Un zeste de Citroën

I am both haunted by and enamored with aesthetics. I can spend hours choosing the right type font and color for my email. I am not shy on the use of color in my home or wardrobe either, and it will drive me a bit loopy when pieces are out of complement with one another--or when they complement each other too well. And my constant, slavish worship of French pop culture (I have no idea what they are saying, but I am compelled to love the look of it all), the quest for better urban design, and now it would seem, the search for the perfect automobile, well, they're all part of my disease.

This latter thing--choosing the most aesthetically appealing and practical mode of transportation for my personage--has been quite the challenge, as you can imagine. This is, after all, the era of the fast-fading Dodge(y) Behemoth (with gas mileage of under 15 mph and needing only two parking spaces to reside in), where a Chevy Suburban is considered standard issue and a Cadillac Escalade implies street cred of a sort I've yet to comprehend. Shopping for a car at a time when automotive aesthetics (at least those available in my price range) are at an all-time ebb is a miserable, daunting task. There is so little to choose from in terms of the truly distinctive, with the short list consisting of the too-too-retro PT Cruiser (I thought anyone who remembered the 1950s was dead already?) and, come to think of it, that's about it.

Even the hyper-efficient Japanese cars look tragically dull, aping more their lesser-made American counterparts in design although thankfully not in handiwork. The Toyata Solara convertible? Please do not make me laugh with sushi in my mouth. The pre-2007 Honda Civic? Good lord, are they still mad over the outcome of World War II? When the inverted pregnant cockroach that is the Toyota Prius is considered an exciting, innovative design, we are aesthetically doomed, I tell ya, doomed.

All this talk of aesthetic appeal may seem a bit silly to you, but it, in fact, can have life-altering repercussions. A case in point: I half suspect one of the lesser reasons I didn't move to Canada in 2006 was because the country (at least Ontario) is overrun with the dowdiest-of-the-dowdy--ladies and germs, I present you, the industrial output of GM and Ford in a highly concentrated dose, i.e., a landscape overfilled with big-shouldered, suburban ennui in vehicular form, stretching from Ottawa to Sarnia and beyond.

While Canada may be both a former British and French outpost (and thus one would assume offering at least good comedy and fine cuisine in major swaths of the nation, although not necessarily in peaceful coexistence) and Motor City may (for now) still be located in Michigan, there is far too much of Detroit design being pumped out of plants in Oshawa and Windsor for anyone's own good. Especially Canada's.

It perhaps shouldn't be, but it is just enough to make one seek one's fortunes elsewhere. At least until the outcome of the 2008 election is known.

If nothing else, the Mini Cooper is distinctive--a perfect May-December romance between the 1960s and today, in my opinion--and if all goes well, I hope to indeed make my next car a Mini. It is a lucky combination of retro and now. It is sporty, but not embarrassingly pimped out. It is practical in its fuel efficiency and its fold-down seats. And it is practically begging me to buy it 'cause I would just look so darn good driving it (at least in my own mind's eye, which still envisions me aged 25 or so). All in all, it's a good aesthetic fit for me, while still being a reasonably functional mode of transport.

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Despite my misgivings about the PT Cruiser, I can clearly understand the appeal of nostalgia in matters automotive. During my search for the perfect car, mentally, I have kept harking back to my childhood in the '60s when there was more variety in automotive transportation, much of it quite exceptional (or at least quite interesting) in design.

For example, one of my cousins in Virginia drove a Corvair in the 1960s, cruelly taken off the market by presidential candidate-for-life Ralph Nader (and you thought John McCain was the only senior in the race, tsk tsk) for a little thing like a flaming gas tank, flying doors, or no brakes. Or something.

There were our next-door neighbors in North Carolina, who had his-and-hers late 1950s/early 1960s Renaults--forever pronounced Ren-alts down South--sweet little models in odd colors, like cranberry bog scum and toxic effluvia green, from what I remember. I could have that wrong though.

One of my uncles had an original VW Beetle, which he somehow managed to maneuver across every icy patch on every switchback and hairpin curve in southern Kentucky. Another drove a Ford Edsel, which, while truly being a car only a Detroit mother could love, was, if nothing else, distinctive. (Distinctively ugly, but distinctive all the same.)

There was my sister's high school boyfriend's Saab 8-1/2 (or whatever), a car as a child I forever accidentally insisted on calling a "Slaab." It was anything but. Just a little hunchbacked is all.

