Red sports cars must exceed his grasp or what’s a heaven for?

When the little red sports car rolled up to the building, several of us left our desks and ran downstairs to have a peek. The new owner proudly surveyed the convertible’s sleek sides, as a horseman might gaze lovingly at his new thoroughbred. The car inspired the rest of us to chat about rag tops and shifters and wheel covers, as if we knew what we were saying.

Sports cars are, after all, unlike anything else on wheels. They travel in a separate lane from other cars. Ultimately, they get two people from here to there, but they are built for one reason only: to excite the senses.

After putting the top down, four of us squeezed into the car and zipped away from the curb. Two smallish women were perched on a narrow padded bench in the back, an afterthought of a seat. The new owner flicked on the radio and we aimed for the highway.

Out there, weaving playfully through the stodgy clunkers, we experienced the breezy, giddy release that is the essence of sports-car driving. Open to the weather, we were a party on wheels. Everything about the ride was pure fun, from the escalating whine of the engine to the way the car darted athletically in and out of traffic. Even the horn had a festive sound, like squeezing the nose of a circus clown.

When the ride was over, and we had tamed our windblown hair, I reflected on the cars that have carried me through life. I’d have to say it has been a lackluster show of wheels, so far, a bumper-to-bumper collection of utility and boredom.

I had nothing to do with the earliest choices, of course. That was my father’s doing. A city dweller all his life, he did not drive until he was 35. In crowded New York, a new car’s warranty could expire in the time it takes to find a parking spot. So our family, and most of the families we knew, rode buses and trains instead.

Then one day, shortly before we moved to the suburbs, my father drove up to our apartment in a blue 1964 Ford Falcon. It was a used car, and moved like a tank, but who cared? While our neighbors looked down from upper-story windows, we beeped the horn and flicked the lights and declared it a beauty.

That car transported us out of the grimy city and into the exotic land of green lawns, barbecues, and backyard swimming pools. Shortly after, unable to contain five youngsters who set upon it daily like wild animals, it was replaced by a used brown station wagon.

All fins and chrome, the wagon rumbled in the driveway like a missile on a launch pad. It was the longest car I’d ever laid eyes on as a child. I’ve seen a longer car since then, but it belonged to an African prince who used it to roam the desert with several wives and a much bigger family than ours.

When our extraordinary mass of metal could support its own weight no longer, it groaned and died. What followed was a series of sensible “family cars,” all of them beige Ramblers and pokey as slugs.

Then came the small, green Opel Kadet. It was a godsend to us teen-age boys, who no longer felt the exquisite thrill of driving our dates around in slow beige cars. The Opel had no radio, so my brother and I immediately bought an eight-track tape player and our one and only tape: Junior Walker and the All-Stars. The tape was inserted into the player and never removed, so that Junior’s horns could wail with every turn of the ignition.

One night, while camping in the woods of Pennsylvania, my brother and I left my father alone in the tent and drove off in the Opel to buy bread and milk. We stopped at a general store and went inside. When we came out, the car was gone. My brother, an excitable sort, chewed his fingernails and screamed for the car to reappear.

Meanwhile, I wandered over to the edge of the dirt parking lot, where it sloped down a banking to a stream below. There was the Opel, wreathed in alders and its nose underwater. When I told my brother, he throttled the air out of the Wonder bread until it resembled a skinny French loaf.

The wrecker managed to pull up the car, which made a sucking sound as it left the water. Back at the tent, my father looked at the strangled bread and the lily pads on the car’s hood and demanded answers.

The first car I ever bought was a used Pinto. It was ugly and plain, but held up as well as any Rambler. Soon, with everyone on TV talking about fiery deaths from rear-end collisions in Pintos, I got paranoid at every stoplight. Eventually, I bought another second-hand car and moved to a new house, leaving the Pinto sitting in my old driveway like an orphan. The new occupant of the house called one day to let me know.

“You can keep the car,” I said. “I left it for you.”

“No kidding?” he said with delight. “Hey, thanks…thanks a lot”

Sure, I felt guilty for a while, but what the heck. I saw the man recently and he did not look blown up. Maybe he dropped the car off in someone else’s driveway.

Four years ago, I actually bought a brand-new car. It was nothing fancy, just a Japanese subcompact. None of my friends came running out to ogle it when I got to work. To this day, in fact, no one has asked me for a chance to drive it. But I can live with boring cars a while longer, I suppose, at least until I own my little red convertible one day. Don’t forget, I cut my teeth on a Ford Falcon.