Week 4: '64 Austin Mini Cooper S

If I see a Mini Cooper while walking, I pause.

I experience MiniPause.

American muscle cars from the 50s, 60s and early 70s take my breath away, so it might seem a Mini Cooper's boxy, constant simplicity would not hold an appeal, but oh it does. I love looking at these cars.

I concede it could be their size, causing the same neurons in my brain to fire that are ignited when some people see a baby version of of adult clothing, like a tiny pair of baby Chuck Taylor hightop shoes or a toddler denim jacket...and by some people, I guess I also include myself. (But I DON'T ever say 'Ohh, how cute!!' What? I don't!)

Nonetheless, I don't think the baby mini-version factor is why I love staring at Minis. No, I write it off as something I call CarWonder, that factor that causes a person to actually lose track of time and enjoy a car's looks outside of the limitations of responsibility and real life.

And it doesn't just happen to adults.

A few days ago I took Racer A ( the 3 going on 4 son) on an errand,  parked at the errand place, unbuckled A from his carseat, and grabbed some papers. In the two seconds it took to get the papers, A  had taken off, and I turned to see his little blond mop of hair slowly drifting down the space between the two rows of parked cars.

The panic a parent gets in these situations is a simultaneous rush of terror-guilt-frustration-more guilt-more terror and horror (Since I've already coined MiniPause and CarWonder, I won't give this gut-twister of a feeling a name, but it needs no name, and if you have kids, you've experienced it).

 I yelled, but he continued wandering, in a trance, and did not appear to hear me.

The parking lot was quiet, I scanned for immediate danger, and began to run.

The reason I didn't run right when I saw him was because running after a toddler or preschooler, I have found, often triggers an instinctual run and giggle response, and I would not risk that reaction until:

1. I was sure I could catch him and/or
2. I was sure there were no immediate dangers, such as an approaching steamroller or a Tour de France tribute bicycle race that would squash him if I missed achieving 1. There wasn't. The parking lot was freakishly still.

But he didn't run, or giggle. He only continued walking in that sleepwalk way he was doing and stopped behind a car, apparently the target of his wandering.

 Now in reality, this car was only two cars away, but my retelling of this event is not done for dramatic effect. That 12 or so feet felt like the length of a football field, and I experienced an entire football field length of emotion getting to him.

"What is that?" he asked, pointing at the back of a car and standing so close his finger was only a half inch from the brand emblem on the trunk. If he heard me panting, he did not acknowledge it.

 After admonishing and lecturing him for wandering off, I saw he was almost unable to hear me. The look was in his glazed eyes -- CarWonder.

"That is a BMW," I said.

"I like that car, Daddy."
"Me too," I replied.

The car Racer A had stopped behind was a four-door new model BMW 5 Series Sedan (Black Sapphire color), and it was pretty.

Now as adults, our feelings on cars are often filtered through our individual life experiences and beliefs, and along the way our perception of a particular car gathers emotions like a toddler's lollipop gathers lint, based on personal views on success, status, our own place in the world, our history, and more. I suspect the BMW brand might do that even more than other cars in this country.

But to a three-year-old, concepts of status, cost, and image don't exist yet, or at least not much. Racer A wasn't looking at a car he was supposed to like. We just smitten by something he did like. He was under the spell of CarWonder.

Which brings me back to my little 99 cent Mini Cooper Matchbox, which is actually part of the 2009 collection but which I found in the back of a rack of Matchbox cars at a drug store.

Mini Coopers spark that pure CarWonder in me in the same way that Sapphire Black BMW sparked it in A. No status, no judgment, no feelings of superiority or inferiority, just enjoyment.

Only pure, refreshing what a fun, cool car.

And if you don't get flattened getting there, what a wonderful feeling.


(With thoughts of my friend JT, whose favorite car in the world is a dark green Mini Cooper)

  

The pictured car is part of Mattel's 2009 Matchbox collection in it's Heritage Classics series, number 2 of 11. And I'm really sorry about that "MiniPause" joke.