I’ve watched Two-Lane Blacktop. And I enjoy it for pretty much the same reasons most everyone I’ve ever met has enjoyed it: cars, the right noises, the nostalgia of that time period…maybe just because you like hearing James Taylor drop a few F-bombs. Whatever works. The characters are not named, however: The Driver, The Mechanic, The Girl, and Warren Oats’ “G.T.O”, who represented the outsider when it came to automotive culture, trying to buy his way in yet never fitting quite right. I’ll be honest in that of all of my like-aged car-minded friends, there really isn’t much thought given to the roles everybody plays in the group, but it’s still there: those who can and will drive the absolute hell out of the car with all of the skill they can muster, those with the technical skill and knowledge who tune their cars to be the best they can be, and those who are like The Girl in a sense: they enjoy being around, even if they don’t wrench or wheel like the other two do. For them it’s all about the companionship and the atmosphere.
I’ve only been in a couple of groups. The first was a group of Subaru tuners in Washington State. All of them liked to drive, but you could see those who loved the rally side and those who loved the track side. Some went out and had a blast on the course, and some were in the staging area, checking tires, verifying tune, and working the course out in their head so they could be the best. The loose crew I ran with in Arizona had a couple of drivers and a couple of tuners, and a lot of people who liked what we did. We even had a couple of G.T.O.’s who tried like hell, but something about what that person would do just didn’t make sense to the rest of us.
While I can and do wrench, I’ll handily admit that I’m a driver first and foremost. I figured out vehicle operation before kindergarten. I could do a good burnout by the time I was twelve, drift a car when I was thirteen, and by the time I got my license just before my 17th birthday, I was figuring out apexes, cornering with throttle input and the joys of canyon carving. If you want to see me at my best, put me behind the wheel and cut me loose. So my question to you, reader, is this: Where do you fall in?
The driver! Bangin gears in a rat motored 55 yeah, the driver.
The mechanic.
Big willie Robinson in the opening scene!!
Driver and Mechanic
Mechanic.
I started working on cars out of necessity : couldn’t pay to have them fixed.
Now I work on cars for love of the game. The research, design & fabrication… love it.
I can get my rig around pretty well in 4wd but dont’ suspect I’m anyone special behind the wheel.
I would want to be the Driver. I am the mechanic out of necessity. 🙁
I will say that I am a bit of all four.
Driver: I like to bang gears and hammer on my car now and again.
Mechanic: I do most of my own work, though I do admit that I am no Smokey Yunick.
Girl: I like hanging around gearheads. I don’t know every aspect of the hobby and am often the no nothing newb depending on where I am at.
GTO: I see him as the guy hiding from what life dealt him and just hitting the road to escape. See the country and meet new people. No, he is no wrench turning gearhead, I can relate to some of his character.
Mechanic. My friends marveled at the fact when I “checked the jets” the car went faster.
Thanks Dick Landy for showing me how to read plugs back in 1981.
I always felt the Girl wasn’t really just hanging out, she wanted (needed) something from the other 3 characters. She also paid for it (with sex), in the screen play she paid Mechanic and Driver. She also paid her way with some cash. She figured out she didn’t fit in so she left.
GTO may have been running from something, or too something , or just out for an epic road trip but without a drought he was a BS (not BangShift) artist of the first order.
I’m a little of all of them….
The mechanic.. The only one who gets laid in the whole movie 😉
The driver of the 55 cause thats what I do..
I could definitely be the mechanic………hell even I could’ve remembered his
lines.
But I love banging gears in a shoebox…….so the driver is who I’d be.
The driver! As much as I like working on cars, driving the piss out of them is way better!
‘Driver’ , just like the movie character, I do not ‘do’ relationships with chicks very well. I’m ALL ‘racer’ ……
Thing is, the movie was nostalgic when it came out. I saw it when it came out. We just wished things were that simple, seems all they did was adjust the valves. Dunno, don’t get me wrong, I loved the movie, and, even briefly considered putting a rediculous straight axle in the 55 I owned at the time. Seemed more to me to be a dream sequence wistful thinkig wanna be race car nomads rebel without a cause thing to me. Maybe I need to see it again after all these years and see if I can sit through it.
Most definitely driver. Fearless or brainless, I will drive the hell out of it. Luckily I have some great mechanic friends who are ALWAYS fixing some issue I created in my 55.
Mechanic, What I did for 35 years.