Yahoo Autos Elana Scherr: Bored at Home? Drive Someone New around Your Town
From the September/October 2024 issue of Car and Driver.
There's a proverb that familiarity breeds contempt. I don't think that's true, but it's common to take things for granted if you spend a lot of time with them. Take, for example, the city you live in. When was the last time you noticed the glories of your own town?
I'm an unapologetic lover of Los Angeles, but it's a place that's surprisingly easy to travel through on autopilot (both figuratively and, based on some recent news stories involving unfortunate automotive crashes, literally). L.A. spreads out like a cat in a sunbeam, sprawling in every direction. It's so large, you can't see the edges. Not that you get that sense when driving the freeways, whose tall concrete walls reduce the surrounding landscape to just the top floors of office buildings and the highest fronds of palm trees. You could drive around L.A. all day on the highways and never see anything but rooftops and power lines.
The drive from LAX heading north in particular is not the most glamorous entry to L.A., but my guests Ayaka and Atsushi Hidaka and Yuki Tengan didn't seem to mind. When my husband, Tom, and I pulled up to the terminal, they greeted our big crew-cab dually truck with the astonishment of folks from the land of kei cars, and as we rode up the 405, they kept the windows rolled down and pointed out every Ford Mustang with the enthusiasm of a teenage horse girl spotting actual equines.
When I visited Japan ["Automotive Omakase," May/June 2024], Ayaka was one of the local muscle-car owners who showed me around. When she mentioned that she and her husband were coming to L.A., I felt a great responsibility to return the favor. They arrived on a Sunday morning, unfortunately a little too late to hit the Cars & Coffees but just in time for brunch. We spent a fair amount of time on Google Translate working out explanations for all the ways you can order an egg, but when the conversation turned to cars, everyone spoke the same language. Atsushi told us about buying his Plymouth 'Cuda off eBay and doing all the work required to make it a reliable running car—it was supposedly a reliable running car at purchase, but we all know how that story goes. They tell it the same way in Japan.
Back in our garage, we dug through Holley parts for Atsushi's carburetor rebuild and show-cased our own projects to an appreciative audience. The 1915 Dodge and the Jensen Interceptor proved the most popular of our car collection. I think the Dodge was a hit because it's unusual; there aren't many cars that old in Japan. (Mitsubishi is credited with the first mass-produced Japanese automobile in 1917, of which it made 22, so sitting in something from 1915 was an especially rare treat.) The Jensen, on the other hand, was movie-star famous. "Fast & Furious!" Atsushi said. "Letty!" Ayaka said. I gave rides, and then we all piled back into the crew cab and set out across the city.
When you live somewhere, it's easy to fall into a pattern of driving the same roads, mapping out routes for speed rather than beauty. Even some of the prettiest parts of the city become just background, passed by unnoticed while checking the time and stressing about traffic. It was so different to drive with the Hidakas and Yuki experiencing it all for the first time. When we crested the hill overlooking Malibu and the ocean came into view through the mountains, there was a collective gasp—including from me. Along the Pacific Coast Highway, because our guests were interested, I paid attention to all the surfers, the parked Ferraris, the quirky beach houses with their little balconies and big prices. On the freeway back toward town, Yuki pointed out a biker takeover. On the other side of the divider, some 50 sport bikes and quads were weaving through the stop-and-go, doing wheelies. Without his delight, I might have never looked up from the taillights ahead of me and the ominous red line on Apple Maps.
I was bummed about the traffic, worrying that our passengers were bored or hungry, but they saw it as a chance to look at the changing neighborhoods. We crept through the twisties of Griffith Park. From the roof of the observatory at the top of the hill, the whole city was finally visible edge to edge. The Hollywood sign glowed pink in the setting sun. Ayaka thanked me for taking her to such a beautiful place. "Dōitashimashite," I replied. "You're so welcome." What I should have said was, "Thank you for reminding me to look at it again."
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