REALLY easy rider

I recently (read: five minutes ago) ran across this reference to the movie Easy Rider (which, I feel compelled to add, I've seen twice and still don't get, except for the scene where Jack Nicholson is perched on the back of one of the bikes in a suit, wearing his old football helmet, which I not only get, I love). It was in an article about the new Mercedes GLK-Class, and why I was reading it is neither here nor there. The point is, well, I'll tell you the point in a minute, first, read this:

"In the 40 or so years since Wyatt and Billy’s great escape, first impressions suggest little has changed in this no-man’s land between L. A. and Las Vegas. With the Steppenwolf classic “Born to be Wild” pumping from the stereo, we gun the engine and set off in the tracks of our road movie heroes. “Get your motor running/looking for adventure...” Although the scenery may not have changed much, it takes only a matter of seconds at the wheel of the new GLK to realize that 2008-style independence comes with much greater comfort than that enjoyed by Hopper and Fonda, and that Mercedes-style freedom comes with leather upholstery, air conditioning, at least seven airbags, Brake Assist (BAS) and power steering as standard. Yet despite such modern creature comforts, it is impossible to lose that “easy-rider” feeling."

Do I even have to tell you the point? Oh, what the hell, I will.

Would Easy Rider have become the cult classic we know today had our heroes escaped in an air-conditioned, luxury automobile with SEVEN airbags?

Would the sight of their Mercedes pulling up to the gas pumps have raised the hackles of the yokel behind the counter? Even if the GLK is "15 feet of antiestablishment attitude?"

An antiestablishment Mercedes?

I now declare the counterculture dream of the '60s officially DEAD.