Essential Cool - Part Two: Cars

Every Cool must have a cool car or no car at all. Not having things, such as not having a TV, is cool. But if you have a car, the line,  "it gets me from A to B" is an admission that you tuck your shirt into your underpants and smell of Lenor.

Car deaths are cool. James Dean, Albert Camus, Mike Hawthorn, Falco, Eddie Cochran, Linda Lovelace, Jackson Pollock, Denis Brain, Grace Kelly, Isadora Duncan, Marc Bolan, Bessie Smith and a host of other cools died in auto accidents. Death is not cool as such, but you have to go sometime, and you may as well go in style. Having your cold, dead, corpse extricated from a Nissan Micra - a car any Cool would not be seen dead in, is an admission of failure in life. Being extracted from a Prius, which, moments before had a stuck accelerator pedal, is perhaps best left unmentioned. You are better off, in that case, being remembered for your endearing ability to fart La Marseillaise.

You do not have to be rich to have a cool car. Any twat can have a Ferrari if they can kick a ball straight enough. Cool cars are partly, who drives it, and partly, soul. Soul can be built into a car. Soul can acrue. The Italians used to build soul in a car, but then forgot about reliability. The last affordable cool car built by Italians was the Alfa Romeo Spider Type 4. Obviously not to drive, because it would have fallen to bits, but it was a looker.

The Swedes have always made cool cars. Saabs (I have had three) and the Volvo P1800 always defined driver independence. The French used to be sub-zero cool when it came to cars: Traction Avant, so beloved of the Gestapo, The DS, perfect for your French President and the little 2CV or the lesser known Bijou were all suitable for chilled transportation. The Germans have also made cool cars, but I would have to cite the Messerschmitt Kabinenroller as being possibly the coolest car on the planet, because it looks like a prop from Lost in Space, which is how the future was supposed to look way back in 1955. You pay up to Twenty Grand for a good KR 200, so cool like this does not come cheap.

Here in the UK we have a problem. Peter Mandelson is in charge of encouraging the British Car industry, which is a bit like Arthur Mullard being chief buyer for Victoria's Secret. Consequently, there is not a lot to talk about.

A lot of old British cars are cool. Here is a partial list:

Rolls Royce

Bentley

The original Mini Cooper

Lotus Elan

Lotus 7s

Jags

Land Rovers

Jensen Interceptor

Triumph Herald Coupe

MG

Bristol403s

Not surprisingly, these Bristols looked like an aircraft cockpit inside and were definite bird pullers.

I won't say much about uncool cars, in case you have one, but I am afraid, if you have a Rover, (apart from an MGF) better just give up trying to be cool.

I shall stick my neck out here; I have a Volkswagen and a 12 year-old MGF vvc in British Racing Green, from the days when BMW were in charge. Perhaps not the coolest cars you can buy, but they get me from A to B.