These Boots Are Made for Being Decapitated in a Monstrously Expensive Car

I wondered briefly today why nobody had revived the TV series "Dukes of Hazzard" then I remembered, it was crap.  They did do a movie version starring Johnny Knoxville.  What can I say about that?  Possibly the kindest thing to say is that it didn't quite reach the same level of character development and plot quality that was evident in the Jackass movies.  I remember watching the Dukes of Hazzard (the tv series, not the movie) when I was a small boy.  I enjoyed the car chases well enough but I was puzzled as to why everybody was so stupid.  I thought they must have been pretending.

Hard on the heels of my brief consideration of the Dukes of etcetera my attention was grabbed by a low slung, gunmetal coloured, growly thing on the road.  It was a Ferrari or a Lamborghini or something like that.  Expensive, low slung growly thing seems to cover it pretty well.  I couldn't help think how utterly ridiculous it looked lurching through city streets at approximately ten kilometres an hour while its engine sounded like it was feeding itself through a recycling plant with an intermittent electricity supply.  I do have to admit that the owner gained some kudos for that classy gunmetal colour scheme.  Normally such cars are painted street hooker orange, gold digger yellow or, at best, midlife crisis red.  Still the car looked and sounded miserable attempting to batter its way through the collected traffic.

Watching its suffering made me reflect on what was the appropriate setting for a Lamborari or whatever it was.  Obviously not the city, and not the suburbs either since the entire population would be lining up to steal the car or at least let down the tires.  The dirt roads and open bush that make up most of our countryside wouldn't seem to be ideal either.  If a Ferraghini encountered a dirt road it would probably have a nervous breakdown until revived with eau de Monte Carlo or something.  Of course the ideal place for such vehicles is a long straight stretch of motorway to enable the car to do the only thing it does well, drive very fast in a straight line.  It is also the only place where the driver can avoid looking like a complete wanker.  At least on a motorway such a car looks like you may have bought it to drive on that motorway.

At random intervals in this otherwise dead straight, flat motorway there should be occasional curves and slight rises.  This is to provide the rest of us with the amusing sight of a wildly expensive sports car twisted into mangled wreckage or soaring majestically (but briefly) through the air en route to being twisted into mangled wreckage.  You may think this is jealousy or a petty minded dislike of expensive sports cars from someone who doesn't even drive a cheap non sports car but strangely you would be wrong.

I think these ridiculously overpriced, utterly pointless cars are just fine.  My favourites are generally Lamborghinis because all the others give the impression of taking themselves seriously.  Somewhere inside Lamborghini headquarters they have a lunatic who is required to make an appreciable contribution to any car they manufacture.  However my appreciation for these cars (as a non driver) is the spectacle they present.  Their appearance is part of it, the sound of the engine another.  Definitely the understanding of the ridiculous amount of money the owner paid for it is its own contribution as is the sight of the vehicle doing what it does best.  Among all the other contributors to the spectacle is the sight of such expensive magnificence ripped into mangled bits and scattered along the sides of roads you can ride a bicycle down if you want.

Its like watching formula one racing.  Nobody actually wants to see a hideous, spectacular accident but if one happens its all everybody talks about.  I think that's what was wrong with the Dukes of Hazzard movie.  Nobody died, especially not Jessica Simpson.  So instead of a gruesomely spectacular movie we're stuck with a relentlessly stupid one.  Oh yes and a cover of "These Boots Are Made for Walking" which makes me nostalgic for the Megadeth version.