Crazy Euro Car Boy Does America

Tiptoeing away from the high revs and the circuit races of the old continent, our crazy Euro car boy has landed in America—and came face to face with a Dodge Challenger.

To call my insertion on the left side of the Atlantic eagerly anticipated would be quite the understatement. Despite my inherent Euro-ness, I have actually spent a cumulative three years of my life in the United States, including a number of formative months in an Oldsmobile Omega. So after being out of the country for five and a half years, I couldn’t wait to come back—if only to find out whether frosted Wild! Magicburst-flavored Pop-Tarts really do exist or are but whims of my consumerist fancy.

Barely 72 hours after touchdown at JFK, I was already rumbling out to Long Island in the shotgun seat of a Dodge Challenger R/T, the 5.7-liter V8 propelling us all the way to 50 MPH on the Long Island Expressway. Here’s a quick take on this lovely caricature of the American car:

• The Hemi sounds awesome if subdued
• The interior is—and I’m at pains to not put it bluntly—not something one would expect to find in a passenger vehicle
• The air conditioning is, like every example of American air conditioning, testament to a shady conspiracy by manufacturers of medication for urinary tract infections. Yes, AC is a wonderful invention but there really is no need to cool cars, subway cars and stores alike to 60 degrees Fahrenheit when it’s 90+ outside. The wimpy European body withers at 30+ degree temperature walls

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Even in the crawling midday traffic, I soon escaped the expressway and—accompanied by Natalie Polgar of Hyperleggera and Brett Berk of Vanity Fair—folded myself into something a bit more European:

But more on this later! I shall be in New York City, Detroit and Washington, D.C. over the next three weeks. Suggestions on very American—or very un-American—cars to see in this area are more than welcome.

Photo Credit: Natalie Polgar and the author