The best part of the experience lingers

“To attract men, I wear a perfume called ‘New Car Interior.’”

That new car smell is intoxicating and should be outlawed.

It tempted me last week, but I’m in this long-term relationship with a 2009 Chevy Tahoe. We’re celebrating 237,000 miles this month.

New car dealerships are fun, though. Everyone I saw at the Lexus store last week was wearing a sports coat and tie — and that was just the mechanics. Dealership customer lounges usually have a coffee pot, but the Lexus’ lounge offered a soda fountain, coffee shop and short-order bistro.

My Lexus-owning friend and I drove to the city for dining and shopping in a loaner while her car was being serviced.

The new Lexus loaner required dealing with a unique learning curve, such as the shift lever on the console; a device assumed to operate routinely. Not so. “Drive” called for a slight nudge left. A similar nudge back rendered reverse travel. Finding “park”? The joystick lever had nothing at all to do with that. Park was a completely separate button.

The newest ultra-luxury car from Toyota had more chiming alarms than you could shake a non-shifting gear shift stick at. One, we presumed, for any car driving too close, and others for an auto passing in front or behind. Then another for an approaching vehicle of a different color, and one for a vehicle that was trying to grab the good parking spot at TJ Maxx.

Done shopping and packages piled in the back? The car absolutely refused to start until everyone was seated, buckled in and makeup fixed.

This Lexus was also a hybrid. The motor would quit running at every red light, then restart with a small lurch when the accelerator was applied. But hey, my old 1951 Chevy in high school would do that –– quit running at red lights.

My biggest takeaway from the Lexus? This was the first car that told me what it would or wouldn’t do. And just how it would do it. Or not.

It made me laugh, thinking about what my father used to say. Dad scoffed at any car with convenience or fanciness. In an era when cars came in two models, standard or luxury, he opted for the least expensive.

Dad was quick to point out the extra cost options meant expensive repairs when one of them malfunctioned. Mostly at Mom’s insistence, however, Dad bought his first air-conditioned car during my senior year of high school. He used it sparingly, however.

“Takes extra gas to run that power stuff,” he cautioned.

Dad wouldn’t know how to handle a car that told him what to do or did anything for him. I’m not sure I would, either.

Yet as I write this, the best part of last week’s Lexus experience lingers — that intoxicating new car smell.

Contact Aldridge at leonaldridge@ gmail.com. Other Aldridge columns are archived at leonaldridge.com