Another neighbor--the classic sexy divorcee of the town--drove a cherry red convertible Stingray and used to take me on rides in the country with the top down, enjoying the breeze in my hair, which was only a little fuller than it is today, I of the neverending buzzcut.

Later, too, there was my cousin's aforementioned maroon, 75th anniversary MGB, as well as our own used, second family car, the Blue Bomber, a 1962 Plymouth Belvedere station wagon. Yes, a station wagon--but a wagon with style! One that we all fought to drive to school in, even in the mid- to late-1970s. Bench seats, an AM-only radio, and those cat-eye-glasses tail lights. How could you not love a vehicular punum like that?

Oh, my people, in those days, throughout the land, there were Triumphs and Fiats and even the occasional Citroën (as seen in the photos accompanying this post, snapped recently outside of a hotel in Carlisle, Pennsylvania)! Even the Opels were in abundance, and we looked (somewhat) the better for it. Why, in those days, the streets were paved with ambrosia, and the gods ate gold like it was buffalo chicken wings. People were blissfully happy--there was no war, no divorce, no disease. Complete strangers would give you a million dollars for just saying please and thank you. It was a different world, dear hearts. But, sigh, it's all over now Baby Blue Ford Thunderbird.

Instead, now we have lots of horribly designed-by-committee stuff, like the Scion xB, clearly aimed at the gangbanger market, but sadly only attracting the World of Warcraft set. We have the Saab 9-3 convertible, a car I actually like but one that has been so streamlined for seating the Swedish royal family that, as a result, it's had its clunky-quirkiness from just a decade ago steam-ironed right out of it. Even the aesthetic bright spot of the Volkswagen New Beetle has some minor aesthetic downsides--oh, say, like a body integrity bested by a 1970s "banana bike" (in a landfill no less) and a tragic reliability rating, by courtesy of Consumer Reports, that makes a Yugo look misunderstood. Still, it's a step in the right aesthetic direction, VW--but it's no Carmen Ghia.

Unfortunately for me, the VW New Beetle, despite its aesthetic appeal, is considered something of a girly car. Penelope Pitstop may call, but even I can't pick up the receiver on that one. Although, I'll admit, it was a very close call indeed.

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So, world, all we are saying is give good aesthetics a chance.

In the meantime, until Detroit and Japan get right with better design, make mine a Mini, please. I'll even ride it side-saddle to make up for my latent sexism.

Nevertheless, if you happen to have a spare Citroën hanging around your garage, well, hey, maybe I'm your girly man after all.

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About those photos

The photos in this post, taken on a rainy Friday morning in Central Pennsylvania, really don't begin to do justice to the Citroën.

This model, I think, was produced in France in the late 1960s, but looks like something from another solar system, let alone another country and decade. There is that swept-back tailoring of the body. There is that skirting over the wheels, which shows just enough tire in a come-hither-and-drive-me pose. There is that delicate, pastry layer of a roof, dotted with two candied fruit lights on the ends.

As best as I can figure, the vintage Citroën was less a perfect, stylish melding of steel, leather, and color, and more a delicately carved, plum-and-creme-colored marzipan perched upon Michelin tires.

So vive la différence and, by all means, vive la France. And, while we're at it, vive side, front, and curtain airbags, along with stability control and anti-lock brakes. While I'm nostalgic for a bygone era in automotive design, I'm not so enamored with aesthetics that I can't appreciate the finer safety features of modern life.

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About that title

The title of this post is a play on the title of a hit single, "Un zeste de citron," performed by father-daughter pop act, Serge and Charlotte Gainsbourg, which was recorded sometime in the 1980s.

Of course, it's Serge Gainsbourg, so even his title is a play on words, and a rather vulgar one at that: He translated the song's title into English as "Lemon incest" (sound it out: un zeste de citron . . .), which is decidedly creepy given that this was a father-daughter audio partnership.

Nevertheless, it's pure Gainsbourg. That ol' Serge was nothing if not a lover of puns and a provocateur, although even I think he may have gone too far with the joke that time (even if I'm not above ripping him off in the process of expressing my reservations). You are undoubtedly shocked, and, as a result, he died happy, I'm sure, with a Gitane in one hand and a bottle of absinthe in the other.

And now you are also undoubtedly shocked--and perhaps quite uncomfortable--with the close bond I've begun to form with my future Mini Cooper. But in matters of the auto(mobile) erotic, as the French might say, oh la la, vive la différence . . .