Because it isn't there
My brother Mark posted a video on Facebook yesterday that I enjoyed quite a bit, and it got me thinking. The video is about a dude named Pierce (he sounds French, or maybe Italian...so let's be safe and call him European) who was so enthralled by "the music" that a Ferrari race car made that he just had to have one. But since he didn't have a small fortune he decided to build a small Ferrari. Even if you aren't crazy about cars (like my brother Mark is) I think you will find this story interesting. Seriously, watch it...it is worth your time, and we will discuss it further down below:
What fascinates me about this man is that this work (15 effing years) was in pursuit of something that, when completed, was completely unusable. Think about it...a fully functional car that no one is small enough to drive. I kept expecting that during the video they would explain some kind of remote control system so that Pierce could actually enjoy his creation.
But that would not do. The notion of a simulacrum, or an exact copy, usually carries the connotation that the representation is somehow inferior to the original. This is not the case with Pierce's tiny Ferrari. The functional electric system, the air-filled tires, the pistons...they are all there and they are all exactly as they should be. A remote control system would relegate his creation (can we really even call it a creation at this point) to the realm of the simulacra; almost perfect, but not quite the original.
Pierce's car is the very definition of a Quixotism...idealism without regard for practicality. He built it as if there were a tiny world out there where a diminutive driver could, as my brother Mark said, "take that thing to top speed, on a 1/4 scale Mulsanne straight".
