(EXPANDED FROM 5/21/2024)
A drive through a lovely rural area in Oregon reminded me of a Volkswagen Cabrio commercial from decades ago. The spot did an unusually good job of showing the sensuousness of driving.
The ad gains an additional level of poignancy if you know that its sound track is the song “Pink Moon” by the late Nick Drake. He committed suicide in 1974 at age of 26 (Vakiri, 2000). Ironically, the commercial led to a boomlet in sales of Drake’s final album, which had sold poorly during his lifetime (Wikipedia, 2025).
Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris directed the commercial and it was filmed by Lance Acord (Wikipedia, 2025). Titled “Milky Way,” the ad debuted on Nov. 11, 1999 and was so well received that it was ranked among the top 10 auto commercials of the last 25 years in 2013 by the nonprofit group called The One Club (Volkswagen, 2013).
Reading about the rankings led me to wonder: How often have I seen over the course of my life an automotive commercial that was so good that it didn’t strike me as merely an exercise in commerce — that it was also a work of art? At the moment this VW ad is the only one that comes to mind. How about for you?
What does it mean to connect with the road?
But enough about ads — let’s talk about the joy of driving. This is supposed to be the holy grail of the automotive world, yet the car-buff media can be entirely too vague about what it looks like. So here’s my take: I am not talking about the engine’s rumble in the seat of one’s pants, but rather the sights, sounds and smells of a place. The car isn’t the star, but merely the vehicle to bring you there.
The problem is that although cars have become much safer and more comfortable since World War II, they have all too often been turned into airplane cockpits, heavily isolated from the outside. You can see that in the disappearance of convertibles on high-volume models. And by the emphasis on a quiet ride and dashboards that bedazzle.
Even most sports cars no longer allow the driver to connect with the outside like in the postwar era. Today the closest thing to a mid-1960s Corvette convertible is arguably a Mazda Miata. Yet late last year Jalopnik expressed the fear that the Miata would be discontinued if its meager sales didn’t revive (Woodard, 2024).
Sure, you can still get a Corvette convertible, but that car is now so massive and enveloping that it seems to be more like a space ship than a roadster. The dashboard is as mesmerizing as a pinball machine.
Not that you need a convertible to see the USA. . .
Still, it helps when the car has good visibility — which has become increasingly rare on newer models. That may be partly due to efforts to make cars safer in rollover accidents, but artistic license has also played a role. For example, rear-quarter views on sport-utility vehicles are all too often obscured with swoopy design elements.
When I made fun of that trend in a satirical piece, an Indie Auto commentator wondered why I didn’t mention “rear facing cameras and lane changing warning lights” (Wayne, 2021). That was because I don’t think techno-fixes are a full substitute for staying connected to your surroundings.
And now that I have run the neighbor’s kids off my lawn, I might as well add that SUVs with cavernous interiors can make the great outdoors seem like a distraction.
Perhaps with the spiraling cost of new cars, an enterprising automaker will offer a simple car that ditches the excess bulk, distracting dashboard graphics, and overly small windows. A car that helps you connect with the world rather than hide from it. Hey, how about a Slate?
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Pafenbach, Alan; 2013. “Volkswagen ‘Pink Moon.'” YouTube. Posted Feb. 23.
- Vaziri, Aidin; 2000. “Nick Drake’s ‘Pink Moon’ is rising.” Posted April 11.
- Volkswagen; 2013. “Volkswagen’s ‘The Force’ named one of the top 10 auto commercials of the last 25 years.” Posted Jan. 16.
- Wayne, Gary; 2021. Commentator in “Auto blinders (or peepers): How they improve the human condition.” Posted May 30 at 1:01 p.m.
- Wikipedia; 2025. “Pink Moon.” Page last edited August 5.
- Woodard, Collin; 2024. “The Mazda Miata Is Dying, And It’s Our Responsibility To Save It.” Jalopnik. Posted Oct. 3.
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I try to drive with my windows down as often as possible. With modern cars the wind tends to buffet more than with my old 1965 Plymouth Sport Fury. I also rarely listen to the radio.
My son and I recently drove from Indianapolis, through Chicago (on the Dan Ryan and Kennedy to avoid construction and tolls on the Tri-State Tollway) to Milwaukee, then Janesville and then back through Chicago on city streets no less to our hotel on Grant Park. Took South Lake Shore Drive (U.S. 41) to escape Chicago during afternoon drive, Hammond and the Calumet-area suburbs. Only the stretch to Janesville and then from there to Elgin on U.S. 20 east was what I would call enjoyable. The rest was the mind-numbing experience comparable to driving into the fall sun on I-70 in western Kansas…BORING (but for different reasons). Travel on the Interstates is tedious because if you don’t travel with traffic at over 70-m.p.h., you are stuck behind semi-tractors in a long traffic chain. Most of the trip from Merrillville through Chicago to Milwaukee and then from Elgin back through Merrillville was slow, laborious and an urban-suburban trek from one stoplight to the next. Normally, I have enjoyed going through these areas and soaking up the local-regional differences from my hometown area of central Indiana, but this trip was tedious. I, too, used to travel with the windows down, especially in the countryside. I remember as a youth the joys of riding in my uncle’s convertibles with the top down in the spring, summer and fall. Unfortunately, even with the E.P.A.’s best efforts, the polluted air spewed out on our highways and still remaining in our industrialized urban areas (Gary’s steel mills) has made open-air driving difficult in many areas. True, we drive in more congested areas and at faster speeds than we did in the 1960s.
