Yahoo Autos Counterparts On the Land and in the Air
From the 1989 April issue of Road & Track
When I was taking flying lessons a few years ago, a friend of mine asked me what kind of airplane the instructor and I were using.
"A Cessna 150." I answered.
He made a face. "Those are kind of like the Chevette of airplanes, aren't they?"
I thought about that for a minute and then I said. "There's no such thing as a Chevette of airplanes. Any machine that can fly is, by definitions, quite a bit more exciting than a Chevette."
At the risk of sounding defensive, I also mentioned that the Cessna 150 is actually a delightful, fun airplane to fly, and its only real crime is popularity. If it were rare enough to generate jealousy and high prices, it would be much more highly regarded. In this respect, it's probably closer to a Camaro then a Chevette: a good design, seen everywhere.
Even if my friend wasn't quite on target, I thought it was interesting that he had framed his comparison with a car. It occurred to me then that we nearly always use cars as the standard when we are trying to de fine quality, or lack of it, in almost any other product.
Rolls-Royce, of course, is the world's most common touchstone of craftsmanship and exclusivity. I have heard both Hasselblads and Leicas described as the Rolls-Royce of cameras, the Rolex described as the Rolls-Royce of wristwatches, and so on. I have a photograph on my office wall of T.E. Lawrence (yes. the Lawrence of Arabia) sitting astride a Brough Superior, which my bike history books assure me was the Rolls-Royce of motorcycles. Lawrence owned seven of these machines, so they must have been good, even if he was killed on one.
When I was growing up, Cadillac was used almost interchangeably with Rolls-Royce to emphasize the upper limits of quality, but that practice has declined somewhat. Nowadays, if your neighbor tells you he just bought the Cadillac of lawnmowers you don't know whether he means it's really well-built, luxuriously upholstered, too big to fit in the garage, recently downsized, partly manufactured in Italy or sold under several other names by the same corporation. The image is confused.
My friend George Allez, also a pilot, often rents a Piper Warrior II from his flying club. He once described the Warrior to me as "the Oldsmobile of airplanes." No further explanation was needed. I knew exactly what he meant: If we went flying, I could expect to find the plane comfortable, civilized, easy to use, safe, serviceable, unpretentious, relatively roomy and good for long trips, but not terribly exotic or sporty. We would be safe, in other words, from the ever-present temptation to do loops and victory rolls in the landing pattern.
These comparisons, I suppose, are inevitable. My old pal Chris Beebe and I have taken half a dozen cross country trips together in weird or unusual cars, and, sooner or later (usually crossing Nebraska), we fall into the game of deciding what kind of airplane or motorcycle the car would become if it suddenly grew wings or lost two wheels.
The Model A we drove from Wisconsin to California via Texas was clearly the Piper Cub of cars. The similarities were remarkable. Both had gravity-feed gas tanks in the shape of the dash cowl, simple instruments, low top speed, uncomfortable barrel-backed seats, hinged-glass ventilation, and both were much beloved for their honesty by the people who owned them. The Cub was a slightly newer, less maintenance-intensive design, but the basic aura was the same. I don't know what kind of motorcycle a Model A might become, not having ridden any bikes from that era; maybe an Indian Scout or a Harley 45.
The MG TC we drove to Road Atlanta a few years ago evoked kinship with some kind of old English bi plane, probably the de Havilland Moth-an airplane that is often called the Piper Cub of England, incidentally. The fact is, nearly all older British roadsters make you think of biplanes. Deep down in their flying subconscious is a racial memory of SE5s or Sopwith Scouts. The Morgan 4-wheeler, too, was obviously some kind of biplane in another life, while also serving as logical avatar to the Velocette motorcycle, another design that maintained classic styling in the face of progress and the whims of fashion. Morgan 3-wheelers are distantly related to virtually any vehicle that was ever parked in front of Toad Hall.
Jaguar E-Type roadsters and D-Type racing cars, on the other hand, are too modern and flowing of line to be transmuted into biplanes. Their bloodlines seem to be connected to the fighter planes of World War II, the Supermarine Spitfire in particular. Even under the hood, the XK engine looks like one bank of a Merlin V-12. It also smells like one. If the E-Type were a motorcycle, it would probably be a Norton 750 or 850 Commando, based on beauty, detail of finish, charisma, and mean annual leakage of vital fluids.
The owner of nearly any Italian motorcycle-Ducati, Laverda, Moto Guzzi or Moto Morini-will tell you his favored brand is the Ferrari of motorcycles, and I admit to having done so with my own Ducati 900SS. But there is probably only one Italian motorcycle that really fills the bill. That is the fire-engine red MV Agusta GP bike, in its various multi- cylindered, shrieking forms, as ridden to victory by John Surtees, Mike Hailwood, Giacomo Agostini and others. Former Road & Track staffer and Private Pilot Editor Steve Kimball tells me that the SIAI-Marchetti is the Ferrari of airplanes. I've never flown one. so I'll take his word for it.
Porsches? I've heard people de scribe both the Bellanca Viking and the Mooney as the Porsche of airplanes. Some BMW motorcycles seem like 2-wheeled Porsches. but others feel closer akin to BMW cars. We've got so many generations of machinery here that you have to be specific as to model and year. It's complicated.
I think of my Lotus Super Seven as the Bellanca Decathlon of cars, but I don't know what kind of motorcycle it would be. It's nearly as uncomfortable and spare as the Ducati, the fiberglass pieces are similarly cobby, both machines are equally useless as daily transportation and they both go like hell, handle great and make a lot of noise, so maybe there's a connection.
My Chevy van is the C-130 of trucks, and if I don't get this column handed in to the Genghis Khan of editors by three o'clock this after noon, I'll be the Edsel of motor journalists. Adios.
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