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Hi, I’m Tom Anderson. You probably know me as the cynical, straight-shooting editorial director of the University of La Verne’s Campus Times. What you probably don’t know about me is that I was born with a rare and debilitating illness known as acute automotive fixation syndrome (AAFS). While there is no known cure for AAFS, I’m not sure I’d want it even if it existed.
Okay, so there’s no such thing as AAFS (nothing officially recognized by the medical community, anyway), but anyone who knows me well is bound to agree that mine is a very serious case.
Don’t believe me? Allow me to inform you that I currently own 56 1:18 scale model cars and trucks. As the name suggests, 1:18 means that they are 18 times smaller than their real-life counterparts, but most would just barely fit inside your average shoebox.
Even the massive wood and glass curio cabinet my folks were gracious enough to purchase to house my collection has all but run out of room for additions, though it seems I’m always finding pieces I’d love to add to the fleet. (My latest collecting kick? Australian-market GM Holdens, Chryslers and Fords. Because I can. I heart eBay.)
Of course, as neat as miniaturized replicas of cars are, you can’t start them up and take them for a spin, much less actually fit inside them. That’s why the disease has now reached its most dangerous stage: I now have the urge to start collecting real cars.
Now before you ask, “What could you possibly afford to buy on a college student’s budget?” let me just say that you don’t have to own a zillion shares of Google or be an Ivy League trust fund baby who enjoyed a $10,000 a week allowance as a kid to be able to afford some nifty rides that might also be highly coveted in the future.
Take, for example, the very rare 1990-91 Oldsmobile Cutlass Calais Quad 442. Although these cars are rather dull in appearance and feature component fit and finish that was “suspect” at best even when new (not to mention that slapping the hallowed “442” name on any Olds that wasn’t rear-wheel drive and V8 powered is still considered blaspheme by many die-hards), the fact remains that these little pocket rockets can, in the right hands, beat most present-day buzz-boxes at their own game with alarming ease.
This and the fact that the Quad 442 (and its more aesthetically pleasing successor, the Achieva SCX) wiped the floor with its rivals in Sports Car Club of America Showroom Stock racing makes you wonder why even nice, rust-free examples often struggle to hit the $3,000 mark.
Of course that’s just one of the dozens of cool, unusual and relatively affordable rides I’d like to own before I die. I’d name more of them here but a) I don’t want to eat up too much space and b) I don’t want to drive their prices up.
So why haven’t I formally joined what car-guy extraordinaire Jay Leno calls the “More Money than Brains Club?”
Well, first there’s the issue of space, or in my case, the glaring lack thereof. Second, my dad and I already have two special interest cars that we’re trying to rehabilitate back into roadworthiness. And speaking of my dad, he’s reason number three. He says that when I get to be his age, the strongest symptoms of AAFS will have fallen victim to such forces as practicality, laziness and plain old willpower.
Unfortunately, many of the best big time automotive journalists and my personal heroes (Peter Egan, Jamie Kitman, David E. Davis, Jr., etc.) have backyards and garages overflowing with “toys for big boys.”
In other words, I get the feeling that I’ll fit right in among those already working my dream job.
Consider yourselves warned.
Tom Anderson, a junior journalism major, is editorial director of the Campus Times. He can be reached by e-mail at tanderson1@ulv.edu.
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