Ever hear someone talk about the visceral feel of a car? How a good car can embed parts of itself into your senses, where you can hear, feel, see and smell it? Yeah…meet my visceral car. I have plenty of memory regarding a red-on-red Ford Tempo. I can hear the raspy four-banger trying to move the car around. I can feel that 1980s Ford “chunk” feel that every last car they made had. I remember the “mad mouse” automatic seat belts and how much they pissed off everybody who had to drive the car. I remember the oddly warm feel of the red interior and my God, the smell of whatever glues and plastics that Ford was using at the time. And that was just one car…there was the rental car that one individual beat to within an inch of it’s life on dirt paths just because it was the only way the sled would spin a tire. There were the official cars in public service duty that seemed to be around every corner growing up. There was the baby-blue one that always…and I swear, ALWAYS…did nineteen miles an hour driving down Uintah Street as I was trying to get to my pizza job in high school.

Then they vanished. And it’s weird in a way, that whole thing about “absence makes the heart grow fonder”. We finally sold the Chevy Cruze we’d been living with for the past year this week. As good as it’s fuel economy was, the rest of the car just wasn’t up to our expectations. I’m sure I’m out of my own head for thinking this, but I wonder how well a five-speed Tempo or Topaz coupe from the second generation would’ve worked out instead. They weren’t bad cars, they just weren’t exciting ones. Squint a little and you might even see a hint of Fox Mustang…much like these cans of sparkling water have a “hint” of fruit flavor.