Part of a series of stories produced in collaboration with Youth Radio on the changing car culture in America. My mom grew up in the height of American car culture, a time when the way you expressed who you were was by what you drove. And car-themed songs were No. And being raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and in the '70s when there weren't many boundaries on anything — and I really mean no boundaries as far as sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll — cars were just the biggest tool you had to exercise your freedom to go," she says. Maybe it's because I've never owned one, but to me, cars have always simply been something to get me from point A to B. I take cars for what they are — transportation — and whenever I try to imagine my "dream car," I draw a blank.