In Which I Become a Teenage Boy

Although I have passed the middle point of my thirties, I refuse to admit that I might be prone to anything remotely resembling a midlife crisis. I am not that old. How cliché! How unrefined! How totally associated with my new hobby! This is the danger in cultivating my motorhead side after motherhood and when I can see 40 on the horizon. There seems to be a lot of explaining to do.

Perhaps this is why I am bashful about my love for (nay, undying obsession with) the Lexus LFA in all of its current forms. It makes me wonder if I am regressing to a missed but essential stage in adult formation, the car-as-object-of-desire stage. I think of it as when teenage boys have car, sports or band posters all over the walls of their rooms, before they feel comfortable with any budding interest in girls (or other boys). The minutiae of production runs, engine displacement, and optional packages are memorized, and favorites chosen. The perfect vehicle often seems to lean towards lots of horsepower, flashy styling, or both. I can’t remember many money shots of Austin-Healey Sprites, but maybe I wasn’t hanging around with the right crowd (Metallica, Corvette and Lamborghini were more the norm). This is an apt analogy for my brain and the Lexus LFA – a room postered with the unattainable. When I saw the first LFA launch ad run a year or so ago (why was Lexus running an ad for a car like this?), I stopped breathing and didn’t even realize it until I was looking at some bizarre four-blade razor and a disappointing (Not the car! Go back to the car!) male model in some stupid shower. To this day, I will drop whatever I am doing to watch the Top Gear test drive, and if we are streaming the episode on Netflix, I have to resist the urge to go back and watch it again. I no longer even allow myself to type “Lexus LFA” in to a YouTube search. All in all, it is embarrassing to find myself so wrapped up in a supercar at my age. I have children, a husband and a minivan … and I feel as if I had a well-thumbed Victoria’s Secret catalogue hidden somewhere with the corners turned down for Stephanie Seymour (remember her?).

I won’t argue that the LFA embodies automotive perfection: it is expensive even for its class, the styling has a few weak points (the hood to rear glass area is a bit strange – must be the carbon fiber), and to own one you must be chosen as worthy by the manufacturer (huh). It is a V-10, not a V-12, and my inner teenage boy mutters that any “real” supercar should be a V-12. But what does he know? I love it. I love the rear venting under the taillights, the sloe-eyed “snake with eyeliner” headlights, the sculpted air scoops, the raked-back windshield and the long, taut sides. It even looks good in white, which should be impossible. It certainly is with every other production Lexus or Toyota.

I think that I would be supremely happy to hear the LFA. I don’t care if the sound is tuned; it is still divine. A Ferrari can pretty much root me to the spot with a decent rev, and I find the edgy hysteria of a Maserati to be an appealingly acquired taste. Even recorded, the sound of the LFA leaves me breathless and a little glassy-eyed. See what I mean? Isn’t this horrible? I can’t even write about the car without resorting to prose from a romance novel. All I need to add is flashing eyes, a fainting spell and heaving bosoms (that last one would be a real challenge for me).

So there it is. I find myself glancing with moony eyes at the impossible; as flustered and confused as with a first crush. In the end, maybe that’s what this is, only of the automotive form. My husband is greatly amused by this weakness, although he kindly doesn’t tease me too much. I hope he won’t mind the new poster in our room.