Writing

Cara Eckhardt, my mom, remembers some of what I can’t. She said in the first house we lived in, there was a nook in the kitchen with a window facing the street that I would sit in for hours, pointing and announcing each time a car passed. “When you’re a parent you're trying to find ways to make your kid happy, and it was quickly apparent to me that sitting in that window seat and looking at cars kept you happy,” she said. 

It’s hard to explain why you love something. To love something is confusing. The moment comes when you have to admit, “Yes, I know, but I still like it.” That lets us know there’s something unexplainable, something irrational, that you disregard because you just can’t help it.  

For me, and so many others, that thing is cars. Even for someone who couldn’t tell the difference between a Prius and a Pagani, it’s impossible to deny the automobile’s prevalence in modern life. University of Oregon comparative literature Professor, Gordon Sayre, recognizes this close relationship we have with cars. He said we’ve become so connected to our vehicles, that we’ve birthed a new, almost posthumanist merged entity he calls the car-driver. “When you drive past a restaurant and see the parking lot is packed you say ‘Oh, there's a lot of people there tonight,’ but you don't see the people eating, you just see the cars,” he said.

I, like a lot of children learning about the world around them, showed interest in cars from a young age, but where others may have moved onto dinosaurs or finger painting, I was stuck on cars. Why?

 I was apparently enamored with how my toy cars looked. “You would lie eye level to the car so you could see the lines and the wheels, and watch it move. You seemed so tuned into the detail of what it looked like and what it was doing,” Eckhardt said, and I wasn’t the only one.  

Joe Potter, founder and owner of Eugene’s Vintage Underground, a classic car restoration and modification shop, can testify to the power of car design. He said growing up on the Oregon coast there wasn’t much in the way of interesting cars, so when his neighbor bought a Jaguar E-Type, he took notice. “I had never seen anything like that, and I was taken with it. It was unique and exotic to me.”

Alex Haugland, a car collector in Eugene, said he was struck by foreign cars as well. “Most American cars were the most boring, horrible, blasé things you could buy. I had no attraction to them,” he said. A well-designed car can stir emotion, but that's not the only thing people connect with.

Sayre wrote an article, “The Humanity of the Car: Automobility, Agency, and Autonomy,” and in it he mentioned a study that showed participants photos of a person and two different cars, asking them to match the car to the owner. The participants matched the cars to the owners with a 63% success rate. Imagine a Mercedes S-Class with tinted windows and a meticulously cleaned interior, or a Ford F-250 with a lift kit and smokestacks. Do you picture the same person driving them?

Cars can also reflect the time and place they come from. Potter mentioned his fascination with Cadillacs built during the Great Depression. His interest being that rather than reflecting the financial strain the country was going through, these cars looked like they would own smoking jackets and hold their breath around factory workers with their in-your-face ornate designs. 

My childhood favorite movie, Cars, is another example of this anthropomorphization of culture through a car. Sayre explained how particularly in the sequel, Cars 2, the car-characters become vehicles of culture. The gentlemanly English spy car, Finn McMissile, is a clear homage to James Bond. The Italian Uncle Topolino is a Fiat 500, which is beloved by its home country for its compact maneuverability in cramped streets, its peppy disposition, and classic design. Sayre said that nations want to be recognized for their “industrial and engineering talent,” and that because of this, “In a global industry, it's so important that car brands become identified with national identities.”

A car’s history and identity can help it transcend beyond the gearhead gaze. Joel Gerlach is the proud owner of one such car: The DeLorean. He knows everything there is to know about this wedge shaped spaceship of the 80s.

“No other car transcends so many generations for different reasons,” Gerlach said. He said he sees interest from older generations because of the dramatic story of John DeLorean, he gets interest from people who grew up in the 80s with Marty McFly, and he gets interest from Gen Z who knows the car as the flying, missile shooting Deluxo from Grand Theft Auto Five. 

