The Blue Chevrolet

Text & Images: Tina Esmati

Some mornings, I would wake up with a strange feeling of absence. It was not the absence of a person, nor a place. It was the absence of a classic car in my life.

Whenever that feeling appeared, I would lace up my sneakers and head outside. I would run through quiet streets and along narrow roads until my lungs burned and my heartbeat drowned out every thought in my mind. Yet the runs never felt exhausting.

In the distance, I could always hear the sound of traffic from the nearby highway. Cars rushed past one another at high speed, each carrying a different story, a different destination, and a different life behind the wheel.

Listening to those sounds often made me wonder where those roads would lead if I simply followed them. One afternoon, after finishing one of those runs, I was making my way back home when something caught my attention. A blue Chevrolet was parked beside a gas station. I immediately slowed my pace.

There was nothing particularly extraordinary about the scene. It was simply a car parked beside a fuel pump. Yet something about it felt different. The sunlight reflected softly from its blue paint, making it stand out from everything around it. For a moment, the noise of the street seemed to disappear.

I found myself wondering about its owner. Perhaps they were inside the station. Perhaps they had stepped away for only a moment. Curious, I walked around the area and searched nearby, hoping to find the person who belonged to the Chevrolet. But no one appeared. The car remained alone.

I eventually took a few photographs before continuing my journey home. Years ago, I created a small automotive legend of my own. According to that legend, blue cars possess the vastness of the sky and the ocean. They carry something limitless within them.

If you sit behind the wheel of a blue car and drive far enough, you begin to feel as though you are flying through the clouds or swimming across an endless sea. It may sound strange, but I have always believed it.

Blue has never seemed like an ordinary colour to me. Whenever I see a blue classic car, I think of freedom. I think of open highways disappearing into the horizon. I think of distant towns, forgotten gas stations, and adventures waiting somewhere beyond the next turn in the road. Perhaps that is why the blue Chevrolet stayed in my mind long after I left it behind.

It was not the most valuable car I had ever seen. It was not the fastest, the rarest, or the most famous. Yet it possessed something that many modern vehicles lack: character. To most people, it was simply an old Chevrolet parked beside a gas station.

To me, it was a reminder that some dreams are painted blue. And so I leave you with a simple question: If you had the chance, would you buy and restore a blue car?