Revvin’ the Engine

When I applied to Harvard, my application must have been compelling, considering I got in. The only problem was, it was far from complete. I failed to mention something about myself that is a big part of my life: I really, really like cars.

Maybe it’s best I didn’t mention that. Being a car enthusiast at Harvard is an alienating experience, and certainly isn’t satisfied by the physical and social environment. I’ve spent more of my undergraduate career than is healthy scheming about how to get my car up here and how to keep it up here. I’ve spent much of the rest of the time suppressing the urge to bore my friends with long soliloquies on why turbocharging a daily driver is a bad idea from a reliability standpoint, or why power-to-weight ratio is way more important than raw horsepower, or why…sorry, am I boring you? I’ll stop now.

My obsession started early. I subscribed to Car and Driver in fourth grade. I was crushed when my mom made it clear to me that I wouldn’t be getting my license at 16 and three months like the law allowed. More recently, I have swapped a new engine into my 1992 Infiniti G20 two times—once because the old one was dead, the second time because although the first one was doing fine, I wanted more power. I do all the repairs and maintenance not only on my car, but also on my parents’. When I was on leave and working in Utah, I would occasionally take off from work early and go for hours-long drives in the mountains. And I religiously keep up to date on new developments in the automobile industry, so much so that one of my blockmates nicknamed me “Autoblog” after I told her once that I needed to finish reading the car news blog of the same name before we went to Annenberg for dinner.

By and large, though, I’ve had to keep my interest closeted at Harvard, despite it being a big part of my life. Very few people here know much about cars, and very few care, either. Why learn about the merits of multilink suspensions when you can learn about an exciting topic in psychology, economics, biology, philosophy, or Folklore and Mythology? Every once in a while, I slip a reference to my hobby into a conversation to see if anyone will bite, but people rarely do. It’s always refreshing when somebody does, though. My most reliable outlet for car talk until the beginning of this year was, amazingly enough, my House master, Jim McCarthy, who is as much of a gearhead as I am. The Christakises replaced the McCarthys this year, though, and though they’ve been great House masters, I’m going to miss the discussions over dinner of the latest modifications we’ve done on our cars.

Added to the alienation of having nobody to talk to about my passion are the trials and tribulations of trying to have a car while at Harvard. On-street parking generally requires a resident parking permit, which would require me to register and insure my car in Massachusetts, at a possible cost of over a thousand dollars a year. Flout the rules and you’ll have to pay hefty fines and might even get your car towed. Off-street parking is available, but most of the time it’s expensive—at least $150 per month. Park in Harvard spots and you risk a ticket.

I gave it up as a lost cause for freshman year and much of sophomore year, but gradually, I learned ways to get around these obstacles. On-street and Harvard parking is unenforced in some places after hours and on weekends. There are a few streets, including one near the Quad, that do not require that you have a permit to park there. I carefully researched the options and requirements, and drove my car up from Maryland after spring break last year. I’ve had it here ever since, and have only gotten two parking tickets. It’s basically impossible to drive to class (do you see any parking spaces in Harvard Yard?), but I enjoy the occasional late-night drive, use it to run errands, and drive in to the Square on weekends for extracurriculars, just because I can.

In the end, being a car enthusiast at Harvard hasn’t been a total loss. If anything, the dearth of fellow enthusiasts just makes it that much more exciting when I find one. And I’ve managed to work my interest into my academic work: my thesis is a creative photography project documenting different types of car repair. I can even occasionally amuse my friends with my running commentary during car-themed movies; if you’ve decided to watch “The Fast and The Furious” and I walk in, be prepared to learn that “granny-shifting, not double-clutching like you should” doesn’t actually mean anything on modern cars. Who knew?

Maybe including my love of cars on my admissions application might have been an asset rather than a liability after all?



—David I. Fulton-Howard ’08-10 is a senior Visual and Environmental Studies concentrator in Pforzheimer House. He goes coo coo for Corollas.