Fleetwood

Saw this the other day, idling at the kerb a block or so from my kids' school. Yes, it's the mid-90s Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham, and even if this wasn't a kinda sketchy neighbourhood undergoing a long, slow gentrification, it would stand out.

First of all, they don't make them like this anymore. Like the Crown Vic LTD I shot the other day (in the same neighbourhood,) it's a land yacht (225" in length) that looks like a vast shiny barge in an era when the Chrysler 300 (198.6") is pretty much the biggest sedan you can buy. It's a car made for a man who doesn't mind if he takes up a bit of space - especially when he's parking. (Very poorly, in this case.)

You can't help but imagine the sort of person who drives this car, especially when they leave it running a couple of feet from the kerb. I imagine a man with an impressive paunch contained in an expensive shearling coat, sharp crease in the slacks, Florsheims. A guy with a big place in Aurora who follows the landscape gardeners around when he's home, bugging them about the Japanese maple they damaged five years ago.

Imagine my surprise when a scruffy dude in jeans and dirty trainers came out of the store opposite the car while I was on the other side of the street angling to get another picture with my cell phone. He looked like the sort of guy who should have been in a rusty Ford Ranger with bits of lawn mowers in waterlogged cardboard boxes in the back. All I could think was that the mob isn't all that picky about their bag men these days.