OBAMA: NO AUTOMOBILE HISTORIAN

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Ford Motor Company's most prominent customer, President Barack Obama (D-IL), has proven once again he's no gearhead. According to the Associated Press, Obama delivered the following gaffe in his over-hyped speech of February 24, 2009:

OBAMA: "And I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it."

THE FACTS: Depends what your definition of automobiles, is. According to the Library of Congress, the inventor of the first true automobile was probably Germany's Karl Benz, who created the first auto powered by an internal combustion gasoline engine, in 1885 or 1886. In the U.S., Charles Duryea tested what library researchers called the first successful gas-powered car in 1893. Nobody disputes that Henry Ford created the first assembly line that made cars affordable.

Too bad Ford doesn't still send out the "Ford Times" magazine to inform its customers on the abecdarian basics of automotive history.

Of course, automobile enthusiasts and motorsports participants already knew that Ford's "number one customer" wasn't "one of us."

But Obama's gaffe points to a false dichotomy and a fundamental misunderstanding of automotive liberty among urbanized "appliance motorists" such as President Obama.

We cannot "walk away" from personal vehicle choice merely because of some misplaced and misinformed national pride. It's deeper than that.

Automotive liberty is at the heart of the modern American experience.

This is a vast country that cannot be traveresed efficiently through mass transit. Our way of life depends on the freedom to engage in decentralized, private commerce. Americans enjoy a myriad of recreational pursuits which require personal light vehicles. Our freedom of assembly and the free exercise of religion now rely on the mobility that private motor vehicles facilitate.

And millions of Americans rely on high performance and sporting vehicles as an essential component of their self-definition. After Washington regulations and insurance company greed killed the original muscle cars in the early 1970s, many Americans didn't just abandon individualized forms of transport for "sensible" government-dictated safety/economy cars. The market, instead, evolved through customized vans, personal luxury cars, athletic Autobahn-bred sports sedans, and then to rugged SUVs, luxury pickups, and the rebirth of the musclecar in the Second Supercar Era.

Why?

Because millions of Americans still help define themselves through their vehicle choices. Minivans are perhaps the Swiss Army Knifes of modern transportation, yet the adventurous, youthful, free-spiritedness of the modern SUV drives them to greater market success.

While obnoxious know-it-alls, greens, and liberal "appliance motorists" envision an electric-golf-cart/Prius/Smart Car/plug-in/cattle-car-mass-transit future, the reality is that millions of Americans will never settle for mundane, government-designed microcars or more light rail stops.

Some of us ENJOY the freedom of motoring.

Some of us enjoy speed, power, and the aesthetics of a rumbling, pulsating V8 at our command.

Some of us enjoy clipping the apex on a winding mountain road, or ambling down a Robert Moses parkway with the top down and the wind in our hair.

Some of us cherish every second of exploring Old Route 66 or the Lincoln Highway.

Some of us love to "kill cones" at an autocross or cut the perfect light on the 1320.

Some of us are enraptured by the sprint cars careening around local dirt bullring tracks.

Some of us will stay up all night long or drive a thousand miles for the Rolex 24 at Daytona, or Sebring, or even Indianapolis (notwithstanding Tony George's hamfisted mismanagement of the traditions).

Some of us believe it's our God-given right to assemble ourselves together at Sturgis, or Talledega, or on Woodward Avenue, or at the Monterey weekend, or "Billetproof," or on the Hot Rod Magazine Power Tour.

And all of the liberal Car Czars, EPA red-tape, climate-religion treaties, and misinformed Presidential speeches in the world won't change that.