Hyundai Santa Fe XRT: “Big Momma”

When I was 17, I met a girl named Claudia. She was the friend of another girl I knew, Paula, whom I had been flirting with for some time. I was on tour — I was a singer as a child — and had to spend 10 days in their city singing in a festival.

Not Claudia…but lovely Jennifer Conolly here helps illustrate exactly what I mean.

Claudia was beautiful. She had dark blue eyes, long legs, angular and beautifully sculpted shoulders and arms — both lean and flanked by small yet perfectly formed muscles. Her petroleum-black, long, wavy hair was styled in an “I don’t care” way that splashed over one side of her shoulder, giving her head a naturally weighted tilt that was simultaneously sexy, tender, girlish, and aloof. She wore tight, lightly acid-washed jeans, old and worn.

Her tight white T-shirts — reminiscent of those made famous by both Elvis and Morten Harket — gave her a tomboyish edge; both incredibly feminine… and not. The sleeves were rolled up as if hiding a cigarette carton (she wasn’t).

It was too uncomplicated for what, at the time, was considered “feminine” (right or wrong), yet it was incredibly feminine. She wore sockless Converse Chuck Taylors — used and dirty, of course — and finished it all off with a red bandana tightly wound around her wrist… again, circa mid-to-late-’80s A-ha.

Her final weapon was a bosom that was unmissable and which perked up, sweeping out like the beam of a warship searchlight, slicing through the dreary lives of mere mortals in its path, forever hunting for — and haunting — every teenage hormone in sight. She was an unwitting, and possibly unaware, sex weapon of mass seduction.

…And I did not like her. 

For reasons I fail to remember perfectly — memory is not an accurate keeper of details, rather of sensations — she would not smile at me or laugh at anything I said that was witty, things that caused my other friends to laugh. I, in turn, did not laugh at anything she said, which also made the same people laugh. She would look the other way when I spoke, and I would ignore her when she spoke: It is clear to me now that we were completely and utterly enamoured with each other, we just did not know how to unleash those broncos! Why we had to be so stupid and act uninterested is impossible to answer today.

This continued for three days until on the fourth we found ourselves sitting in the front seat of a Land Rover Series II. The driver had stepped out for a moment. I was in the passenger seat, and she was in the middle, when suddenly my hand inadvertently brushed hers — oh so softly… She looked at me, and for the first time, a small, if ever-so-brief, smile spread over her lips… and as quickly as it appeared, it was gone.

The beam of her hormonal searchlight had detonated over me.

My heart raced. My legs suddenly felt weightless. My stomach felt as if I had just gone down the big drop in Space Mountain. Did she like me? Did I like her? For heaven’s sake, yes, I did. I didn’t like her now — I liked her from the first moment I saw her. What should I do? I’ve acted like a jackass with her, and so has she. I must be going insane. I’m supposed to like her friend Paula, who likes me, apparently, but is so slow at reciprocating my small moves that, at this rate, we might make it to first base when we’re 50.

To hell with that.

Claudia had a rip on the side of her jeans, right on her thigh, where a light, peach-like fur — barely visible, probably invisible to me today — called out, inches away from my now trembling hand. I mustered some hormonally pushed courage and gently brushed the back of my hand over the small patch of exposed bare skin. As I did, she looked at my hand and then raised her eyes to me. As much as I would love to imagine that my expression was akin to Pierce Brosnan’s as he tried to seduce Famke Janssen in GoldenEye, it was probably closer to the dorky expression of Paul from The Wonder Years.

Yet, instead of rejecting my action, she grabbed my hand — no qualms or hesitation — and confidently and possessively placed her fingers between mine, resting both our hands on her lap, using her other hand to gently caress mine. In the shadow of my hesitation, she took command!

Her searchlight had found me, and its cannons were soon to follow.

BOOM. BAM!

In a single, unexpected, and emotionally explosive moment, we went from not standing each other to being completely on fire… for each other. It was unbelievable in both its speed and intensity. Suddenly, every word, every gesture, movement, mannerism, quirk — everything — went from being the subject of scorn to becoming the very object of desire.

