On Father\u2019s Day, several hundred dads gathered in Coconut Grove to do their thing \u2014 which for a lot of them, involved stepping on the gas.<\/b>
\nNo matter that it was a sultry afternoon when the heat and humidity shot it out in the mid-80s, several hundred dads and their not entirely willing broods gathered in Coconut Grove Sunday to celebrate Father\u2019s Day with a salute to all the things men love best: beer, cigars, charred meat, country-rock music and fancy cars, not necessarily in that order.
The air at the Cars and Cigars celebration in Barnacle Historic State Park was redolent with the aroma of burning stogies and high-octane gasoline and the thundering mating calls of 450-horsepower engines as the dads slipped the bonds of female civilization for a day.
\u201cI\u2019 m slightly dehydrated, a bit cranky, \u201d said bleary eyed Patricia Pino, 61, of Miami as she watched her husband peering under the hoods of classic Buick Electras and MG MGB roadsters that he will someday own only over her dead body. \u201cBut hey, it\u2019s Father\u2019s Day. Just don\u2019 t bring me here for Mother\u2019s Day.\u201d
Pino\u2019s 31-year-old daughter Christina, whose husband was also prowling among the cars, shook her head. \u201cI at least understand the cigars, \u201d she brooded. \u201cWe\u2019 re Cuban; it\u2019s genetic. But the cars? I can never figure men and cars.\u201d
The men were too busy fondling fenders and stroking steering wheels to psychoanalyze themselves.
\u201cI\u2019 ve had it up to 160 mph, and it would have gone faster easily, \u201d retired pilot Bill Richmond of South Miami explained to a reporter about his gleaming 1965 Shelby Cobra. \u201cYou want to hear the engine?\u201d He flicked on the ignition, and men came streaming from all over the park, some of them taping the roar with their cell phones.
\u201cRev it up! Rev it up!\u201d one begged. \u201cJust once! Rev it up!\u201d Richmond obliged, hitting the gas a couple of time, producing a blast reverberation that sounded roughly like a tank battalion attacking Baghdad, and the crowd lost its mind. \u201cI love to hear it, love to hear it, love to hear it!\u201d shouted one man ecstatically.
(Perhaps it should be noted at this point that the Shelby is slightly fake \u2014 a replica, to use more polite car-guy language, which is why it\u2019s insured for a mere $60,000 instead the $1 million or so a real one would be worth. \u201cNot that all the guys who come over to look at it when I\u2019 ve got it parked somewhere can tell or care, \u201d Richmond observed.)
Many of the cars were festooned with signs bearing messages like \u201cI DON\u2019 T TOUCH YOUR WIFE, SO DON\u2019 T TOUCH MY CAR, \u201d despite the fact they sometimes lead to situations that are, umm, awkward. \u201cI was at a show once where a guy was reaching out to touch the car and I pointed at the sign, \u201d said Rolf Engelfried, 74, of Wilton Manors. \u201cHe looked kind of longingly at the car, and he turned to me and said, \u2018Come on, I\u2019 ll let you touch my wife.\u2019 He didn\u2019 t know his wife was standing right behind him, but he found out soon.\u201d
That, believe it nor not, wasn\u2019 t Engelfried\u2019s most memorable signage incident. One of his signs, surreptitiously liberated from the Nevada government flight-testing site known as Area 51 long before it became a national wisecrack about refrigerated space-alien corpses, instructs motorists that they\u2019 re in a classified site and they should beat it, quick.
\u201cA guy came up to me at a show out west and said, \u2018Where\u2019 d you get that?\u2019 I said, \u2018If I told you, I\u2019 d have to kill you,\u2019 \u201d recalled Engelfried. \u201cThen I saw he had a cap that said, AREA 51 SECURITY. I stopped using that sign for a long time.
The car with all these warnings on it, by the way, was a 1981 Volkswagen Rabbit, a blocky station wagon that\u2019s not exactly the kind of vehicle known as a chick magnet. (Though Engelfriend disputed that with a slightly hurt look. \u201cI had it at an Oktoberfest celebration one time, and a woman said in German, \u2018That\u2019s the car I first had relations in,\u2019 \u201d he said. \u201cThe whole crowd went quiet.\u201d) While most of the cars at the park were classic big-man-on-campus muscle cars like Mustangs and Jaguars, about a third were vehicles that any high-school kid in America would instantly label dorkmobiles.
\u201cYeah, it\u2019s not a 1963 split-window Corvette Stingray or a 1967 Shelby Cobra, \u201d said Palmetto Bay playwright Philip Williams of his 1988 Pontiac Safari, a station wagon (with wood paneling!) that is mostly remembered as what your mom drove to the supermarket. \u201cBut it\u2019s what people actually drove. And people love to see it at shows. They get to see plenty of Mustangs and MGs. But they remember this as a car their family actually had.\u201d
As to the Safari\u2019s ability to attract girls, Williams doesn\u2019 t care. \u201cI play for the other team, \u201d he said. \u201cBut I\u2019 ve heard a lot of women looking at the car say, \u2018Oh, my mom used to drive us to work in this,\u2019 so at least in that sense, it is a bit of a chick magnet.\u201d
Perhaps the final word on this subject should be left to Miami landscaper Leon Gamzardiya, who was proudly showing off his 1959 VW mini-bus, one of the first family vans. His came with a decidedly non-standard equipment: shag carpeting in the back. \u201cMy wife\u2019s idea, \u201d he shrugged sheepishly. Wife Trena Magnole confirmed that, but smilingly declined to offer details.
\u201cIt\u2019s a long story, \u201d she said. \u201cBut we do have a son.\u201d
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