Gerlach said he’s had a driver stop at a gas station, leaving the door of his Ferrari open to rush over to Gerlach and ask to trade cars. He said he’s had an old man run to the car in a Winco parking lot to ask to sit in the cockpit, and who needed help lifting himself out of the low seats. The DeLorean is a prime example of the car’s space in our world. 

The creator behind it has a storied past that draws in enthusiasts, but its presence in media makes it a symbol of times and ideas that go beyond cars. Cars are a testament to what we can create when the motive isn’t just necessity, but desire. It’s hard to imagine that I, and other enthusiasts like me, could have been drawn to something so numbingly ever-present that wasn't born of that passion for more.

The door creaked as it opened, and Alex Haugland stepped to the side with a smile as he held the door and raised his arm, presenting the 30 something cars neatly lined up inside. 

He stood arms crossed in a blue work jacket as we broke the ice talking about the DMC DeLorean in front of us. He wiped the condensation from his glasses as he exhaled mist from the leftover cold outdoor air as he explained how special its brushed steel finish is.

The warehouse holds only a portion of Haugland’s nearly 200 car collection. Haugland and his wife are the sole owners and keepers of the collection. 

“It just kind of happened,” Haugland said. “I got my first classic car (a Jaguar 3.8S, which he explained was popular with bank robbers at the time for its spacious interior, and its ability to easily outrun the cops), and then I got my second classic car, and then I knew I had garage space for another, so I thought ‘I’ll do that…’ I have a tendency to add garage space as I run out of room for cars, so once I have the space, I fill it.” 

Born in Minnesota, Haugland moved to Eugene with his family when he was five. Haugland’s father, Richard Haugland, was a chemist who studied at Stanford. He researched and eventually commercialized fluorescent dyes. His mother, Rosaria Haugland, is a biochemist. In 1975, they co-founded a biotech company called Molecular Probes.

Growing up, Haugland was the only one in his family interested in cars. “Cars were fascinating, because it’s like, ‘ok, there’s moving parts, and an engine that makes things go.’ How does all of that work?” He said. His interest in their engineering was matched with an admiration for car design. 

“Growing up primarily in the 1980s, most American cars were the most boring, blasé, horrible things you could buy. I had no attraction to them,” he said. His mother is Italian, and he went to Italy many times in his childhood, and fell in love with the dramatic designs of European cars.

Haugland was also inspired by the cars he saw in the movies. He mentioned the DeLorean, for example, recognized by anyone who’s seen “Back to the Future,” and the iconic Aston Martin DB5 driven in the Bond films. Haugland now owns examples of each of these cars.

His other big inspiration was scale models, he said. He recalled his first model, a 1934 Mercedes-Benz SSKL. “I love doing things with my hands, so putting it together was the really interesting part to me,” he said.

This childhood interest in European classics is present in the cars he now collects. He explained how because of more relaxed safety standards and fewer big auto conglomerates, classic cars have bigger personalities than their modern counterparts. “They were experimenting,” He said. “They’re art.”

Many ultra-wealthy collectors think of cars as status symbols, like a luxury watch. Some even buy rare cars as investments. Haugland collects cars because he’s an enthusiast. Micheal Hull, the chief marketing manager for Vintage Underground (Haugland’s regularly used car shop) said that Haugland is “very knowledgeable about most marques.” Some of his cars are valuable, some are not. For Haugland, a car’s worth is based on how much fun he has driving it. 

One of His cars, a Siata Diana, has something else that interests him.

The Diana was a tiny Italian convertible, light as a feather, and born to dance around corners with ease. It’s beating heart, an equally compact but lively four-cylinder engine. But sometime before Haugland bought it, someone swapped the four cylinder for a massive Studebaker V8; An absolute workhorse of an engine. If the Diana’s original four-cylinder is a quick and agile cheetah, the Studebaker V8 is a brash and dominant rhinoceros. The ethos of this American V8 is the antonym of the light and nimble Italian Roadster. This Diana has a story, and stories draw Haugland in. 

Keeping this wide range of cars running has proven to be a challenge for Haugland, and he said he’s getting close to what he’s willing to manage. Furthermore, Haugland is planning on opening a museum to preserve and share the collection with the public sometime in the not so distant future.

