There Goes the American Muscle Car

Summary

PONTIAC, Michigan—Traveling a fair amount for work outside of major metros requires relying on rental cars. And relying on rental cars quickly teaches you that while you might reserve a standard sedan every time, there is no reason to expect the rental car agency to actually give you the keys to a sedan when you show up at the counter. Eventually, you realize your fate is entirely in the hands of the rental car gods, and the rental car gods are capricious gods. Sometimes, the rental car gods frown upon you. This happened to me at the 2011 Iowa straw poll, when I ended up driving a Chevy Aveo across the entire state. If you don’t know what a Chevy Aveo is, consider yourself lucky. If you’ve had the misfortune to ride in one, you know that a go-kart is a smoother, roomier, and safer ride. Sometimes, the rental car gods laugh at (or perhaps with) you, which is what happened to me in 2017 when I went to Alabama to cover the Senate campaign of Roy Moore, a notorious creep and alleged pervert. I was told at the rental car counter they couldn’t honor my reservation for a sedan, and the only vehicle available was a boxy full-size van. Pulling up to the first campaign event in the kind of van you’d half-expect to come with the words FREE CANDY scrawled in paint on its side, I was worried I’d be mistaken for a fan of Moore. But sometimes the rental car gods smile upon you. This happened to me at the 2020 Iowa caucuses. “Would a Dodge Challenger be okay?” the agent asked me in the Des Moines airport. Why, yes, it would be okay. I had, once before, ended up with a Dodge Charger, the modern sedan version of the two-door Challenger, while covering a special election in upstate New York and was instantly impressed. I’m not a car guy, so I lack the expertise to explain to you on a technical level why the Dodge Challenger is the greatest car on the road today—the same way I can’t explain to you why Caravaggio’s The Calling of St. Matthew is the best painting ever painted or why Bern...