Call me Ishmael. Or Ish Kabibble, I’m that easy. In the thus-named merchant marine, Ahab, the fated captain of the Pequod, finds a worthy documentarian. He also discovers that finally capturing the object of your obsession has consequences beyond comprehension, and in Ahab’s case, saying that he’d get that whale if it’s the last thing he did, while prescient, was probably not in his best interests.

Can you think of the last time you read Moby Dick? How about the last time you did so without giggling over the title? You surely recall Ahab’s obsessive hunt for his elusive prey, and I know that I have have had a similar, if less deadly,  obsession with certain cars. However, unlike the Pequod captain’s singular compulsion, I have actually had quite a few.

Early on it was a BMW 507 that I heard lived in a town next door to my own, owned by a matron who occasionally took it out for her mani-pedis. I spent a whole summer cruising the streets on my Schwinn looking for that Bimmer, but never managed to catch sight of it. More recently, I happened upon a Spyker – and not on a Car Show display, but actually on a real road – moving under its own power. That was one for the books. Do you have similar obsessions to these, or Captain Ahab’s? If so, what car or truck is your white whale? And please, call me Ishmael. 

Image: [MisterW]