What a Werewolf Drives

There came a point in writing Mongrels where I realized, DUDE: you can’t have them driving a Buick in two chapters in a row! Werewolves don’t have brand loyalty, they drive whatever’s at hand. So began what I call the travails: google-image searching for like two bleary-eyed, numb-fingered days, until I’d not only put all the Chevrolets the proper distance from each other, but I’d set eyeballs (these) on pretty much the exact car for each chapter. However, do a count? You’ll see there’s more cars than chapters, here. Reason: there’s a couple of dupes. Also, there’s a Very Important Hot Wheel. Also, Darren doesn’t just drive a single truck through the whole novel. Doing that’s asking the world to figure out you are what you are. Also—still talking why there’s more cars than chapters—in some chapters, there is more than one car. Also also also: one or two of them, I wanted to be sure to have a couple angles on the car, to be sure I was doing it right on the page. Too? With the two El Caminos there (not the same car), how could I be asked to pick just one? Nobody can pick just a single El Camino, when their stated task is to pick the perfect El Camino. Simply put, there’s just too many perfect El Caminos out there.

Anyway, really tempted to put these in proper order. I have a file in which I pasted them all in sequence, I mean; it wouldn’t be hard. But, to me, the ordering of the cars, it completely gives away the story. Not spoils it, but this progression from Delta 88 to Torino, from Kenworth to Peterbilt—there’s some magic there. For me, anyway. Hopefully for some of y’all, too.

Were I a better coder, I’d make these draggable, such that you could shuffle them into proper progression yourself. I am what I am, though: a novelist, not a web-programmer.

Also, if you see your car in here? Sorry. Oops. I wasn’t exactly tracking where I was nabbing each image. However, tell me? I sure don’t mind doing a roll call of proud owners at the bottom of this gallery:

Also, don’t trust the movies, right? Yes, I superdig and forever love the build-a-werewolf-cop-car in Wolf Cop—how is it possible not to?—but real werewolves, they skulk at the edges, they don’t strut through the spotlight. Well, except Darren. And this guy: