Central Valley Classic Cars

Why do we do it?

I can tell of countless times I’ve explained to one person or another that for all my elaborate car history, I have never bought a car to be “seen” in. However loud, curvaceous or exotic the car, I never give a thought to how people see me until the day I pull up to a group of friends who don’t know me well and suddenly have to explain that, no I’m not rich, I just spend too much time and money on cars. If anything I am slightly embarrassed about it among normal (read “non-car”) people.

My wife doesn’t believe me.

But think about it. When was the last time you saw a kid playing with hot wheels pretending to pose as someone important? Of course you don’t; you see them rushing the cars about, making engine and tire squealing sounds before they make an impossible jump a thousand scale feet into the air. When you get right down to it cars are, on a pure level, just plain cool. So are Tonka trucks and construction vehicles, but buying and storing a real 30 foot excavator just isn’t as doable for the average American. So I focus on cars.

There is a lot to like in enthusiast cars. I don’t mean family run-abouts or other sensible purchases. Nor do I mean exclusively high end sports cars who’s annual servicing cost could buy you a family run-about or other sensible purchases. I mean anything that’s fun, cool, classic, and quite possibly fast (though it doesn’t need to be).

Lineage is a big one for me. I enjoy history. So even though I know a Jaguar XK8 is by no means a race car, I love them for being in a lineage that includes great race cars like the C-Type and D-Type Jags of the early 50’s. And while I’m a fan of European cars it’s also true of any enthusiast car. My wife is a fan of Honda CRX’s and they too have a following all their own. I may not understand or appreciate it as much as others (my wife once told me she would rather have a CRX than a Lotus Elise which has sparked a debate that has remained in a cease fire for 3 years now) but it is certainly there.

Looks is another factor. I may not care if others see me in a nice car, but I love seeing beautiful cars, and if one is parked in my driveway, I’ll pull up a chair and stair at like it was a Rembrandt for hours on end.

But o f course the piece de resistance, for me anyway, is how an enthusiast car feels to drive. Honestly, it doesn’t have to be fast. I keep telling myself that anyway. I once drove a Ferrari 599 and a Noble M400 in the same day. Yes the Ferrari was faster, and smoother, and had better throttle response, and was so well sorted out a student driver could be trusted with it. But the Noble was a handful. It was roccus and hard, loud and quick, and immediately much more fun than the Ferrari (though if anyone out there wants to give me a Ferrari , I’d be okay with that). Really that is just my taste, and yours may differ, but no matter what you prefer an interesting car is most likely not going to drive like a minivan. Good or bad, the feeling will be something special. Something that makes driving more than getting from point A to point B.

And the feel doesn’t have to be honest. There are plenty of fast cars out there that feel slow, just as there are plenty of slower cars that feel like you’re driving a million miles an hour all the time (have you ever seen a race car from the turn of the century do 45mph with their wooden wheels bending just shy of the snapping point?). Generally speaking its more fun to feel like you’re wrestling a mechanical beast at its limits than to have a magazine review tell you that you would in fact drive a tenth of a second faster than another car if you ever happen to actually be in a drag race.

And that brings us to the often forgotten joy of an enthusiast car: how to get one. I am not a man of means. So it’s a hunt. I seek them out like some kind of treasure, buried on E-bay or Craig’s list. Look in the right places and its not hard to find an enthusiast’s car for less than the price of a new Honda. So I rationalize it that way and with a paltry budget, buy a car once only available to the wealthy. And for a brief moment in time I am rewarded with true treasure; a specialty vehicle in all its glory.

Yes, briefly.

Inevitably something breaks. I tell myself that since I saved so much on the purchase that its okay to sink some money into repair bills. And here is where the last important element comes in. Keeping a car you love running is often a pain. But it’s that pain that, in some weird way, endears you to it and creates a brotherhood between you and other “car” people. You have war stories to trade now and a car that has developed its own personality, and personality in a car is a tremendous thing. It takes a hunk of metal and plastic and turns it into something special.

Of course this also leads to another little joy; ditching said car and doing the whole thing over again. But I’m pretty sure I’m nuts and that is why I refer to non-car people as normal.