By Julia Selden
C. G. O”Malley is ultra conservative-or so he says.
You wouldn”t know it by looking at his car, a 1983 Nissan Sentra hatchback with a paint job only a cartoonist on heavy medication could love.
O”Malley, a pre-zoology sophomore from Cypress, California, claims innocence.
While he was on his mission, his brother and a friend painted his car with Garbage Pail Kids on one side, a Godzilla motif on the other and a giant raccoon on top.
Needless to say, O”Malley”s car has elicited some interesting comments.
“UVSC student!” yelled one motorist as he drove by.
On another occasion, his date”s brother voiced concerns over what kind of man would drive such a car.
O”Malley just laughs. This car is “the antithesis of my personality,” he said, but “there”s no other car for me to drive, and it runs real well, and it”s fun.”
As for his brother and friend, both currently serving missions, “they”re bringing forth fruit meet for repentance,” he laughed.
O”Malley is one of many students around campus who have chosen to go the non-traditional route when it comes to transportation.
Whether they”re driving a souped-up Cadillac or a humble-albeit bright yellow-Volkswagen, these students all have one thing in common: a love for their cars that rivals Timmy”s affection for Lassie.
Brock Nelson, a UVSC business management major from Las Vegas, Nevada, shares a car with his roommates who are also his cousins.
“The Ghetto,” as they call it, is a 1960 Cadillac that one might expect to be a vintage classic.
And it would be, were it not for its sawed-off roof, white and yellow paint job, Astroturf carpeting, foil antenna, and animal-print seat covers.
“It”s an ugly car, so you might as well make it uglier,” said Nelson”s cousin, Taylor Oblad, a finance major at UVSC, also from Las Vegas.
Ever since their uncle bought the car as a novelty and gave it to the cousins, they estimate that they”ve spent a total of $500 fixing it up. Their most recent addition was a microphone.
Though “the girls love it,” a lot of older people give them a “dumb kids” look as they drive by, Nelson said.
One Cadillac lover was “actually kind of upset that we were keeping it like this,” he said.
But the cousins remain undeterred. On a sunny day they can be seen hot-gluing leopard-print fabric to the dashboard or attaching black tassels to the top of the windshield.
So what drives a person to do something like this?
BYU psychology professor Harold Miller explained that, Freudian interpretations aside, flamboyant automobile behavior is mostly about self-expression and is usually carried out by men.
“There is some kind of social currency at work-notoriety, notice. This may be a kind of anti-establishment gesture,” Miller said. “What they are doing is deliberately out of step, [and it] causes us to turn our heads and maybe credit them with succeeding in doing something risky. And that elevates them.”
At BYU, acceptable ways to express oneself are hard to come by, Miller said.
Methods of self-expression at BYU have to be fairly tame, Miller said, “because anything terribly flagrant would mean they”d have to leave the institution.”
It”s a concern that O”Malley took into consideration before coming to BYU.
Though he”s quick to point out that nothing on his car is malignantly offensive, he had reservations about some of the illustrations.
He was so concerned, in fact, that he had his father spray-paint over some of the illustrations before O”Malley left for Provo.
The edited version is a little more tame, O”Malley says, noting that one of the characters is wearing a CTR ring, “so it has a Latter-day Saint motif – on the front, at least,” he said.
Mark Prisbrey, a sophomore from Bothell, Washington, majoring in manufacturing engineering, doesn”t have to worry about his car violating the Honor Code.
His 1974 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia only has a one-color paint job: canary yellow.
His main interest lies in restoring his car to an “as good as new or better” condition, he said.
Though he has spent countless hours trying to improve his car, he has no problem with those who choose to turn their vintage autos into mad scientist creations.
“I guess they can do whatever they want. It”s their car,” he said.
But for some classic car lovers, seeing such a car can be painful.
Paul Hiatt, an employee at Triple R Restoration in Pleasant Grove, remembered the time a customer asked him to paint a 1953 Chevrolet convertible “celery stalk green.”
“I was cringing the whole time,” he said. “But it turned out really nice.” The car went on to win national awards.
“It”s kind of cool to see the different cars and see what everyone”s opinions are of it,” Hiatt said.
He”s not the only one in awe of these creatively daring automobiles.
Nelson recalled the time a police officer pulled him over on his way to church.
“Is that legal?” the officer asked, checking out the Cadillac. After being assured that it was, the officer”s only reply was, “Cool.”
Others who see the crazy cars either stare, laugh, honk or ask for rides, the owners say. A few people have even offered to help with restoration.
And the proud car papas don”t mind the attention.
Nelson and his roommates plan on making “The Ghetto” a Provo regular, garnering a reputation here much like it has on the Vegas strip, where girls pose for pictures and men gawk as they drive by.
And long after they”ve graduated, the cousins expect their younger brothers to carry on the torch.
Said Oblad, “It”ll be known for time and all eternity.”