He said he tries to drive each car at least once every six months, and to do that, he’ll drive five or six different cars in a day. While this can be inconvenient, his personal goal with the collection is to drive his cars. “I’m more often in a classic car than a modern car,” he said, and in that sense, he said he’s achieved his goal.

I’m not that tall, but the roof of the Lamborghini Diablo beside me only reaches to my hip. A few yards away to the right sits a silver Ferrari 250 GTE worth so much money that I’m surprised it’s not roped off with a 24-hour security guard. As I lean toward the open window of the Diablo to look at the pure 1990s interior and my nose is greeted by the sharp but pleasant smell of old leather. Joe Potter tells me how frustrating the Diablo is to work on because of how tight the bodywork around the engine is. His dog Otis waits at his side wagging his tail, ever stalwart. Potter is walking me through the workshop of his business, the Vintage Underground. I came to this classic car shop to see how a place full of history envisions their automotive future.

As the internal combustion engine (ICE) enters its twilight years, many car enthusiasts worry for their future. The ICE represents over a century of cars that inspired the first gearheads. But these machines of fire and oil will soon take their last breaths. Electric vehicles (EVs) could be a more affordable alternative to gas cars. As stated in an article by The Guardian, “Electric cars are already cheaper to own and run than petrol or diesel alternatives in five European countries analyzed in new research.” And legislation like California’s ban on the sale of new gas powered cars by 2035 are forcing cars to become more ecological. According to the New York Times, “Not only is California the largest automaker in the United States, but more than a dozen other states typically follow California’s lead when setting their own auto emissions standards.” This ban is likely the first of many. So how will Mr. Potter and the countless other enthusiasts like him adapt? 

“I restored my first Model A when I was 14,” Potter said. He said that cars were a constant presence to him thanks to his father’s interest, which he has clearly inherited. His shop specializes in European sports cars from the 50s to 70s, and he referenced an old neighbor who had a Jaguar E-type as something that led him to that niche. 

Fast forward from his childhood to Potter’s shop, and it’s clear where his inspiration led him. It’s a car enthusiast's creative playground. Body panels, upholstery, mechanics, wiring, paints and finishes. His shop has everything in house needed to bring a classic car back to its glory days.

So how do people like Mr. Potter adapt to the changing landscape of cars? Many enthusiasts are opposed to electric cars. Complaints range from the fact that they lack the ferocious sound of an ICE, to the overall heavier weights of electrics due to their massive battery power plants. 

However, Potter said an electric drivetrain can provide experiences that an ICE engine simply can’t. The power of instant torque can launch an EV forward with violent momentum at any moment whereas an ICE powered counterpart would need to be in the right gear, with the right revs and going the right speed to match that feat. 

“It creates a whole different moment, a whole different driving experience,” he said. This shift towards cars that are more computer than engine could prove to be a challenge for shops like Potter’s that specialize in classics. 

Michael Hull, the marketing manager for the Vintage Underground said that to evolve, “We are, like a lot of the industry, having to focus on a much younger and more affluent, more technologically savvy demographic.”

At this point in time, the future seems to be electric, and soon the two 1960s Jaguar E-types in the back of Potter’s showroom will be too. The E-type is the classic of classics. Its design is widely regarded as one of the best of all time and if that isn’t enough, to convince you of its swagger, Steve McQueen, the king of cool, drove a 1970 silver example. 

With the recent addition of a few staff members specializing in electric motors, Hull said that Vintage Underground is future proofing. These two E-types will be stripped, fitted with electric powertrains, and restored into something new. The Jags represent a blending of future and past. A way to preserve the classic car DNA while modernizing the driving experience, and allowing them to stay on the roads and inspire people in the way only a classic car can.

This mission of preservation and adaptation is essential for the car community.  Our planet is suffering, and miles per gallon will have to become miles per kilowatt hour sooner rather than later. “Nothing like a good time crunch to force innovation,” Potter says, “That’s what Americans do best.”