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The spoken half of the Out Driving journal. Road essays and conversations with the kind of people who point a car at the horizon and go find what they love.
In this week's episode, we're gonna talk about first cars. Everyone remembers theirs. That weird smell, the one thing that never quite worked right. But I wanna talk about something underneath it all. Why we wanted that car in the first place?
Robert Dillman:What we thought it would do for us and what it ended up doing for us instead. I'll tell you about mine. There was some begging involved. It had a lot to do with my parents. It introduced me to some of the greatest people I've ever met, and there was a hill involved I wish I could forget.
Robert Dillman:And then a quick driving tip. In our postcard segment, I'm gonna need a little help from you all on this one. I'm Robert Dillman. Grab a cup of coffee. Buckle up.
Robert Dillman:Let's go out driving. So my first car was a 1996 Toyota Supra. I know. Some of you just sat up a little straighter, and the rest of you were thinking, that is not a first car. That's a cry for help.
Robert Dillman:Honestly, fair. And I wanna say this right up front because it's important to me. This is not a flex. I know how ridiculous of a car that is for a first car or any car for that matter, And I knew it then too. But I've never stopped being grateful for those memories and the places it brought me.
Robert Dillman:The car didn't just show up in the driveway. It came with a lot of begging, numerous PowerPoint presentations to my parents. And I think at one point I even tried to pass it off as a safety vehicle which spoiler alert it most definitely was not. But I eventually found one all the way in Texas. I was living in Ohio at the time and somehow I talked my dad into flying down, buying it, and driving it back to me.
Robert Dillman:I don't think I understood what that quite meant at the time. But as I got older, I quickly realized that's a lot of miles for someone else's dream. It was 2001. I was a junior in high school and I'm sure you can imagine why I wanted that Supra so bad. I had watched The Fast and the Furious far too many times, and I wanted so badly to be Brian O'Connor, the undercover cop that infiltrated the street racing scene.
Robert Dillman:Somewhere in the middle of that movie, my teenage brain did some excessively confident math. I came to the conclusion that if I had that Supra, well, everything would be easy. I'd be cool. I'd get all the beautiful girls, and my life would come with an epic soundtrack. I'd love to tell you that math worked out, but it most definitely did not.
Robert Dillman:Turns out cars don't come with personalities. They don't come with friends, and they don't come with a girlfriend that thinks you're amazing. One day, I'm at the mall and I see my girlfriend at the time walking out with another guy. So I did what every calm, emotionally mature teenager does. I got in my very fast car, very angry, and I hit the gas.
Robert Dillman:The back end came around quick, and I lost it. I swung around. I hit a curb, then a tree. And just to really commit to the bit, I rolled down a hill at my local mall. I was fine.
Robert Dillman:Let me be clear about that. I did walk away, obviously. The car almost didn't. And my ego, it didn't survive the hill. It's still down there next to a tree.
Robert Dillman:And then came the part nobody warned me about. The mall property banned me for a year. Now you might think that's okay. It's the mall. No big deal.
Robert Dillman:But the mall had the movie theater, and I love movies. It also had a majority of the restaurants in the area. It's basically where being a teenager happened back in the day. So for a year, when my friends were like, hey, you wanna go to the mall? I'd have to turn them down and let them know I'm legally not even allowed to do the pretzels.
Robert Dillman:What I actually found was a lot of nights, I was driving by myself. I had no one in the passenger seat, windows were down, music was up. It was just me in the road. And at the time, I felt like a bit of a failure. I wanted the car so I could be seen, and yet I was driving where no one could see me.
Robert Dillman:But something happened on those drives that I didn't notice for years. I was getting good, not fast, but real good. I was learning how the car moved and how my body felt under acceleration and braking and in the corners. I was learning how to listen for traction or lack thereof. I was feeling the vibrations in the steering wheel and under my foot.
Robert Dillman:I was learning how to read the road and everything that was on it. I didn't know it yet, but all those nights driving alone planted something. That car didn't hand me a career, but it definitely lit a fuse. And something else happened. It led me into car culture.
Robert Dillman:Friday nights with open parking lots, cruises with friends and no destinations, guys who could hear cars coming and tell you what was wrong with it before it even parked, and ladies who built and drove their cars with as much passion as anyone. They were some of the most incredible people I have ever met. And to this day, I'm still friends with many of them. But here's the part that still makes me laugh. Remember Brian O'Connor from The Fast and the Furious?
Robert Dillman:I wanted to be that guy. Well, I kinda did pull it off, just in the wrong order. Brian was a cop who became a street racer, and I was a wannabe street racer who became a cop. I became a cop for the city of Bozeman in Montana. And then I went to work at a federal facility training special agents how to drive.
Robert Dillman:If you had told 16 year old me this was how it was all gonna go, I would have asked one question. Do I still get to drive cool cars? And the answer is absolutely. Brian spends that whole movie stuck between two worlds. The people that love speed and the people trying to keep everyone alive.
Robert Dillman:That's pretty much been my whole career. Spent the last few decades trading speeding tickets for driving lessons. Alright. This week's driving tip, check-in with yourself before you turn the key. Not just when you're angry.
Robert Dillman:Excitement makes you faster. Sadness makes you drift. Stress makes you tense and short on patience. Every feeling changes how you drive, even the good ones. So understand your feelings.
Robert Dillman:Take a deep breath and realize what you're bringing into the car. And if it's big, give it a few minutes before you go. Your emotions, they can ride along. Just don't let them drive. Alright.
Robert Dillman:Postcards. So I went to the mailbox this week looking for postcards and it was empty every time. I'm choosing to believe that you all are out living epic lives and creating stories, but I wanna hear about them. Here's how to send me a postcard. Every week, I post things on our social media platforms, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and each post ends with a question.
Robert Dillman:Just answer it in the comments. That counts. If you wanna write something longer, send me an email, Robert@OutDriving.com. I read every one, and hopefully yours will end up in the next episode. And this week's question is the easiest one I'll ever ask.
Robert Dillman:What was your first car? And what did it teach you, whether you were wanting the lesson or not? Bonus points if it involves a hill, because I'd really like to not be the only one with that story. Thanks for listening this week. Go easy on the version of you that bought the first car.
Robert Dillman:They were just trying to get somewhere. And if you still talk to the people you met along the way, send them a text this week and just let them know you were thinking about them. As for me, I'm still just the guy with the car. It's a different car, and the guy driving it is different as well. I like this version better.
Robert Dillman:Have a great week. Go find the drive that moves you.