The All-Too-Tenuous Connection Between Tom Cruise and My Motive for Buying Collector Cars

by Wallace Wyss –

Damn that Tom Cruise. They are advertising the hell out of Top Gun 2, an upcoming feature and in the trailers you can see on You Tube he looks more or less the same as he did when he made the original, what, roughly 34 years ago?

That’s annoying. But for women whom like to fantasize of being with a younger man and they saw the original movie oh so long ago, it’s no doubt going to be thrilling to see it and you know at some point during the movie they’re going to turn to their longtime husband and say “Why, look Fred, look how he’s stayed in shape all these years…”

Tom Cruise in Top Gun 2

I don’t know how they work it out plot wise. I doubt if a jet fighter jockey from 20 years ago is still going to be a on-the-line fighter pilot now. He’ll be a commander of a wing or even base commander.

Now what’s the connection with old cars? Well, despite loving some new cars, fact is I’m still carrying the torch for some of the old ones that passed through my hands, like Iso Grifo, Porsche Convertible D, etc. etc. Or even cars I saw in an ad and never forgot the ad.

Tom Cruise in the original Top Gun some 34 years previously – Forget about being a movie star, Tom, just sell us your Forever Young tablets

I think we men, and maybe some women, want one of those old “dream cars” from our younger days because we believe that it will be a time machine that takes us back. Some of us might even live in the same vicinity as we did when we first owned the car and if we get that same car again you know you’re gonna go back to those scenes, the old haunts.

One of the best such stories I heard from someone I know personally was when Don Prieto, an old hot rodder, who told me he took a hot rod back to his 50th high school re-union, and thus was the only guy there who had kept the dream going. Almost as good as arriving with the prom queen of his graduating class looking like she did back then.

Wallace Wyss back when that Thunderbird was new.

Only trouble is, even if I get the car I lusted after in late ’61, a ’62 Thunderbird Sports Roadster, I don’t have Tom Cruise’s magical age-defying genes. I look a whole lot older than I did when that car was new (compare the photo on the right with the one at the end). But we can all live in hope, that once we get behind the wheel of our dream car from long ago, we can feel 20 or 30 or 40 years younger…

And if you want to give a Me Too blast, ask why they didn’t cast Kelly McGillis as his girlfriend again? We can take the fact that people age…but not Hollywood. What do they have him doing–going out with his original heroine’s daughter or maybe granddaughter?

Incidentally in the trailer, I noticed a lot of the officers in Top Gun 2 look to be in their 70s. I think that casting director was jerking our chain there, to make Cruise look even younger…

Damn you, Tom Cruise…

Let us know what you think in the Comments.

 
 
THE AUTHOR: Wallace Wyss is a fine artist, painting classic car portraits in oil on canvas on commission. For information, write mendoart7@gmail.com.

 
 
 
 
 

I lusted after this T-bird, but could have bought one many times. Only now do I realize its ultimate appeal.

Summary

Article Name

The All-Too-Tenuous Connection Between Tom Cruise and My Motive for Buying Collector Cars

Description

Only trouble is, even if I get the car I lusted after in late '61, a '62 Thunderbird Sports Roadster, I don't have Tom Cruise's magical age-defying genes.

Author

Wallace Wyss