“Gansey knew his reliable and enormous Suburban would have been a more logical choice for the trip, but he wanted the old Camaro to be the first thing the professor saw, not the expensive new SUV. The Camaro was shorthand for the person he had become, and he wanted, more than anything, for Malory to feel that person had been worth the trip. The professor did not fly, but he had flown three thousand miles for him. Gansey couldn’t fathom how to repay such a kindness, especially considering the circumstances under which he had left England.”
Cars as a metaphor for the self and Gansey feels the Camaro is what he’s turned himself into, and the Camaro looks like Adam to him who wants to make himself into Gansey yet Gansey wants to be a “self made man” as well in a way, just the opposite one from Adam’s goal. It does sort of fit in with the idea of them on perpendicular paths.
