<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"  Chugging from north Jersey to Cape Cod in the Forester last August, doing eighty-five on I-95, four cylinders wheezing like an old miner, a goldfish-orange Lamborghini zips by and my son bucks in the backseat so hard the whole chassis rocks.  &amp;quot;What was that?&amp;quot; he yips. That&amp;#039;s how it starts for him. Two weeks later, on our way back down 95, he can call every make of car on the road from one hundred feet off. Home, I buy him an exotic-car annual -- vetted by the wife so that his innocence is not despoiled by bimbo photos. She has no clue -- not even after he cuts out pictures of the Bugatti Veyron to make a poster -- that to an eight-year-old boy, cars are the porn. It started for me at the same age, on a road trip with my old man. We were moving from Cleveland to L.A., and my mother and two younger brothers flew out ahead; we took a 1956 Ford he&amp;#039;d just gotten in a swap for his &amp;#039;51 Hudson. This was 1960, so long ago that we hooked into Route 66 in Illinois and rode it all the way to Santa Monica. I knew en route that it was the coolest thing I&amp;#039;d ever done. It still may be.  You can slice it like a lab-slide sample, how American men love cars and why. Freedom, frontier, Manifest Destiny, the Kerouacian Zen of eternal Go, the yearning for a scrotum as meaty -- and a driveshaft as puissant -- as a four-barreled 440. I have no use for all that bullshit -- all of it revealing far more about the speaker than the subject.  I know this: I&amp;#039;m no cocksman or car expert, but I&amp;#039;ve had more cars than women -- and I&amp;#039;ve forgotten more of the women than the cars.  And this: When the Consumer Reports annual car issue comes in the mail, my son starts scouting replacements for the Forester. He makes lists ranking the small and midsized SUVs -- noting curb weights, cargo volumes, and mpg -- and he prints out stacks of information for me. It doesn&amp;#039;t matter that we&amp;#039;re not getting a Veyron or a Pagani or a Viper -- it&amp;#039;s way past that. He&amp;#039;s juiced. Proud. Above all, he&amp;#039;s serious. And it isn&amp;#039;t sex, baseball stats, the romance of the open road, or bonding with Pops; it&amp;#039;s every one of those things -- and it&amp;#039;s more. It&amp;#039;s commitment and mastery and being soul-stirred beyond any need or ability to explain or define it. Yeah, it&amp;#039;s about being a man, calling your shot, learning how to speak up and be heard -- all that jazz. But beyond these abstracts, it&amp;#039;s about cars, and cars are essentially cool -- cool in a way and at a full-hearted, throbbing depth no other mass-made machine can ever match. And it&amp;#039;s about love, pure and wild. My boy&amp;#039;s in love. With cars. So when the Auto Show comes to New York City, we don&amp;#039;t just head into the city -- he cuts school to go. The kid with the perfect attendance certificate on his bedroom wall plays hooky. Mama sends Mrs. Johnson an e-mail bright and early saying simply that Judah won&amp;#039;t be coming today -- and Mrs. Johnson, bless her, replies to the effect that she hopes that Judah feels better. He feels great. The skirt hosting the Toyota show picks him to get up onstage to make the opening announcement -- &amp;quot;Ladies and gentlemen, this is Toyota live&amp;quot; -- and he wins a round of applause and a jar of jellybeans, and for the next five hours, he and I are walking in heaven.  &amp;quot;They really went the extra mile,&amp;quot; he nods, solemn and studying the yellow-and-black Camaro concept car Chevy trucked in.  The &amp;#039;Ghinis are roped off, sitting on a turntable with a pair of spike-heeled vamps. Whaddaya think, kiddo? &amp;quot;Too powerful to believe,&amp;quot; he says, hushed. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s the one with the V-12 engine.&amp;quot; You see those two women? &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m just seeing the car. Da, this is just amazing.&amp;quot; There&amp;#039;s our next car, I say as we near one end of the hall, pointing to another fenced-off jewel -- a dark Maybach he hasn&amp;#039;t spotted yet. &amp;quot;Omigosh. Omigod. Omigosh.&amp;quot; Handsome, isn&amp;#039;t it? &amp;quot;Ohhhhh. I will never forget that.&amp;quot; That makes two of us.  On our trek back to the parking lot, I ask if he had a good time. &amp;quot;This,&amp;quot; he says, &amp;quot;is the best day of my life.&amp;quot;  Me too, son, I say. Me too.  For more car coverage, including the best trucks, sedans, and coupes, please visit Esquire&amp;#039;s Online Auto Show 2008. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/cars/a4684/cars-0608/>