THE SUMMER OF ‘GOOD DAD, BAD DAD’
A sentimental journey in a muscle car paved the path to a practical future
Today marks the end of another summer — officially at least — and with that comes a renewed sense of sentimentality.
A change of season invariably provides a pause for reflection as the smells, sights and sounds associated with specific times of a year jump-start our mental time machines, filling our thoughts with memories of the past, some real, some imagined.
For me, summertime is the season that sets me on a sentimental journey, particularly when it’s over. That was certainly the case this past summer, as a trip back in time and some 3,200 kilometres due east to the stomping grounds of my misspent youth unlocked memories long forgotten, and underscored just how far I’ve travelled through time and distance from that past.
Helping fuel this path of discovery into the past, present and future were two very different 2017 vehicles produced by the same automaker, each ideally suited to two very different times in my life.
The first was a 2017 Dodge Challenger T/A, which I drove solo to and around my hometown of Sarnia, Ont.
The second was a 2017 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid, which served as family transport to, among other things, ferry my 17-year old son and his friend on tours of a number of southwestern Ontario universities in anticipation of their completion of high school next year.
Like the difference between wearing a well-tailored suit and a pair of dad jeans, driving a certain style of vehicle conveys an image to an impartial onlooker. Likewise, it instils an attitude in the driver.
Behind the wheel of the menacing Green Go muscle car, I was Bad Dad. Perched in the Velvet Red Pearl minivan, I was Good Dad. Equal days were spent in each, and I’m still coming to terms with which was more enjoyable; and which better suited the real me.
MUSCULAR MEMORIES
Everyone needs a town, a tune, a dream to survive on
One to dance to, one to scream to survive on
You need a high, a face, a space, a chance to rely on
’Cause you can only drive down Main street so many times
I created a Challenger-specific playlist on my smartphone in anticipation of my time in the 485-horsepower monster coupe, and for a couple of reasons this song was the first one I uploaded. First, the architects of the summertime classic, singer/guitarist Kim Mitchell and songwriter Pye Dubois, are Sarnia lads.
Second, like any Sarnia boy or girl who came of age in the recession-battered early 1980s, we all needed a dream to survive on, and driving down Main Street so many times was also something we could relate too.
Drive we did back then, during long summer days by the lake, inevitably ending up in Canatara Park, where we parked our cars, put speakers on the car roofs, cranked WRIF 101 — Detroit’s “Home of Rock-n-Roll” — and played Frisbee.
The soundtrack of that summer of ’81 reads like a Sirius Classic Vinyl playlist: Moving Pictures by Rush, Tattoo You by the Stones, Van Halen’s Fair Warning, Don’t Say No by Billy Squire, Ozzy’s Diary of a Madman, Escape by Journey and Foreigner’s 4.
The cars we drove ranged from muscle cars (Z28s, Camaros, Cutlasses, Mustangs) to mom cars (Gremlins, Pacers, Valiants) to rust-buckets held together with bondo, chicken wire and duct tape and financed by jobs like dishwashing at The Keg.
Bottom line, we all had cars and a summer day didn’t go by without loading them up with friends and hitting the park and beach.
Even in our wildest dreams, we would never imagine the 21st-century muscle car I triumphantly returned to my roots in this summer. Of course, from afar, we’d recognize it right away as a Dodge Challenger, thanks to the period-perfect retro design of the 2017 model, mimicking the muscular lines of those iconic second generation Challengers (1970-74).
But climbing into the driver’s seat, some alarm bells would go off in our teenage heads. Leather, sport steering wheel. Power (and heated!) front seats. Dual-climate air conditioning. And what’s that TV screen doing in the middle of the dash? Why, it’s an 8.4-inch touchscreen that enables a navigation system that’s bouncing a signal off a satellite. It also enables 100-plus commercial-free radio stations. And, when you put it in reverse, the screen flickers to life with a backup camera view. And you hook your phone into the system using the screen. Your phone? But doesn’t the cord get caught in the door when you close it?
Truly, the stuff of teenage fantasy.
What we would recognize in the new Challenger’s interior is the great gauge package — circa the 1970s — along with the manual gearbox, though six speeds would be a head scratcher.
Then there’s what we wouldn’t see. That near-500 horsepower engine outmuscles the Dodges Richard Petty campaigned back in the day. Stop-on-a-dime racing brakes. And the safety features. Blind-spot monitoring. All-speed traction control. Ready alert braking.
Despite all the 21st-century wizardry, the 2017 Challenger oozes 1970s attitude, and my week spent in it revisiting my youth put me in touch with my own restless young man attitude that I thought had long left me.
It’s said that you can’t go home again, but in this vehicle I did exactly that, both physically and mentally.
A CALMING INFLUENCE
Summer’s going fast, Nights growing colder Children growing up, Old friends growing older
Freeze this moment a little bit longer
Make each sensation a little bit stronger
Experience slips away Experience slips away
The innocence slips away
Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young. — From Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling
I was somewhere around Milton, on the edge of the GTA, when the reality began to take hold. I was about to hand over the key of an amazing high-tech muscle car, and in return get the multi-buttoned key fob for a minivan. A hybrid at that.
The envious looks, the odd thumbs-up I’d been receiving from men of all ages while behind the wheel of the Challenger, would soon be replaced by looks of derision, disdain and most likely, pity.
I parked the Green Go Challenger beside the plugged-in Velvet Red Pearl Pacifica at the FCA Mississauga office to do the swap, changed keys and never glanced back in the minivan’s rear-view as I headed out of the parking lot toward Toronto’s Pearson Airport.
But a funny thing happened on the way to pick up my family at YYZ Arrivals. I noticed right away how quiet and smooth the hybrid minivan performed. And how comfortable the seat was. My admiration for my new ride grew further when its rear cargo space swallowed up the luggage and easily accommodated the three travel-weary teens who scrambled into their seats in the second and third rows, plugged in myriad devices, and greeted me with heartwarming comments like “Let’s go!,” “What are you doing?” and “Daaaaaaad!”
And if I had any delusions that Bad Dad had left the vehicle, they evaporated amid a cacophony of rap music pounding from all 13 of the Pacifica’s Alpine speakers. My 15-year old daughter had evidently bypassed my phone for her own on the Apple CarPlay system. Good Dad pushed the start button and headed off into the night, his family in tow. And I was OK with that.
The week with the Pacifica went off without a hitch, including trips to three university cities and a side trip to Niagara Falls (eliminating all vestiges of Bad Dad).
We drove 1,013.8 kilometres, and according to the Chrysler’s trick trip computer, 408.6 of those klicks used electric power alone. No wonder we posted a fantastic 7.3 L/100 km fuel economy number. (For comparison’s sake, I covered 694.8 km in the Challenger and ended up with a fuel economy rating of 14.3. Meaning Good Dad had more money in his trousers than Bad Dad had in his Levi 501s.
So, who am I? Good Dad or Bad Dad? Well, both and neither. Each has its own distinct advantages and drawbacks.
Fittingly, the same can be said for the 2017 Dodge Challenger R/T 392 and the Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid.
As we flew home, I looked down on the vast prairies and concluded I just have to learn to live with being a restless soul in a settled existence. And get a twocar garage.