Nigel Does Utah
It didn’t take the movie The Italian Job
Once I became aware of them, I started noticing Minis everywhere. It was funky, odd, more in keeping with how I was beginning to see myself. I set my sights on a red Mini and began to save. Then I saw a review of the new convertible which said, “they’re so cute you want to pinch the fender.” I went onto the Mini web site and “built” my own, personal car - convertible, bright orange (a new color for them, then, even more funky then the red I’d planned on), with white wheels and bonnet stripes and lots of internal customization.
Of course I’d never been in a convertible, much less driven one, and didn’t want to spend all that money and decide a month later that I hated the thing. I found a car rental place that had one on it’s lot. It was even the same color I wanted, bright orange. No bonnet stripes, but that was completely beside the point. I rented it for a week. Two minutes off the lot, I knew I had to have that car.
Sebastian was well past the need for retirement and I finally had the money, so I had a friend drive me down to the Mini dealership. They had one on the lot that was very close to exactly what I wanted. The rag top color was wrong and it had a few extras I wasn’t interested in, but it was the end of the month and they wanted to get their stats up so I was able to negotiate them down to a very nice price, insisted they make a couple of modifications and wrote a check for the down payment.
A week later another friend drove me back to the dealership. There, in the showroom, was my car. Bright orange with a black top, white bonnet stripes, white wheels and white mirror covers. It was delightful. The salesmen were standing around it admiring the white mirror caps saying I wasn’t crazy after all. I walked around it, got the “new owner” talk, named it Nigel, put the top down and happily drove it away. The only time after that that the top is up is when it’s raining, freezing or the car is parked.
A year later I took a cross-country trip in Nigel. On the way back, I stopped in St. George, Utah, a fair sized town on the far western end of Utah’s stretch of Highway 70. I was sitting in the car writing down the mileage in my little notebook, but the door was open. A thin, older fellow in worn jeans and a dim white tee shirt looked over my way and said, “What the hell is that?” “A Mini Cooper,” I informed him. He shook his head and said, “I’d rather be shot dead than be seen in something like that.” He was smiling, but I didn’t believe it.
What an extreme reaction, I thought, and considered asking if he wanted a test drive. “It’s a cool car,” I said, completely unruffled, returning his smile. He looked in and studied the dash board. He seemed fascinated and slightly repulsed, like just looking might somehow make his feminine side bubble to the surface. “Does it really go 150 miles an hour?” he asked after seeing the speedometer. I let him know that it did indeed, that they raced them in England where they were made. He shook his head and said, “It’s just wrong, somehow,” and walked away. He had the same crooked smile the whole time, as if to say, “I really don’t like your kind, but this is a bright, public place and I can’t get away with stomping you.”
What a hoot. If I hadn’t already loved my little car I did then. It makes small minded people uncomfortable. It would really be poetic if I then sang sixties folk songs for the next twenty miles. I didn’t, of course, but my heart cockles were warm.
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Geoff Hoff is co-author of the best selling satirical novel Weeping Willow: Welcome to River Bend
May 14th, 2008 at 12:13 am
Who’s that handsome guy wearing that cute car?
July 21st, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Hi there Guru, I am glad I pressed harder enough until I found convertible cars, because this post on oes Utah | That Would Be Me (dot net) was extremely helpful. Just last Monday I was pondering on this quite a bit.