Pacific Drive

When all you can count on are your wheels

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We survey the war wounds scoring the bodywork of our station wagon. Out here, we only have each other. Unfortunately, it’s so much more than just the odd ding;  we’re lucky to have made it back to our hub of investigations inside Oppy’s Body Shop in one piece.

We’ll get to why in just a minute but first comes necessary maintenance on our car. We fill the tank, then flip the switch to discharge any lingering current still flowing through our onboard hardware. Blue electricity arcs all around the station wagon – how’s that for firing up the Quattro? Setting aside our playful confusion between various models of car, it’s time to sort out those dings. Ironing out the dents in the bodywork isn’t done in realistic fashion – in real life you can’t smooth out a ding simply by aiming a blowtorch at it for all of ten seconds – but an edge of engaging tactility remains. As we replace worn tyres and blown-out headlamps, each part glows before erupting into a cascade of silver nuts. Like we said, the game’s not going for verisimilitude – and that’s before we get into all of the ways the rules are different here in the Olympic Exclusion Zone.

ROADSIDE PICNIC