What is your longest-term relationship with a piece of technology? It could be an old PC that has been upgraded component by component, the microchip-of-Theseus effect in action. A final-generation iPod, stubbornly maintained in rebuttal of music’s streaming age. Or just an old workhorse of a car – perhaps the one in which you learned to drive – for which every MOT is cause for nervous pacing. Whatever the specifics, you’ll surely recognise the way the initial arrangement of convenience tilts towards symbiosis over the years, and the gathering sentimentality that tends to follow. Rarely, though, have we felt so committed to any machine quite as immediately as Pacific Drive’s station wagon.
When you first meet, both parties
