I recognize appreciating cool machines, I really do. I’ve just never been able to wrap my head around being a car guy. Spending huge chunks of change on a car, consistently modifying it, watching car shows all the time. I just dont get it. What’s the big draw for you?
I’ve been into cars as art from the moment I saw a Lamborghini. I view the mechanical work/modifications as a means to an end rather than the fun part.
I’ve not done a ton of performance upgrades, but I’ve upgraded my clutch to a ceramic and now, every time I shift, I get a more satisfying feel. It’s even better knowing I made that improvement myself.
Most of it comes down to the sense of pride and accomplishment I get from the finished result.
The mechanical feel is a big part for me.
Driving a rental 2025 legacy, made me hate cars in about 30 seconds. So if thats your car experience i see why people hate it.
Driving a 99 miata: permanent smile.
What about an ‘03?
Acceptable!!
I do like the nb the best. The na pop-ups are amazing, but the nb is the better car overall to me. Drove an ND, hated it lol. Granted the ND was an auto but still
Car go VROOOOOOM. But also points at name. A family member was an accident reconstructist. I attended both public car shows and private car crash tests as a kid. My name was proudly created by me at 6 years old when I had to come up with a unique username for AOL. The two Z’s are symbols of two mangled, wrecked… carzz.
VROOOOOOM!
I was a car guy, more or less. I enjoyed driving them, I enjoyed tinkering with them. I like going fast, I like shifting gears. I did some incredibly cool road trips, I did some autocross, I did some commercial driving too and enjoyed the challenge of finding the most efficient routes across the city.
But there are too many cars on the road, designing our cities around them was a potentially civilization-ending mistake, and we should all stop burning fossil fuels like right now and also stop spreading microplastics, oil, and road salt all over the land. There are better ways to commute. These days I’m more of a “fuck cars” guy.
Its true, the waste part pains me, however im keeping old cars useful on the road and not buying new.
Compared to people buying absolute junk off Amazon every day that will instantly become e waste or plastic waste, I think im actually wasting less. Thats my take anyway. I cant reduce (i like to enjoy life; and also the worst thing environmentslly one can do is have children so im also ahead on that) so ill Reuse. Thats better than recycle.
Car go vroom. Modded car go vroom faster. Simple as.
(It’s also a socially acceptable autistic fixation.)
Not a car guy, but it makes more sense to me than people who collect expensive watches. At least a car is fun to drive and goes vroom. A rolex is just some jewelery for guys.
That’s true, both can be used as status symbols. At least with a watch, once you buy it, mission complete. No need to go throwing new gears in it to make it tick louder.
But still kind the same…the guys i know that are into watches dont buy just one and done. They are collectors. Like one for each type of outfit almost. So this could compare to buying numerous car parts. And there’s always the unobtainable dream watch that probably costs as much as a nice car…
I don’t collect watches, but I appreciate really well designed mechanical/analog devices. I think spending money on brand names is stupid, but I honestly would love an intricate self winding watch.
Not a watch, but check out the mechanics in this cassette player. I love anything like this.
Wow, thats pretty sweet.
that’s a cool hobby! I used to love watching the parts of my tape deck move as a kid. Te parts clunking into pace, the gentle pace of the rotation. That’s a very nice player you’ve got!
Hell yes, this is art. Just like how to me some cars are art (240z with itbs…hnnnng).
Most cars are boring toasters that society is over reliant on. I myself dont own a boring car since i enjoy driving so I can’t speak to that.
My new rule for myself is everything I bring into my house has to be art. I got this beautiful hand made cutting board the other day. Anything can be art, and it doesn’t all have to be pricy. I threw some pathos I propagated into a soup can the other day. Boom art!
This is mostly me trying to cope with all the AI slop that is slowly eating digital and physical art forms. For me, art is anything human made, and I want to surround myself with it.
Im the same way.
Everything is losing its human and visceral-Ness. Im convinced its a big reason there’s so much depression- people dont feel any more.
Yeah, its sad the age of any computer produced art (graphics, electronic music, coding) is over because of corpo ai slop. But all the more reason to go outside and build something real in the workshop or put on a folk concert.
Yeah. Though I don’t think coding will be tapped out for awhile. I’m a little biasses as that’s what I do for work. Tech Twitter is full of people claiming AI is going to replace engineers. I work on a very successful team of very talented engineers, and if I told them AI is going to replace them, they would laugh. But I would be lying if said I didn’t fantasize about switching to a job where I get to build something with my hands.
