I’m not a car guy. Not since 1977, when I, like every other kid in America, was awestruck by the big-screen debut of the Bandit’s Firebird Trans-Am, has my head been turned by whatever is the latest hottest thing on wheels.
A good mobile, though . . . that’s a different story.
There’s the Batmobile. The Blues Mobile. The Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. These are the apex of automotive cool. You can keep James Bond’s Aston Martin DB9; give me the Pontiff’s Pope Mobile (part gondola lift, part Bubble Boy’s home).
Maybe I’m just nostalgic for the classic bullpen cars they used in old Shea Stadium to taxi relief pitchers into a ballgame — golf carts shaped like a baseball with an oversized cap for a roof. I don’t remember every Ferrari that’s left me in the dust, but I do know that, to date, I’ve had three Wienermobile sightings (hot rods are nowhere near as memorable as a spotting a 27-foot hot dog on wheels in your rear view mirror).
I would imagine people feel the same way in the presence of the Bootmobile: the 13.5-foot-high replica of L.L. Bean’s signature boot. It must be stirring to see that big ol’ size 747 out for a stroll (the Bootmobile boot, by the way, would fit a person 143 feet tall – 32 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty, though she’s more the open-toed type).