As parents, or so I've been told, one of their missions is to make sure their children seek-out the "right thing," whatever, however you define "thing."
Was it Spike Lee who taught us to Do The Right Thing? Right or wrong, I can only write about it... I'm not a parent. But I do know what I know- a thing, or two about cars.
My mother, God love her, somehow got it into her head that she wanted a new car after thirteen years. Something "zippy," as she called it- something smaller, sporty, easy and fun to drive; yet comfortable and smooth like her '98 Lexus ES300.
While many would think this "zippy" would be easy... You don't know my mother- or my father, or our, my family's foray into performance, luxury automobiles.
No, zippy... it ain't easy, not even in the least.
I guess you could credit a lot of my initial automotive enthusiasm on my parents; or maybe it was my father- for before my mother ever really had a say on what she drove (personally, I don't think the woman really cared... but now into her sixties, and having driven everything from Hondas, VWs, Nissans and Volvos to Mercedes-Benzes, BMWs and her beloved Lexus- she may well have a pretty good idea by now...) my mother drove what my father put her in. And he put her in some neat cars, looking back.
While all the cars were certainly nice cars by any conventional measure of the word- some, however, stick into memory as being real Deuseys... (No, she never drove a Deusenburg.)
Coming out of a fog of not one, but two very sedate (okay, read "slow" if you must) Mercedes-Benzes and a Peugeot 505 that wouldn't run right, 1983 brought to my father with the need for something different. Something fast, snappy, something zippy.
While most everyone else upwardly mobile was puddling around in 121-horse ETA-tuned BMW 528Es, my father gave my mother a Charcoal Metallic 533i, a limited-production, ultra-high-performance sedan (for the time) coming out of the Carter-era smog regulated '70s when there wasn't much performance- no, not even for The Ultimate Driving Machine...
Hailed as the "fastest sedan in the world" the Big Six 533i was as racy as it got- in a time, well, before most of mainstream America knew their B's from their M's, or their W's; nevertheless the difference between a BMW Big Six and an ETA-tuned 5-Series.
Gee, 181-horsepower sure seemed like a lot in those days. The car was so high-performance, BMW made the wheels on the 533i to fit one tire, and one tire only- the Michelin TRX. Want another kind of tire? You had to change the wheels entirely.
You so much as spit in front of that car- it spun-out. It didn't go in the rain. It idled erratically, smoked, burned oil and boiled-over in city traffic. BMW had to swap-out mom's short block, and every other 3.2-liter straight-six that year under warranty in 1983. The price you paid for fast. Zero-to-60 in 7.7-seconds.
Legend has it- my mother got pulled over doing over 100 miles-an-hour in it. The State Police had her in hot pursuit- they finally got her over the bull-horn, commanding her to pull over... My mother denies having been speeding, if she did, she didn't know it. The 533i saw very well to that...
The 533i was the first BMW, but it wasn't the last... Over the next 25 years- there would be a lot of great BMWs and a lot of other nice cars too. But you always remember your first...
2010, like 1983 before it- will forever be the year zippy came back into our lives.
While they've driven and considered everything from a VW Passat and Honda Accord to an Infiniti G37 and Mercedes-Benz C-Class, I'm thankful both my parents did the right thing and went back to BMW.
After all, they're my parents.
It just seems right, like tradition in a way- and I'm especially thankful for them splurging on the twin-turbo-charged, 300-horse six-cylinder engine, a throw-back to when "35" meant "Big Six," or to my mother, just "zippy." They did it all by themselves too...
They really deserve it, it only seems right. After all, they knew fast BMWs before most everyone else... And you cannot argue with the reputation BMW has built for itself in the years since- I hear they even go in the rain now.
But after the better part of 30 years, I'm glad my mother is finally getting what she wants- an Alpine White BMW. 300-horses... This one even has the innovative xDrive all-wheel-drive, something also unfathomed in 1983.
As the son who knows cars- I can dutifully support- they couldn't have done better for themselves; because really, when it comes to zippy, no one spells it better than B, M & W.
And if my mother doesn't like it- well, she's just crazy. But that's another blog, for another time. Lets keep our fingers crossed...
I can only wish them well, hope they drive safe and enjoy it!
I mean, it's a BMW... What's not to like?
Wait, I'll let my mother answer that one...
Zippy... meet crazy.
No comments:
Post a Comment