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"&amp;quot;What car are we taking to dinner?&amp;quot; Barb asked last Wednesday evening as she turned the driveway lights on. It was not yet dark, but those lights make the house seem more welcoming when we return home at night. They also make it look occupied, so would-be burglars theoretically turn away, utterly defeated, and go off in search of honest work. &amp;quot;Why, we&amp;#039;re taking the Jag, of course,&amp;quot; I said. &amp;quot;You can&amp;#039;t drive just any car to dinner on your 42nd wedding anniversary.&amp;quot; It was raining lightly and quite cool outside, so it wouldn&amp;#039;t be a top-down evening. Still, the dark blue XK8 looked good with raindrops beading on the long hood. Barb climbed into the car, and we were off. On occasions like this, I usually let Barb choose the restaurant. Left to my own devices, I tend to pick the same value-packed Mexican, Italian, or steak places over and over again, but Barb is more adventurous. She likes intimate little bistros where you can get three asparagus spears with an S-shaped drizzle of hollandaise sauce over them artfully arranged next to a small lamb chop for about the cost of a new set of Michelin Pilots. But sometimes you have to live a little, dress up, order a better grade of wine, enjoy a starched white tablecloth, and escape the humdrum routine of daily existence. Life is short. And it&amp;#039;s even shorter if you suggest going out for pizza on your anniversary. So we found the new restaurant Barb was investigating, and it turned out to be pretty good, with the kind of subdued lighting, heavy silverware, and fine crystal that lend a sense of occasion and cavalier credit card debt to an evening out. And out on the shining street, the Jaguar sat glistening in the rain, with streetlights reflecting off its many curves. When we drove home, watching the country roads unwind through the rhythmic wipers, the car felt snug and dry, a good place to be after a nice dinner. What general human instinct caused us to take the recently washed XK8 and get it all wet and dirty in the rain? Why not Barb&amp;#039;s Honda CR-V, which has a dog blanket over the back seat and a small collection of grocery store coupons on the dash? Or my Ford Econoline van, with its eight-foot aluminum motorcycle ramp rattling around on the floor and faded KTM and Ducati decals peeling off the back window? These are both perfectly serviceable vehicles, yet I never considered taking them out on this particular evening. I guess because they&amp;#039;re too ... daily. No sense of occasion. There&amp;#039;s something in most of us (if we&amp;#039;re car buffs) that likes owning at least one vehicle whose emergence from the garage makes us feel as if we&amp;#039;re rolling out the big guns. It&amp;#039;s the automotive counterpart of opening a hangar door and pushing an airplane into the sunlight, a sense that something slightly sacramental is taking place. It doesn&amp;#039;t have to be a large or expensive car, as long as it sidesteps the casually assured perfection of the modern SUV, minivan, or family sedan.  On our way home from dinner that night, I got to thinking about this quality in cars and tried to see if I could deduce which ones possess this special nature. Here&amp;#039;s a list of a few I believe merit inclusion in the Cars of Occasion pantheon:   Virtually any convertible. If the top goes down and you can drive in the open air, you&amp;#039;ve already taken one huge stride away from soul-crushing normalcy. Regardless of your age, there&amp;#039;s something automatically youthful and carefree about a set of seats exposed to the sky and the wind blowing through your (possibly thinning) hair. A retractable top instantly turns your Piper Cherokee into a Gypsy Moth. A few years ago, Barb and I flew out to California to visit friends in San Francisco and rented a Chrysler Sebring Convertible, a car of only moderate build quality with an undistinguished chassis. We had a wonderful week nevertheless, driving around wine country and then down the Coast Highway through Big Sur and San Simeon to Newport Beach. I would say the trip was more memorable in a convertible than it would have been in any sedan or coupe, regardless of price or sporting pedigree. Nature unframed is a different place.  Almost any car built before about 1975. Yes, there were plenty of dull cars built before that arbitrary cutoff date (which is used by many vintage-racing clubs), but the very age of these cars now makes them survivors, so it&amp;#039;s fun to see them on the road. Or in your garage. And if you find a nice clean one with a decent interior, it&amp;#039;s an interesting place to sit as you motor along, enjoying some now-archaic aspect of its suspension, exhaust note, or dash design. For instance, if you had a new Toyota Camry and a 1972 Oldsmobile Cutlass in the garage, you&amp;#039;d probably be tempted to take the Cutlass out for that anniversary dinner\u2014just to gaze at the steering wheel, if nothing else.  Most British cars. Admittedly, the Brits have also made a lot of forgettable cars, but the majority of them stayed in the home islands for daily commuting duty. Most of those that came here were handsome, interesting, sporty, and generally unforgettable. They aren&amp;#039;t so much an acquired taste as a taste that was never unacquired, meaning that the people who still own older British cars shrug off their eccentricities because they&amp;#039;re fascinating to look at and drive. Our late friend Gil Nickel, who owned the Far Niente Winery and collected many exotic cars, almost always got out his Jag 120 roadster when taking his beautiful wife Beth to dinner while we were visiting. For sheer panache, almost nothing on earth outshines an XK120 with rear fender skirts prowling through Napa wine country on a warm evening.  Old Cadillacs. I guess I&amp;#039;d put my own personal cutoff date here at around 1968. After that, they start to look a little puffy, wallow-prone, and GM-generic to me. But the coffee-colored 1963 Series 62 Sedan and the willow-green 1953 Fleetwood I restored were indeed Cars of Occasion. Our &amp;#039;63 inspired another couple and us to dress up and go to a big-band dance evening a few years ago, drinking champagne and generally behaving like the spiritual descendants of F. Scott and Zelda. I blame everything on the car. Then I drove the &amp;#039;63 on a blues odyssey down through the Mississippi Delta to the Jazz &amp;amp;amp; Heritage Festival in New Orleans, and the music buffs on Bourbon Street all but showered the car with rose petals.  Anything with a real rear- or side-mounted spare. Two side-mounted spares is better.  Ferraris, Maseratis, and Alfas. No matter what year or where you see them, they scatter rows of lombardy poplars, Mille Miglia milestones, and Tuscan hilltop castles in their wake, and emit their own Mediterranean sunlight. Somebody get me a glass of brunello.  Anything French, just because it exists. Or so we believe. Sartre saw them as largely illusory, more an antimechanistic idea that manifests itself in the pure strength of belief than in physical reality. Nevertheless, 2CVs and large Citro\u00EBn sedans that look like catfish are especially good for those special outings. Same for the Traction Avant models or anything driven in a movie by Jacques Tati.  Phaetons, as well as open cars with more than one windshield, or some arrangement that forces the chauffeur to sit in the rain.  Any German car that looks like a bathtub melted over four wheels or causes lesser German cars to move smartly out of the fast lane on the autobahn.  Vintage military jeeps, CJs, and Wranglers with missing or removable doors.  Any pickup truck that could have appeared in The Last Picture Show with Cybill Shepherd riding in the passenger seat.  Swedish cars that have two-stroke engines or the ignition in an odd location.  The MG TC or any Morgan. These cars are kind of like incense at high mass; conjuring up a mystical sense of occasion seems the main purpose for which they exist.  Virtually any vehicle your neighborhood association would like to have towed away as soon as possible.  Peter Egan is R&amp;amp;amp;T&amp;#039;s editor-at-large. Sartre never saw him as illusory. That was the neighbors. For sheer panache, almost nothing on earth outshines an XK120 with rear fender skirts prowling through Napa wine country on a warm evening. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a4945/side-glances-cars-of-occasion-65-2-roa0913/>