I have bought a minivan, and, by thunder, it is splendid. It is ten years old and was made in Japan, or by a Japanese company, anyway. It is the color of dust, and it goes much faster than I’d have guessed. I love everything about it, except, perhaps, that a round trip from Baltimore consumes roughly a third of a tank of gas. (Although this is itself suggestive of a certain magnificence.) Strangely enough, I have never owned a car before—my automotive adventures have been in rentals, or sponsored by generous relatives. Getting your own is a kick. It’s on the same level as buying your first gun.

Naturally, such an excellent machine requires an excellent name. The minivan’s size and pachydermous color suggested “Airavata,” for the elephant steed of the thunder-god Indra; unfortunately, further research disclosed that iconography universally portrays the godly beast with gleaming white skin, a much worse color for a minivan. My wife also told me it was pretentious. Other candidates are “Shadowfax,” which I am afraid would open me up to certain lines of ridicule best left unexplored, and “Hannibal,” which, while a strong moniker on its own merits, is a little confused—if the minivan is like an elephant, isn’t it the driver who is Hannibal? We have the best minds of the Russo household and the Bottom Line’s lunch crowd working on the problem.

I’m afraid I have that American disease, the love of automobiles. Speed, power, danger, luxury—there may be a whiff of Nietzschean egoism about it, sure, but isn’t it fun? Isn’t it America? No matter where you are, driving a car is Yankee behavior. “The Star-Spangled Banner” spontaneously begins to play in the mountains of Portugal when your tiny rented Renault stalls out and you wonder whether it’s possible to clutch directly into third as the ignition sputters and the gas tanker in the rearview grows larger and larger. (The answer, it turns out, is “not very easily, at any rate, under the circumstances.”) Nor can I imagine a better way to explain the ethos of These States than the continent-spanning cathedral we have built for our cars, the interstate highway system, a massive government project that gives everyone who uses it the illusion of pure individualism and freedom.

Russell Kirk’s line about the “mechanical Jacobin” makes me laugh, but it doesn’t draw my sympathy. When I was a young boy, my parents (who were surprised by the arrival of children in their yuppified middle age) were members of the Mercedes-Benz Club of America, which included as a benefit a thick, high-gloss magazine called The Star. I remember little about the articles (an exception being a feature on the Popemobile). There was in each issue, however—I did not realize how actually funny this was until I was nearly an adult and became aware of other genres of glossy—a full centerfold print of a classic Merc with an accompanying feature. These pictures I do remember. The ’28 SSK, the ’55 300SL “Gullwing”—who could hate these lovely machines?

Not that I’m much of an expert, particularly on the technical stuff. I can reliably locate the lid for the oil pan, and that is more or less the extent of my mechanical prowess. I’ve always envied those who can do things with cars, who seem to live richer, more possibility-laden lives, but it seems unlikely that I will become a grease-monkey at this late date. As for most of the interesting things I imagined myself doing when I was a child, time and money are the limiting reagents; were they not, my general Pninian haplessness in the physical world would soon be made manifest in dropped spanners and stripped bolts. I shall, I am afraid, remain an admirer from afar.

But admiration isn’t so bad. There’s plenty of grist for even a layman. Take my excellent minivan, for example. It has a C.D. player, into which you can pop a copy of Moondance that you bought in high school. (Peel away the beer fat and disappointment from a middle-aged journo, and you will find the soulful white boy within.) It has many seats for the children who keep cropping up around here. It still smells sort of nice, thanks to mysterious ablutions at the dealership. It has an F.M. radio, which I look forward to tuning to the two stations I like. It has an A.M. radio, which will deliver the soothing static that occupies what is supposed to be the traffic report frequency in my part of the world. The passenger doors, which open automatically if you press a button, remind me of the deck on an assault helicopter. The cabin floor is spacious and can accommodate the transport of any of my other possessions, barring the house. It is in every way a thrilling machine.

I hope the kids don’t give it a stupid name before I can.