In 1981 the nerdiest Canadian rock band to ever exist released Red Barchetta. I loved it. I still do.
It’s the story of a young man who lives in a dystopian future. His uncle possess a glorious little sports car but “motor laws” have outlawed(?) such things. As any true rock protagonist should, he ignores this and goes tearing through the countryside in the beautiful mechanical delight. Shortly a “gleaming alloy aircar” appears, then a second, both intent of destroying him and his little car. The antique sportscar enthusiast outdrives the behemoth machines and flits back to safety at his uncle’s farm.
Being Gen X I’d been hammered about environment since I was born. I assumed “motor laws” were an environmental thing. Later I read the sci fi story that was the song’s inspiration. The “motor laws” were a safety thing. The “gleaming alloy aircars” were so protected against collision as to be virtual tanks, so assholes with them took to hunting gearheads in their vulnerable machinery.
In song, a Canadian bass player with a 1948 Ferrari 166MM, faced a very dangerous foe; the faceless joyless future…
“The blur of the landscape
Every nerve aware…Suddenly ahead of me
Across the mountainside
A gleaming alloy air car
Shoots towards me, two lanes wide
I spin around with shrieking tires
To run the deadly race
Go screaming through the valley
As another joins the chase”
The short story was from 1973, the song from 1981, yet it feels as likely today as any other time. We know why. Whether the justification is “safety” or “environment”, the result is always the same; a certain type of person finds simple pleasures to be insufferable. The plague of Karens that went into Covid rut in 2000 has been with us a long time.
I rented a scooter in Maui in 2025. It had a near silent engine the size of a football and got somewhere north of 100 MPG. So of course it shut itself off whenever idling at a stop sign. Idiots cannot (will not!) recognize the practical and meaningful difference between a 100 mpg scooter on a lonely one lane island coast road and a 15 MPG SUV soccermom’s special lumbering Karen and three children’s car seats through clusterfuck traffic to Starbucks.
There’s a difference. It’s a big one. But Karen is interested in compliance. Stated justifications are a means to an end.
Anyone who loves driving a real car has always been under attack by those who can’t or won’t operate a truly invigorating machine. Those attacks began with the Model T and will never end. I am literally the last generation of people who can use a clutch in a daily driver. It wasn’t a big deal but one can’t do it while brain dead and texting.
Why am I telling this story? Because I just rode a driverless… “car”. Ok it wasn’t a car, it was an ugly electric lunchbox on wheels. But it was legally piloting its ass through city streets and there was no human behind the steering wheel… which didn’t exist.
It was an experiment.
I haven’t written the rest of this post. Before I post my results, here’s your homework.
Rush:
