"I couldn't possibly fail to disagree with you less."
13 March 2005Where the beaches are not so goodJohn Phillips, editor at large for Car and Driver, has a couple of things in common with me: we're both in our early 50s, and we've both been to the Oklahoma Panhandle once. The difference is that Phillips drove there (with a photographer) in a European-spec three-cylinder turbo Smart ForTwo, and his observations got into the magazine's April issue (not on their Web site as of this writing). I can't tell whether he actually liked the place or not. A sample or three:
For the first time in recent memory, I was driving daily on roads that were sometimes empty to the horizon. And there's precisely no one selling grande decaf frappuccinos, plus it's as quiet as a mausoleum, if you can imagine a mausoleum with a steady 30-knot wind and a herd of polled Herefords. Throughout history, the Panhandle has been a place that would either kill you or make a man of you, especially if you were a woman.
Scary prospect. And there's this:
We headed south to Wheeless, which certainly was. "Is it free of wheels," [photographer Greg] Jarem asked, "or free of whee?" In fact, we could locate no living soul to confirm that the town was uninhabited, yet it contained one firehouse, a white clapboard Baptist church, a red limestone garage, and a graveyard. We tried to walk to the cemetery but were stymied by six inches of mud. In the schoolyard lay toys that might have been dropped 30 years prior. Wheeless appeared to have been abandoned one day at about 2 p.m. and no one could think of a reason to return. As we departed, the Smart hit a tumbleweed the size of a dishwasher. "That really cheered me up," said Jarem.
There's a picture of said tumbleweed, too. Let's hope the C/D Web site picks up on it.
That night, at the Pop-A-Top Lounge in Guymon, the Panhandle's largest town, a bartender named Wendy Ward told us, "This is the most judgmental place in the U.S. We have harsh opinions of everyone." I asked her the Panhandle's population. "Don't know, don't care," she shot back.
Um, 28,478 (US Census Bureau estimate, 1 July 2003). But I suspect he just might have enjoyed the trip:
It took three 10-hour days to hit every berg and hamlet in the Panhandle. It was never boring. We finished in Slapout, whose eight residents live opposite the town's only business, a gas station. Two cowboys ran out to greet us, eager to lay hands on the Smart. They grinned at first, then smiled, then laughed until they were emitting wet pig snorts and their faces turned red.
And you know, if I saw one of these up close and personal, I just might giggle myself. Posted at 7:59 AM to Driver's Seat , SoonerlandI think the cowboys were expecting to find pedals in it -- that is, the kind for actual pedaling. And what struck them funny was the idea of putting an internal combustion engine in something that didn't have a bed for hauling bales of hay. Posted by: McGehee at 11:40 AM on 13 March 2005Vehicles in the Panhandle are predominantly pickup trucks and SUVs, but then vehicles in the Quail Springs Mall parking lot in Oklahoma City are predominantly pickup trucks and SUVs. The ForTwo seems to be a perfectly reasonable two-seater runabout, not well suited for long-distance freeway travel, but a good grocery-getter if you don't have to get a lot of groceries. With a little effort, it should be possible to get a lot less than the guesstimated 50 mpg around town. (Phillips reported 37.) I can't say I'm jonesing to check out the Oklahoma panhandle, but I'd love to take a Smart car for a test drive. Posted by: Erica at 1:54 PM on 13 March 2005Fascinating story. I would love to see the pictures on their website. I had no idea there were cowboys here in Oklahoma. Posted by: ceres at 2:07 PM on 13 March 2005DaimlerChrysler's introduction of the Smart line to the US market is scheduled for some time in late '06, though so far their ship dates have been about as ironclad as Microsoft's. At $21,925.92, I don't think one is in my future. Posted by: unimpressed at 6:41 PM on 13 March 2005Considering it's going to be billed here as a Mercedes-Benz product, you know they can't sell them at Big Red Sports-type prices. :) |