Fuck Los Angeles, the town of “I needed a cheap commuter car that’s good on gas, so I bought a 1986 Toyota MR2.”
While the rest of us suffer through the scourge of rust, driving Saturns and Rams, LA people are ignorantly sitting in traffic in unattainable unicorn cars relegated to collector status everywhere else in the country.
I bumped into a dude sleeping in the back of his ‘72 Oldsmobile Ninety Eight earlier today. He told me it was the car in Evil Dead. It wasn’t, but it was as big as an apartment in the Happy Malaga Castle it was parked in front of.
I have seen more R107 Mercedes SLs today that I can count, each of them in painfully perfect condition. A little brown 380SL looked like it hadn’t been actively cared for in twenty years. It was tucked away on a Hollywood side street, clearly never restored. It was in significantly better shape than any car I have ever owned.
This town can’t help but produce immaculate, rust-free vehicles. It’s why nobody here has any idea what the rest of the country is actually like.
Backyards are full of ‘60s Imperials. Traffic fills up with ‘50s Lincolns. Perfect ‘80s GTIs on rally-spec wheels, cars you would drool over in any other town, just look like any normal hatchback.
LA residents can’t even buy normal people cars. They couldn’t do it even if they tried. I’ve seen more electric Fiat 500es today than I’ve seen in the rest of my life. I saw someone who’d bought a VW Jetta Hybrid. A Jetta Hybrid. Did you even know that car existed, until just now?
The rest of the town is overrun in Porsche 911s new and old. You see six-figure vintage Mercedes on morning coffee runs. Original ‘60s Pontiac GTOs share the roads with Corollas. Nobody thinks this is weird. I take pictures and people look at me like I’m the one who’s crazy.
Everything in this entire city is like an episode of Petrolicious and LA people think that’s totally normal. Well it’s not, OK? It’s not.
“Yeah, I daily-drive a ‘78 Datsun,” says LA man, “what’s so weird about that?”
While you’re driving to your job in Omaha in your creaky Ford Ranger, your LA doppelgänger is driving a pristine International Harvester Scout.
Get fucked, LA.