Cadillacs on the State Highway for the Insane?
Read this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/12/business/12CND-AUTO.html. The Big Three American automakers signed a deal to export 15,000 cars to China in the next, I think, three years. Among many models of cars, GM will send a few thousand Cadillacs, to test the luxury ride on newly comfortable Chinese people, driving on newly paved roads.
Cadillacs, for me, will forever call to mind carrying up bags as a caddy. Rich white guy, wearing collared polo shirt, puffing on a stogie, drives up to the front gate of Midland Hills Country Club in his shiny Deville with gold hubcaps. Wordlessly, he stops, pops the trunk from his driver's seat, and four other little squirts and I fight for the privilege to dig into the icebox-sized trunk and scoop out his golf bag. Whichever little squirt wins the squabble gets the bag and the two bucks the rich guy dangles out the driver's-side window, just before he speeds off, not a word spoken, and the little squirt hauls his bag up to the clubhouse.
I hope I'm here to see the first shiny new Deville cruising down the State Highway for the Insane. It won't be shiny for long, and the ride won't be smooth, and it will have to cede right-of-way to intrepid chickens and bicycle rickshaws hauling live fish. Blue dumptrucks, entire trees hanging out their beds, will bear down on it, and there will be no little squirts fighting for the chance to do its dirty work. And Cadillacs everywhere will strike, demanding a return to the Midland Hills parking lot. We weren't made for this shit, they'll whine.
