDs with my favorite tunes. I like a lot of different stuff, but I am partial to sultry female singers, and as a result sprinkled in many places on the discs were various such artists. In fact disc 3 was entirely devoted to such talents as Suzanne Vega, Dido, Madonna, Enya, Fiona Apple, Kirsty MacColl, Merril Bainbridge, and Vanessa Daou.

If you've never heard of Vanessa Daou, and you like sultry femme vocalists, I heartily recommend her, but you may find her somewhat shocking. She's definitely not something to listen to when the kids are around. One of her early albums "Zipless" was basically a collection of Erica Jong poetry set to music. That one was a little too shocking for me, but her later CDs, swimming with bisexual lovesongs, are amazing IMHO. Her voice is low and beautiful, her lyrics are poetic, and she sings in a haunting half-whispering way. Great stuff to listen to when you are alone with someone you love. It was after Miss Daou that Vanessa was named, because she too was sleek, graceful, beautiful, and had a whispery song of her own.

Within a week "it" became "she", and "the car" became "Vanessa". I say hello to it in the morning. I thank it for a nice ride when I get out. I love taking it to the carwash. I even washed it by hand in 40 degree weather, using special cleaners on the rims, and a rubber-polish on the tirewalls to make them shiny. Am I crazy?

The phenomenon of anthropomorphizing one's vehicle is not unique to myself. Witness:

  • "Melody" is a 1971 VW Beetle
  • "Granny" is a 1993 Ford Tempo
  • "Sunkist" is a 2000-era VW Bug (the person who took this photo mistakenly called the car "Sunshine" and the owner sent them a message to correct them)
  • "Alexis Naomi-Tsaf" is a 1993 Eagle Talon
  • Apparently somebody named their car "Chuck"
  • Finally here's a discussion thread about names people give their cars, some of the more memorable ones listed there are: Cocotte, Sue Baloo, Nanook, The Green Whore, WonderWagon, and Pepper

Maybe I'm crazy, but it's nice to know I'm not alone.

PT owners seem to be something of a subculture. Often people in PTs coming from the opposite direction will flash their lights at me, and wave as I drive by. Often I will come out of a store or a building to find that another PT has been parked next to mine. Shortly after buying the car, I stopped at the Searstown Mall in Leominster MA to do some shopping, and when I came out I found a tricked-out limited-edition cruiser parked in front of my baby. It was black, and had chrome added everywhere... much fancier than mine (but it wasn't a turbo!) I left a brief note on the windshield of the other cruiser before driving off, this is what it said:

Nice car! :-)
(my email address)@plastereddragon.com
I got an e-mail only a few hours later from the owner of the other cruiser, a woman named Sandra: 
> Thanks for your nice note with the  :>).......we purposely parked near
> you to scope your PT out... Loved the color.. mine is the only chrome
> trim one around that I've spotted.. I call it my "little black
> dress".....I just got it early Sept, but it's an '03 leftover.. I do like
> it , but I miss my 5-speed... I notice you have the "hot model" !!!!!!
> Happy motoring!

Guess it's not just a guy thing!