Peter Egan's Side Glances

My earliest car memory was when I was maybe 5 years old and we were visiting my Grandfather in Chicago. We went for a ferry ride in Lake Michigan and on the pier was a store with a bunch of wind up toy cars. I wanted one so bad, but we had spent enough money just getting to Chicago. To this day I still collect Hot Wheels to make up for that disappointment.

My next pivotal car memory occurred in sixth grade. My teacher raced cars and always had a stack of car magazines in the back. I didn't even know magazines like that existed. He had a Road and Track with Lamborghini Countach and a Ferrari Berlinetta Boxer on the cover and that was all I needed to see.

From then on I collected magazines like Road and Track, Car and Driver, Motor Trend, Car, and eventually Automobile just so that I could see the latest cars and debate with my brothers and friends over which car was the best ... fastest ... coolest ... etc. For the first 10 years of collecting, I rarely read the editorial articles. Then one day, I figured I'd get my money's worth and read an entire magazine from cover to cover. That's when I found Peter Egan's column Side Glances.

Reading his page-and-a-half column would always transform me into another world. He'd rarely write about what was going on in the rest of the magazine. I don't think he even spends more than a day a year at the magazine's head office, but he could tell a car story like no one else. Whether it was about roadkill, junkyard thievery, summer motoring in a convertible, or just dealing with endless garage projects he always made it interesting.

By the time I made this discovery I had already thrown away 10 years worth of Road and Track magazines, and I was kicking myself for not reading any of his columns when I had the chance. Now, more than 25 years have passed since I picked up that first magazine, 15 years since I "discovered" Mr. Egan. There are other good automotive columnists like Automobile's Jean Jennings and Car and Driver's Patrick Bedard, but Peter Egan stands heads above. If anyone could ever convince me that Wisconsin was actually a worthwhile place to live, he'd be the guy.