Lo-Fidelity: Teslas in Aspen — shame, pride, or ambivalence?

Man, I’ve been noticing a lot of Teslas around Aspen these days. It seems like we’re the mini Tesla capitol of Colorado. I’m curious as to what local owners are feeling right now with regard to all the controversy surrounding the brand. I know plenty of people in town who own Teslas, and they seem like perfectly reasonable folks to me. Just the other day driving into my bucolic employee-housing neighborhood, I passed no fewer than three Teslas.

Curiosity got the better of this cat, and I probed a couple of people who own Teslas. The first guy went full-on apologist and sounded like he was a PR spokesman for a corporation going into crisis mode, even mentioning he was reading Elon Musk’s biography by Walter Isaacson — the Tesla’s default owner’s manual.

The other dude was experiencing major buyer’s remorse. He said it was a total drag pulling into the parking lot and enduring incessant stupid questions and snarky comments. Not the greatest way to start your ski day, he said. After all, we’re all either trying to hide something about us or make people think we’re someone that we’re not.

If you’re a Tesla owner having second thoughts, fret not. I have a solution for you: You can buy one of my aftermarket “Hide My Tesla” kits that turns your Tesla into an AMC Pacer. I can almost see the 5-star reviews on Amazon now, like this conjured one from @skibum7908: “Ever since I bought my “Hide a Tesla” kit, I can’t stop getting laid!”

Interestingly enough, the other day while searching for a parking space like a famished piranha in the dank, fluorescent confines of the Highlands garage, I was faced with a moral parking predicament of sorts: park next to a Tesla truck or a Jeep. I started to pull into the space next to the brutalist architecture-esque beast then suddenly jerked the wheel toward the Jeep out of fear of my car being caught up in a collateral damage vandalization scenario. I had a horrific vision of skiing down to the base after a soothing bowl lap and seeing a column of toxic battery smoke pouring from the parking garage, only to discover my van and all of its contents burned to a crisp.

I skulked over the Telsa truck, got down on bended knee, and checked out the rear bumper to see if you could skitch behind the thing because that would be pretty funny — a Tesla truck scooping the loop with a few hoodlum kids hanging off the bumper like ticks. Onlookers probably thought I was putting a bomb underneath the behemoth. Incidentally, the Tesla truck strikes me as very “Bauhaus” design-wise and would look oddly complimentary parked in front of the Aspen Institute. Turns out the Tesla truck has no graspable rear bumper and is basically un-skitch-able.

Thank god no Teslas here in Aspen, that I’m aware of, have been vandalized. Frankly, I’m more concerned about the white supremacist flyer I saw affixed to the traffic signal control box at the busy intersection of Colorado Highway 82 and Cemetery Lane the other day. I called the cops immediately, and someone removed it the next day, so thanks for that.

Regardless, the whole bizarre “hating on a car” trip made me think about growing up here Aspen and all the different cars that have been provocative. The first one that comes to mind is the Saab. When Aspen Police Chief Marty Hershey first introduced the Saab as the official car of the Aspen Police in the ’70s, they were considered wildly unconventional and somewhat outrageous. A foreign-made police car!? I spoke to Pitkin County Sherriff Michael Buglione on the street the other day, and he said the latter-day Saabs were really quite luxurious with Bose stereos and heated seats. Incidentally, the Aspen Police now have a couple of tricked-out Teslas.

The next car that comes to mind is the Grand Wagoneer Limited, with the faux-wood panels. I saw one the other day in immaculate condition and was heartened. When those hit the local pavement, everyone who was anyone in Starwood, Red Mountain, and below had one. The Grand Wagoneer was considered the essential mountain luxury vehicle, with power “everything.”

Who can ever forget when the notorious Range Rover came on the scene? The first person to have one was Jack Nicholson, whose trademark forest green Rover was consistently parked out in front of his spread on Lake Avenue next to Elizabeth Paepcke’s place. I can hear him now, coming out of his front door after an all-nighter and insinuatingly greeting her like his character in “Something’s Gotta Give,” with a lecherous “Mornin’, Pussy!” as she tended her front garden, before slithering into his Rover and driving off. The Range Rover went on to become one of the most loathed cars in Aspen (unless you happened to be Jack Nicholson) right up to the point when the Hummer first arrived, anyways …

In perhaps a precursory omen to the local groundswell of Teslas, sometime in the early ’80s, I remember seeing a stainless-steel DeLorean in Aspen — a car purported to have ties to cocaine. Volant also came out with stainless-steel skis, which made for a nice pairing. At that time, Aspen was swarming with Mellow Yellow taxis, the Aspen Highlands busses were painted like sticks of Fruit Stripe gum, and RFTA buses were dressed up like streetcars of desire. One of the craziest cars I remember was a Citroen station wagon driven by a Sikh who wore a white turban and full robe. There was even a Rolls Royce parked outside a Victorian on Lake Avenue.

Mea culpa: I’ve never driven a Tesla, and you know what they say, “Don’t knock it ’till you tried it.” What kind of car you drive tells a lot about you. Our cars define us. I have two Fords and a Mini Cooper with tacky vanity plates. My dream car is a 4-wheel drive Porsche 911 with a ski rack. I bought my youngest son a Tesla truck for his 22nd birthday — a 1:64 scale Hotwheels version — as a gag.

Contact Lorenzo via email at suityourself@sopris.net.