As to Howard Willey not listening to the radio, as someone who has programmed, managed and consulted radio stations for over 50-years, the quality and unique content of most local radio stations has diminished with consolidation and automation of most signals, plus the levels of interference, even on FM, has increased. For many, the sounds of silence in the car, is a welcome respite from the noise of everyday life.
Simple… almost everything.
MECHANICAL PROBLEMS —
Much of these problems can be felt quickly with the car behaving strangely on its performance, by ear as you notice a strange noise or visible by eye as soon as they happen, but the amount of insulation we have been throwing on the inside since the 1990s can make us dangerously overconfident on the way we drive. Youtube is full of videos about “Just Rolled In” with comical defects that could’ve been avoided if someone walked around and layed down to check underneath the car or the wheel housings. Cars coming to repair with the strangest and ugliest damage you can imagine – even if the person trying to fix at home was really trying to fix anything with…. Super Bonder glue and silvertape.
ENVIRONMENT PROBLEMS —
And, nature as well. Surely, modern cars are designed with so much safety measures that everyone could’ve survived Covid sickness in the japanese solitary confinement called Skyline R-35. For basically two years in a row! A japanese monster that can go 400 kph with minimal tuning and also your favourite lockdown JDM mobile safe room. But then automobiles nowadays became everything integrated, almost emulating trailers from the past. It’s more like a Porsche Taycan office than an old living room from a Buick Riviera or Olds Toronado.
EVs —
Now, talking about EVs… surely the Cybertruck and other Teslas have a button to activate their “CDC-mode” to keep you away from pollution and germs in a bigger environment. Not that their Bioweapon Defense Mode is something par to some tanks that also contain armor and circuit ventilation to survive even half a week in a nuclear contamination zone, but… it’s there for some reason.
“TWO-STEP SOCIALIZATION” —
I think cars nowadays became so much like an isolated comfort zone for “enthusiasts”, that they don’t listen too much about what’s actually happening around them, leading to disturbances that are fruitless in the eyes of the provoker. This led to the crapshit of “exhaust pop” competitions and provocations that just denote that someone invested a big pile of money for not properly driving a car – yet, when they do, it’s only a straight line speed race or quarter mile drag racing. Older cars had very quiet factory exhaust pipes and even sports cars (Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Alfa, Mercedes, Porsche, Audi, BMW, Opel…) had merely a louder but still respectable noise, not enough to disrupt your attention for… basically nothing. If you listen to a normal Jaguar XJS V-12 you can be enchanted by how fast the exhaust blows through the entire piping. A soft note on how good that V12 engine is.
I’ve been a kid through the era of F&F tunning in the 2000s and early 2010s when people also put a lot of loud speakers on their cars, not even caring about if good listeners they were. I think most guys now in their 40s-50s are pretty much over this crap since 2010 at least, and no one has to tolerate idiots making noise with the worst compositions vibrating the trunklids.
I have good memories of driving a desert highway in my new Chevy soft-top Tracker watching a lunar eclipse happen and many warm summer night rides on my Honda XL. There’s much to be said for that leisurely way of travel.
Both mine and my wife’s cars have sunroofs. we like how they lighten the interior during the day.
Cool wind in your hair by any chance? Unfortunately to the average driver the experience is more like Jed Duvall’s than yours. Have fun going thru the Jane Byrne interchange Jed? I did it for more years than I care to think about. I’m blessed to live in the Driftless region of NW Illinois a mostly rural area with lots of rolling hills and some interesting twisting roads through field and forest. At least until you are on a 55mph highway and crest a hill to find some hay wagon puttering along at jogging speed or some piece of ag equipment taking up mmost of the road. I think that to most people now any driving pleasure is being insulated from the outside sitting in a perfectly fitting seat and li9stening to the infotainment.
It’s different now that almost every car is a truck or SUV or a sedan platform that can become a CUV. It is not so pleasurable to drive top down in a small, old, low convertible when you’re swallowed by traffic. You have to run the gauntlet in order to get to the fun roads.
Thanks for the article. I started driving with windows rolled down, sunroof open, what a treat !
You’re welcome, Antoine. Welcome to Indie Auto.