Pig Iron, by Ontario writer and ECW designer Paul Davies, is the story of a car, a 31-foot crimson streamliner that may set a new wheel-driven, land-speed world record in 1968. During its design, construction, and testing, said car interacts with various humans who resemble fictional characters, insofar as they have names and they speak. In all other respects, however, this novel seems more suited as a streamliner owner’s manual.

This is Davies’ eighth work of fiction, so there are no excuses for its failure as a narrative. By page two there is already the sense that the honest but emotionally stunted main character (after the car), Mike Breithaupt, will indeed win the speed record, but only after transcending a number of seat-clenching but instructive set-backs. The reader can assume also that Mike’s friends, loyal and diverse, will bring their various skills (the men, mechanical; the women, emotional) to prove the maxim, five stereotypes are better than one.

As with its pacing, Pig Iron delivers predictability on every other level as well. Constructions like these seep from the mouths of the characters: “incredibly dangerous,” “capturing the public imagination,” and, “tragically killed”; while banal observations weigh down interior monologue: “I guess you don’t always know your own situation until you look back,” and “the moment I saw her I felt a powerful electricity between us.” Davies has a good eye for detail and a lousy ear for dialogue. The story is further complicated by chapters that cycle through the various points of view, and only through elements of plot can the reader discern whose “I” the author presents at any given moment.

“I guess clichés often spring to your lips when you’re taken with something,” muses Mike. If this is true, then Pig Iron is a great love story. Yet precisely because of the story’s many weaknesses, there’s hope: through its cracks this novel shows glimpses of the kind of story and redemptive, if predictable, resolution that could come from behind to turn an owner’s manual into a powerful film script.