The Twofer: Autodromo Stringback Driving Gloves and a Second-Gen Pontiac Trans Am

We’re expected to populate our lives with sensible things that go together. Have a dog? ​Buy a leash​​​Buy a leash. Got a stove? You’ll need a pan. Stolen a car and on the lam? A wig is handy. Slowly, your life fills with these paired items, little inanimate symbionts driving you insane with their matched perfection. Break the cycle.

These beautiful Autodromo stringback driving gloves have a sheep’s leather palm and a split cuff for ultimate comfort. The natural string and cognac leather recall those great pan-European races of the Forties and Fifties, when drivers donned similar gloves to protect their hands from wooden steering wheels over hundreds of miles. Driving gloves—especially ones as fine as these—evoke images of a gentleman in a cap driving a Lotus around the English countryside. That’s why people will be so surprised when they see you using your perforated leather gloves to grab the (plastic) wheel of this all-American, Malaise-era coupe.

The 1978 Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am was a high-point in Pontiac styling, and this Solar Gold W72 has got it all: “Flying Chicken” graphics, snowflake wheels, T-tops and a foot-long four-speed manual shifter. It’s loud, it’s rude and it’s crude, the perfect WTF pairing for that precious set of driving gloves. Be the weirdo you want to be.