SURE, NOW I’M a lowly pedestrian, but once I had a car — a Pontiac Grand Prix, a magnificent hunk of metal the size of the QE2. Not a week went by that I didn’t bash into someone’s bumper or swipe off a side-view mirror. What’s worse, friends claimed I didn’t merely park my car, I abandoned it. Whatever ...

Whether you drive an ancient shit bucket like mine or a 2002 turbo Porsche, you can high-style your wheels with souped-up accessories. To start out slow, take the Car Vault coin sorter ($20) from Brookstone: it neatly assigns all your loose nickels and dimes to a central location so you can quit tossing poker chips, Mardi Gras currency, and subway tokens into toll baskets in your frenzy to locate the correct change. And if you often have brilliant, awe-inspiring revelations behind the wheel (when you’re not fumbling for money) but find that you can sketch out only so many plans to end world hunger before running out of room on the dashboard, Auto Message ($40), also at Brookstone, lets you be an interstate Einstein: a suction cup holds a memo pad, voice recorder, and lighted message pad firmly in place for those times inspiration strikes while you’re waiting for the light to turn. At which point, you slam on the gas.

Here, too, there’s room for auto-improvement: out-to-impress motorists should head to Ellis the Rim Man for such goodies as Monza’s Fast Lane Edition real-life racing-style brake and accelerator pads ($38) in hot-rod metallic hues. In the same lane, Autotechnia knows you want to upgrade your gnarly stick-shift knobs to aluminum or carbon-fiber ones ($37.42) like the racing pros’. You can give your license plate props with one of American Original’s flashy, die-cast metal ($18.95) or neon plastic frames ($12.50). Or try Mack-Daddy-meets-NASCAR gold-tone or diamond-tipped door pins (four for $100), available at RPM Motorsport. Lock down your hog with these posh points: the pimp-inspired luxury will impress friends, associates, and would-be bitches.

But whether you’re a working girl humpin’ for scratch or just an underpaid secretary getting by, you gotta breathe; and just because President Bush doesn’t give a rat’s ass about air quality doesn’t mean you have to suck up bad fumes until the polar ice caps melt. Brookstone’s Ionizer ($30), a simple plug-in device, generates billions of charged ions that eradicate car smells while you drive yourself to a higher plain and await the flood. Up there in the mountains, you’re bound to meet other privileged folks. And you, too, can exude celebrity aura without pouring yourself into scandalously tight pants or checking into rehab: just peel ’n’ paste the Limotint ($19.24) you got at Ellis the Rim Man to your car windows and avoid frenzied fans and suspicious Staties. Or head in the other direction and white-trashify your vehicle with fuzzy dice ($2.99) from AutoZone or a dashboard saint ($5) from Botanica Anaisa.

• AutoZone, 55 Brighton Avenue, Allston, (617) 787-3090

• Botanica Anaisa, 610 Centre Street, Jamaica Plain, (617) 522-4565

• Brookstone, Copley Place, 100 Huntington Avenue, Boston; and other locations

• Ellis the Rim Man, 1001 Comm Ave, Boston, (617) 782-4777

• RPM Motorsport, 66-70 Brighton Avenue, Allston, (617) 787-3788

Issue Date: April 12-19, 2001