I told myself that this day would come, that there would be a time I would have to man-up and deal with the rough cards dealt out. The man at the Suzuki dealership and I stood together, little was said but we both knew that it was time I left and took the new Suzuki Alto press vehicle for review with me.
The Alto is a micro car with an ultra economical three-cylinder engine, not exactly as masculine as a HSV or Toyota Hilux but that wasn’t the problem. The small issue laid in the Alto’s colour, it’s a special hue, a blend of red and white you could say. Or alternatively you could call it pink.
As I pulled away from the dealership, I told myself not to feel self-conscious and it was just a colour. I quickly tuned the radio station to The Rock and reclined the seat back perhaps a little further than I usually would. There wasn’t an issue here nothing to see, or so I thought. At the first set of lights I reached a lowered Subaru Legacy pulled up alongside and two young men looked over at me, talking and laughing between themselves. I fought off an urge to drop the window and explain how I happened to be driving a pink micro car. Instead I let the 1000cc three-cylinders of fury sitting beneath the Alto’s bonnet do the talking, and they saw who was boss for about 0.3 seconds before they made me eat their carbon emissions and screamed off.
So the episode left me thinking: Is a man who drives a pink car still a man?
The answer isn’t an easy one, it’s not like getting into the driver’s seat of a pink car is instant castration, it’s more about the conscious decision to use a pink vehicle as your preferred mode of transport. For me the choice hadn’t been my own, it was a requirement of my work, so yes I remained a man. Which was lucky cause I wasn’t ready to give up slashing outdoors and not drying my back properly after a shower.
In fact, you could say the ability to drive a pink car and not be affected by other people’s assumptions could be a way of strengthening masculinity. Isn’t that why pink shirts were a fad for guys a while back, oh that’s right, salmon coloured shirts.
So later that same day I was out again in my pink Alto press car, when I stopped at an intersection and a young lady smiled at me. Now, I’ve driven many expensive and powerful vehicles this year and this has never really happened before. So what was special about the pink Alto, well you can make up your own mind, but I think it’s because she saw me not as a guy in a pink car, but more as a man with a story to tell.
So I just did.
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