If you're the shy or anti-social type, stop in your tracks right now. Only the truly outgoing, life-of-the-party types should come any closer to this car. It's the Chrysler PT Cruiser. And it stops traffic, turns heads, and generally disrupts normal life like no other new car at any price. Thanks to the charms of the affordably priced PT, you no longer need to dream of landing a three-picture deal from Paramount just so you can be famous. Just drive (or even stand beside!) this machine anywhere, and you'll be flocked by more civilian paparazzi than Gillian Anderson at an X-Files convention.
Attention can be good or bad, though, right? (Just ask Steven Spielberg about his handcuff-and-duct-tape wielding stalker.) Yet unlike the snotty looks, rude gestures, and even actual spitting you sometimes receive when piloting a megabuck exotic car, the public response to this hip little retro-mobile is pure adoration. It's as if Chrysler's designers combined the bad-boyness of a chrome Harley with the retro-coolness of a street rod, and slathered it all with the gushy loveability of an armload of yellow puppies.
Two years ago, I told you about my similar experiences behind the wheel of the very first VW New Beetle in Los Angeles. But as it turns out, that was just a hint at the untamed public response the Cruiser's debut would bring.
Don't believe it? The following happened to me during only one night of driving the PT Cruiser (months before its on-sale date):
* I hadn't even made it out of the Motor Trend parking lot when several sidewalk passersby suddenly diverted as if by radio control and flocked about the car. Ten minutes later I managed to actually get onto Wilshire Boulevard. As I hit the street and glanced into the mirror, I honestly thought one guy had grabbed onto my bumper to get me to stop.
* At the first stoplight, I had that weird feeling that people were looking at me. Turns out, they were. From every car. From every side. Even the multitudes of work-weary people trundling across the cross-walk were staring. Every one. Well, that's almost true: The Cruiser failed to evoke even a glance or a grunt from a babushka-wearing grandma type, replete with giant loaves of bread sticking out of her shopping bag, who strode past in steely resolve. (Strike one demographic category from the PT's prospective buyer list.)
* The evening traffic seemed strangely coagulated in clumps until I realized they were all coagulated around me, like a giant blood clot slowly making its way down the popular commuter artery that is Fairfax Avenue. Frustrated to the point of bursting an aneurism of my own, I sped off down a side street only to be immediately engulfed by another hoard of admirers on the next major avenue, the result of which was at least an additional 15 minutes to my normally 30-minute commute.
* Heading up into the foothills, I passed a mini-convoy of Chrysler emissions-testing vehicles going the opposite direction. Car three was a heavily disguised PT Cruiser test mule. The driver looked positively apoplectic. Here he was in a stealthily camouflaged version of the car I was showing off no less blatantly than if it were shellacked with $20 bills and video-streamed onto the Internet. (That was kinda fun, I must admit.)
* The "quick fill-up" at a gas station took another 20 minutes, as I entertained a round of questions from every non-English-speaking gentleman who worked there. Amid much pointing and gesturing, I left having no doubt that I'd converted the entire place into prospective PT buyers