Ask the Best and Brightest Special Ed: Five Cars for Labor Day

kbb.com presents a top ten automotive list that is to PR what plastic worms are to bass: completely contrived and intermittently irresistible. “ Ten Great Cars for 10 Different Jobs” is about vague and non-threatening a compendium as I’ve ever encountered in this genre. And you can’t fault them for adding the word “Different” “Ten Great Cars for the Same Damn Job” just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Oh look! There’s a Ford F-150! Quel surprise! Only this is the Raptor version for bounty hunters who don’t find their man inside a bar or roach-infested apartment, and want to tear the miscreant into pieces and eat him, presumably. “The kbb.com list is sure to provide thought-provoking transportation options for those in various lines of work.” Me, I’m only in one line of work: automotive truth telling. Well, that and comedy. And you’re in this with me, you bastards. So make the jump for five more ideas for career-appropriate whips. Correct us if we’re wrong. (As if.) As always, we welcome your suggestions.

Coke dealer – Don’t think downmarket; the mostly Bolivian-sourced drug is repackaged for the financially-challenged and sold as something called “crack” (much to the chagrin of the Irish, but then heteros lost the word gay so there you go). Eddy reckons a de-badged, “murdered-out” BMW M3 is the answer to a question neither of us get asked, ever. Fo shizzle. It’s low-key, yet capable of outrunning anything save police radio. I’m good with the keeping it on the down-low approach. I’m thinking a Toyota Corolla XRS. They’re completely invisible, yet the extra performance. . . just kidding. Alternatively, candycaine providers could help society by driving a scissor-doored Chrysler 300C with a Bentley-esque mesh grill and one of those in-car LED displays with a crawl proclaiming “A R E S T M E I A M A C O K E D E E L E R.”

Antique Dealer – Once upon a time, Volvo station wagons were specifically designed by antique dealers, for antique dealers. Members of this profession are not dumb; they know that buying an estate from the dead-brand-walking Swedish brand today would be like paying top dollar for cracked Fiestaware. Eddy says Subaru Outback, but admits that everyone in his Portland locale drives a Subaru Outback—pot dealers, soccer moms, purveyors of Russian Samovars, everyone. (Biggest car joke in Oregon: “meet me at (X). I’m in the green Outback.”) I’ve always wondered why latter day Lovejoys don’t drive something delightfully old and quirky, like a 1957 Pontiac Safari Transcontinental. Probably because they want to get where they’re going the same day that they start going there, and don’t want die in a five-mile-per-hour shunt. So the Subie it is.

Accountant – Like a good pencil pushing number cruncher, you gotta think outside the law. I mean, box. An accountant who drives a Ferrari 430 Spider (as one of kid’s classmate’s father does) is telling the world that they’re successful at helping successful people become successful by helping them avoid paying, uh, you know. Better yet, an accountant who drive the world’s most expensive Italian toy (aside from a high maintenance mistress) says “I’m bulletproof baby. See this Ferrari IRS? Yeah I’m rich. Go on audit me, you bastards. I dare you.” Eddy says slap a company logo on that bad boy, and all the expensive maintenance is a write-off.

Tween Star – So easy to go for the Mercedes SL63 AMG. But the uber-SL’s throttle is way too twitchy for a teen tween queen, without or without an elevated blood alcohol level—as Lindsay Lohan has shown us time and time again. Yes, it’s the safest fuck-off-and-die-mobile money can buy, but is that really the message our highly-esteemed role models want to send to today’s Bratz? And here at TTAC we never, ever do anything nice (well, except for our positive post of the day and Eddy’s screwed that up more than once). Eddy can see Miley Cyrus in a Pepto-Pink LaCrosse; “thanks to a deal signed to attract younger buyers to the Buick brand.” But then they do have exceptional marijuana where Eddy lives [see: above]. Me, I’m with Hayden: Mercedes GL. I know she’s like totally old now, but the GL’s just like an SL only the logo’s WAY bigger and you can take your entourage and stuff and you can see the pop-o-Nazis from MILES away.

President of the United States – Lest we forget, The Commander-in-Chief commands General Motors. So the Prez can commandeer his pick from the entire range of GM models across the company’s eight brands. Oops! Four. No, wait, it IS eight. Hang on; we can’t include Opel, Vauxhall, Holden and Daewoo because American politicians MUST DRIVE AN AMERICAN CAR. Still, that still leaves, what 32 separate models, depending on what you call separate. Anyway, Eddy says Chevrolet Aveo. But he’s just being an asshole. I reckon The Leader of the Free World should drive a Chrysler 300C. Because it’s a free country and he’s free to drive whatever he wants and he’s a man who isn’t afraid to do so no matter how strenuously the green wing of his party protests or how cravenly PC his advisers may be. Oh wait . . .