08:39 AM EDT on Monday, August 30, 2004

BY G. WAYNE MILLER
Journal Staff Writer

The kid loves his wheels.

That is so obvious when Dan Benetti pulls up, parks, gets out, and beholds his car as one might his firstborn child. Dan is 18, and just now, life doesn't get much better than a customized VW Vento GT -- tornado red, no less, with snowflake-style black racing rims and black European bumpers.

It is, indeed, a beautiful German-built machine, shining so brightly in the morning sun that it almost blinds. But wait -- Dan has spotted something in the rear, on the black leather upholstery he keeps soft and glistening with regular applications of Armor All, the cleaner and protectant.

"There's dust all over my seats," Dan says. "It's driving me nuts."

Dan wipes the dust away and steps back outside, where he points out another sore spot: a tiny indentation on the driver-side front panel. You can barely see it -- but to Dan, it's a screaming insult.

"Someone hit me," he says. "Put a nice little ding in my car. I'm all [ticked] off about that."

Journal photo / Ruben W. Perez Dan Benetti makes sure his customized 1998 VW Vento GT is always in tiptop condition. "Anything that's wrong with my car drives me crazy," says the college-bound 18-year-old.

But Dan is an upbeat young man, and he would rather focus on the grandeur of his 1998 automobile, which he bought for $5,900 and financed with a loan. He talks about washing, waxing, polishing and cleaning: one major session a week, "and then a bunch of little ones to keep it nice."

He talks about performance, which counts as much, if not more, as beauty. "It's all about the handling. There's something about going down a back road and hammering through the corners -- there's nothing like it."

The brakes, Dan explains, are designed to stay cooler under harsh conditions. "Cross-drilled rotors," he says.

And, he says, "it has AVO coilovers -- basically a really adjustable type of suspension that you can move up and down." The lower the car, he says, the easier it is to roll smoothly through tight corners.

"I love this car," Dan says. "It's pretty much what I think of all day long."

He loves his car so much that he dropped his cell-phone service so he could use the money for further customizing, some of which he does himself, and the rest of which he pays for. "I figured I could dump it into my car and have a lot more fun," he says.

He even chose his summer job based on his car: he makes home deliveries for a North Smithfield pizza shop. "What other job could you have where you can drive around and listen to music?" he says.

THERE'S LITTLE doubt that teenage passion for cars is more a guy thing than a girl thing.

But there are young women who are as passionate about their cars as Dan Benetti, and one of them is 19-year-old Shannon Betty of Portsmouth, who is majoring in sports management at Florida Southern College.

Shannon owns a 2003 Nissan Maxima, silver, with tinted windows and customized suspension. She paid $25,000 for the car, and estimates she has added "probably over a grand" in various touches.

Like Dan, no one in her family is particularly nuts about cars. But she has been from an early age. "Since I was little I always liked cars. Even at McDonald's, I would get the little Matchbox cars."

Her car's speed compels Shannon, a graduate of the Prout School. So does the look. "The Maxima has the chrome taillights, which are so much better than the regular taillights you see out there."

Shannon doesn't race or take long tours, like Dan. But she does spend 8 to 10 hours a week on car care. "I probably wash it every other day, vacuum it after someone's been in the car. I'm always washing the windows."

Shannon has no girlfriends who are into their cars the way she is. "Girls are more into shopping and their hair and everything else," she says. "You do have some girls who are into cars but boys are more likely."

And as in other aspects of life, along with car love comes fear.

She is asked: What if her car were stolen?

"I'd feel horrible," she says. "To think someone else would be driving it . . . it really would break my heart."

DAN FANTASIZES about being a racecar driver, but understands that's probably not in the cards. He graduated from North Smithfield Junior-Senior High School this year and is headed to Lasell College in Newton, Mass., where he intends to major in marketing.

For now, he just wants his car. Some days, he hits the road, traveling for hours through New England with no timetable or destination.

On this morning, he offers a writer a ride. The writer, a teenage car nut himself once upon a time, does not resist.

Dan puts the Vento into first, and shifts up through the five-speed transmission. The acceleration is seamless. "I'll never own an automatic again," Dan says.

Dan finds some nice back roads in northwest Rhode Island and puts the Vento through its paces: it has respectable horsepower but truly superior handling. It brakes crisply and corners sharply, with no slippage.

"You can see it's got a little more of a harsh ride so it stays solid through the corners," Dan says.

But wait -- a squeak is heard.

"I need to tear down my right rear suspension and put all new grease around the bushings," Dan says. He sounds determined. "Anything that's wrong with my car drives me crazy."

Dan talks about his dream car. It's a 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO, which he has seen advertised for $9 million. But he would settle for a Ferrari 360 Challenge Stradale, which can be had for about $200,000. With even that out of range, at least for now, Dan has settled for a tattoo of the Ferrari emblem, the famous prancing horse -- and a cap with the emblem, too.

The ride is almost over, and Dan is asked the same question posed to Shannon: What if his Vento were stolen?

"Oh, God, I'd die," he says. "I don't know what I would do."

Dan stops his car and gets out, then wipes the door sill of the dirt his feet left behind.