What does this have to do with a suburban brat hauler named Hyundai Santa Fe XRT, you ask? Well, patience, my young grasshopper.

The XRT became a vehicle I recently used on a film shoot for Land Rover’s new Defender Octa. It was among a battery of vehicles we normally rent — aside from trucks, camera cars, motorhomes, etc. But in this case, given we were filming in the deserts that intersect California, Nevada, and Arizona, it would be a vehicle I would drive for many miles, and for many days, under hard conditions: heat, sun, sand, dirt roads, mountains, monsoon rains. Given it is not common that I drive myself on a shoot — it’s hard to produce while driving — it was a rare chance to see what this car was made of.

At first, as with Claudia, its unique personality traits seemed to annoy me. Its shape was very attractive, though, for it was not the cyanide pill or ivory soap-bar shape (yawn…) that most SUV designers have cursed our roads with.

In this case, the Santa Fe’s sharp edges, angular lines, non-rounded angles, as well as its ’80s, 8-bit video-game-like front and rear light design, were very interesting and quite creative. But some of its ergonomic features were frustrating and jarring — or maybe, because it is a suburban hauler, I was naturally rejecting it. I hated the gear selector — a protruding rectangular fob-like appendix that emerges from under and to the right of the steering wheel, operated by twisting it to choose a gear.

Why? Why is this necessary? Is a gear selector too difficult? It also has a horizontal, massive iPad-like screen in the center that was bright enough to illuminate an entire city, with, as of yet, no way of shutting it down — at least that I could find — for I was unable to lower the nuclear-detonation-level radiation in the form of visible light that all the screens gave out. Would a knob next to the door have been too hard to place so that, like all cars of yore, you could lower or raise the brightness? Sigh…

And just like Claudia deliberately ignored anything witty I would say, the Hyundai refused to bow to anything I wished to do without giving its opinion. If I wanted to change lanes, even with the turn signal on, heaven forbid if there was a car behind me in the lane I was about to enter — even if I was in Nevada and the other car was still in Arizona — it would beep and yelp like a hurt chihuahua. If I so much as waited a fraction of a second to take off when a stoplight turned green, it would also beep. Apparently, the designers gave it the patience of a Miami taxi driver.

And let’s not forget the moronic timer it deploys on its massive screen, asking you to accept the terms for using the system or CarPlay or whatever — every bloody time you start the car — with a clock counting down until you agree. I guess if you don’t, it might detonate a bomb, perhaps? This, at 5 a.m., before coffee, fed a level of anxiety that would have even given Tom Cruise sweaty palms.

As with Claudia, the first few days I spent with the XRT, it was both purposely ignored by me, and its traits left me thinking — or pretending — I wanted something else. And so, I tried another of our convoy’s cars: a VW Titan. Holy hell… are buttons outlawed now? Did Trump sign an executive order declaring ergonomics part of Antifa?

The Hyundai at least had A/C and radio volume controls in the form of knobs, which you can figure out easily — and, more importantly, find instinctively without looking down.

Was Zum Teufel geht hier ab?!

But the VW… well, it was impossible to change something as simple as fan speed without earning a degree from MIT.

Using my status as the “boss-man,” I gave up on trying to figure out the VW — just as I gave up on trying to figure out Paula — and took back the Hyundai.

And fortunately, I did.

For then… the acceptance, or rather the surrender of attraction — the veil of unacceptance — was drawn, and like a curtain opening to let light in, it was unleashed in all its glory.

It happened as I was driving over an unpaved road, slowly, annoyingly, following our caravan of circus cars, trucks, and trailers. Suddenly an opening appeared, and I recalled how a friend — a car director for whom I used to produce — Louis Couvelair, would drive off-road. No matter what we were doing, he never let anyone take the wheel. When driving over gravel or sand or deserts, or through rainforests or rivers, beaches, or lakes, he would not go gently; he would blast through — therefore flying over many of the bumps, carefully steering quickly to avoid large rocks but mostly gliding over everything. And since it was faster, it meant we would suffer for a shorter time.

Somewhere between Arizona and Nevada

I passed the caravan, and the Hyundai, like Claudia, gave me a fast look and… from that point on, we were both smitten. Dear oh dear, this suburban, brat-hauling MILF (can I write that?) suddenly was on fire — which, like the sudden appearance of burros in Arizona in the middle of the road, came out of nowhere. Its 277 horses — unleashed broncos loose in the desert hills — made the Santa Fe fun. Yes, fun. I know the horsepower numbers might not be much to write about in our over-testosteroned age, where the small-dick brigade, in order to compensate for… well, you know… need to show off larger, heavier, more powerful machines for zero logical reason. Yet, believe me, as someone who knows how to drive and has driven many a leery beast as well as my share of gentle kittens, it is more than enough to get you in and out of trouble.

When I first turned her on — the Santa Fe — the Bluetooth information of the prior renter appeared. It said “Big Momma.” This was a source of scorn from the crew for the first few days as it kept appearing, leading me to imagine, mockingly, what kind of horrid experience the poor Hyundai had been through. Especially since I had been forced to wait for the it at the rental counter as I was told it needed to be “thoroughly cleaned”, for it had been through… “a lot”. Um…

As the days continued, and the driving became more and more remote — the land harsher, the conditions harsher — the protection and convenience provided by the Hyundai chipped away at my cynicism. Until, like Claudia decisively taking hold of my hand, the attraction simply could not be contained.

We drove each other mad, and then drove each other wild. Until the day came when we had to say goodbye.

Our shoot was over. A few thousand miles later, the suburban hauler, as had Claudia, stole my heart. She — the Santa Fe — was filthy, full of sand, dirt, mud — everywhere. It was unbelievable. All the other cars, some 15, as well as the trucks, were all returned filthy. But I couldn’t do that. I could not return her like that. Maybe “Big Momma” could, but not me — not after all the passion, fun, care, sheltering, and embrace.

I went to a car wash and washed her myself, vacuumed her, purchased towels to remove any stains, and sucked out every possible trace of dirt and sand I could find. And as A’ha’s legendary ballad “Hunting High and Low” played, I arrived at the rental car centre and returned the XRT to its rightful owners, unsure what would happen to her.

I could feel her sad. I was sad. Yes, I know this sounds ridiculous, but I was. Her life would now be relegated to other “Big Mommas” — coming to Vegas (our initial base camp) to indulge, over-eat, gamble, be loud, act obnoxious, bathe in gaudiness, and subject my dear XRT to sights, sounds, and actions no decent Hyundai should ever be forced to see or live through. Sigh.

I told her that I would miss her, and that I felt at least happy we had shared our unfettered passion and unleashed whatever we had wanted out in the deserts.

Of course, I will never see my suburban brat hauler again. But I will remember her. She reminded me to keep an open mind to different ways — and that maybe, when one drops the preconceived ideas of what something or someone should be, how it or they should act, we might see it — and them — truly as they are, and therefore appreciate, both machines and people more.

As for Claudia, we spent our last hour in the airport hugging and kissing — tears streaking down our cheeks. The initial disgust with each other becoming even more maddening as we realized that in our stupidity, we had wasted the first few days indulging our idiocy rather than enjoying our embrace. As I waved goodbye, she turned and ran, probably ashamed to have me see her cry.

I never saw her again.

I left the Santa Fe and ran to the rental station’s bus as it was leaving. I sat down and looked back to catch a last glimpse of its angular shape.

I thought of Claudia. I hope she is happy and well.

HMS Ana

Suddenly, the melancholy quickly lifted away as I realized how life had granted me the fortune of striking gold many times, finally hitting the motherload upon finding — and falling for — my wife.

Her nuclear-powered searchlight had not only found me but had obliterated any resistance I could pathetically muster. It had melted this valiant ship’s core in the same uncontrollable fashion that I had experienced as a teenager.

Yet, twenty years later, I was now in possession of a level of maturity and wisdom that allowed me to surrender this time, wisely so, and ask Her Majesty’s Ship, Ana, to marry me.