10 Questions With Tim Allen

We see them all the time: big-buck Hollywood stars profiling in their latest trendy set of wheels. Schwarzenegger has his Hummer, Stallone drives an F40, and Seinfeld collects Porsches. Sure, they may look like real "car guys" (excuse the male-oriented vernacular, ladies, however, this does seem to be predominantly a "man thing"), but we've been disappointed more than once upon learning that a particular car-strutting celeb doesn't know a Cobra 427 from a Charmglow electric rotisserie.

Every once in a while, however, we're pleasantly surprised. The myth does occasionally mesh with reality, and we can enjoy a talk, test day, or even a friendship with a person who's as much a car enthusiast as a celebrity. One such demigod is Tim Allen.

A long-time resident of suburban Detroit, 43-year-old Timothy Allen Dick (his true full name) grew up with hot-rodded station wagons, Pontiac GTOs, and Woodward Avenue street races. As a teen, he traded a summer's worth of work at an auto repair shop for a VW dune buggy (not a great choice for Michigan's winters, he points out), and later, as a fledgling actor, played Mr. Goodwrench in a couple of television commercials.

Today, as a hugely successful comedian/actor, he can fully indulge his automotive passions. On the racetrack, Allen and teammate Steve Saleen clinched the '96 SCCA Sports Class Manufacturers Championship in their 500-horsepower Saleen Mustangs. The "Tool Time" man's daily driver is a custom Corvette ZR-1- powered Impala SS, just completed by Chevy's Specialty Vehicles department. Motor Trend was the first to test this 446-horsepower tire-burner, which ran 0-60 mph in 4.9 seconds and blazed the quarter mile in 13.4 seconds at 109.9 mph.

Tim Allen is among an elite group of Hollywood personalities who have been car guys from day one. As Chevrolet's performance guru, Jon Moss, was once overheard saying: "That S.O.B. knows more about the Impala than I do!"

Q Motor Trend: Much of your humor derives from the rituals of men. Why do so many of those rituals involve cars?

A Tim Allen: It's a link to my father; he was a big car nut. The guy would take the manifold off my mom's new Ford wagon and put on an aluminum high-rise manifold and four-barrel, dual exhaust, and glass-packs...he'd do this to every one of her wagons. They'd sound like race cars. He bought his mom a Galaxie 500 with the Thunderbird engine in it, so my grandmother had a dual-exhaust, four-barrel, 390 four-door Galaxie 500 she had no business being in.

Q Is there such a thing as a man's car, or a woman's car?

A That's hard to say. In the last three years of racing I've met as many women fans as men fans, and in NASCAR it's the same thing. My wife loves cars, but the difference is she doesn't have 20 years of understanding the background of them. She basically drives them and uses her gut feelings as to which is best. I've always thought Jaguars would be women's cars; most women I know find them sleek and sexy, and the Jaguar heritage means something to them. I think women like Ferraris. A Ferrari is everybody's car. If a woman doesn't like cars at all, she'll see a Ferrari and say "Well, now, I like that." Women are so smart they're not even kit-car people. They'll see a fake Ferrari and a real Ferrari and will say "Eew, what's wrong with that?" It's a styling thing.

Q Your character on "Home Improvement" is always working on a hot rod. Have you ever wanted to build such a car yourself?