Yeah i agree for good coding and amy true art it will take a while if ever, for ai to replace that. At least not corpo slop llm. Real machine learning, sure, that may advance a lot. Or agi. If that ever actually happens.
I-I’m not? Am I? Oh god what kind of car am I?
holds up a mirror and to your horror you see… You are a cybertruck
deleted by creator
I’m not. I don’t drive and never want to drive. I hate it.
Its a pretty broad question, like asking why you like video games or shows. Different people like different aspects of cars. Some use cars as a canvas to shape their car in a specific way that expresses their tastes. Others for their mechanical abilities.
Personally I like the driving experience. I appreciate a built up car, more then just a car bought with huge chunks of money. It shows more effort and personality of the owner tuning their car for a specific purpose. I also like a nice show car. Its like an art piece.
I do enjoy going to car shows actually. I can agree that its usually more impressive to see something built up than something expensive from the dealer. I guess I recognize its a hobby as any other, just most curious about the draw to that specific hobby. Good response!
I used to be kinda into cars, and am friends with other car guys. The draw oftentimes is being exposed to them at a young age via someone they’re close to. As others have stated the reasons for being drawn to them vary greatly. They may appreciate the mechanical nature, the power they can create, the driving experience, the community, travel, the satisfaction from building and/or maintaining your own vehicle, etc.
I used to have a 2015 Camaro, which wasn’t a supercar by any means, but still decently sporty. I forget the trim package, but it had a V6 and 6spd manual, but that was enough for me. It wasn’t until I drove it around a while (the crafty salesperson let me take it home and drive it around over a holiday), but I truly understood the appeal. At least in my car, it felt like sitting in a race cockpit, rather than a regular driver’s seat. It’s not just about fast, either. The way the car handled was much different than other vehicles I had driven. It hugged the road much better and even just taking banked bends and interchanges on highways felt much smoother. The manual transmission also helped with the experience, as it gives you greater control over the speed and acceleration (I know modern automatics are faster, but manual is still more fun). Seeing and hearing a cool car is fun and all, but driving a car meant for performance is an experience in itself. Also, my Camaro had a HUD projected onto the windshield, which 100% sold me on it, lol.
When I was a kid, I watched Ayrton Senna drive a McLaren F1 car. Not long after that, my dad showed me an AC Cobra.
Why do you like your hobbies? I am not a car guy but talk to me about hunting rifles and I’ll never shut up.
I get the question is kind of nebulous. I’ve gotten some great answers though!
After working on them professionally I stopped liking them. I don’t even really like driving anymore. Everything about a car is a scam.
I always say “I love driving which is why I hate driving anywhere.” I would love to have a fleet of vehicles I could really drive but laws, traffic, maintenance, etc. Driving isn’t fun in the same way other things are because you need a lot of space or a lot of money to enjoy it. Drawing? I can do that with a No. 2 I swiped from IKEA. Can’t exactly take my commuter to Monza without running up a bill.
Can you elaborate on the scam part? I have my own ideas, but I don’t work on them professionally.
They’re built so that they can’t easily be repaired cheaply so that you have to buy a new one. The dealership makes all their money off of predatory financing. They pay mechanics on “flat rate” so there’s a gross incentive to recommend work that isn’t necessary. Then there’s the insurance industry. Then of course police use minor driving infractions to hassle people and generate revenue. The whole industry could just not exist and the world would be better for it. People spend half their salary just to have a car, it’s ridiculous.
This isn’t the cars fault. Its capitalism my friend.
Ah. Yeah, I’ve run into some issues where I gladly paid to have it repaired, I sure as hell wasn’t doing it. I do most of my own stuff, so the repair prices always shock me. $1700 bucks to replace two front struts and 2 rear shocks on a 3rd gen Ford escape. I found a second mechanic that did them with my parts (OEM from rockauto, nothing fancy) plus top engine mount for $1200 which was more reasonable to me. The struts required the whole lower knuckle to come out, not just bolts like normal. If I had a garage, maybe, but hard for me to do in a parking lot.
I’ve always felt like insurance was a scam, it’s “required” and fucks you every which way.
And I absolutely hate cops lol.
I thought we were just talking about automobiles haha.
Seeing new car videos makes me want to drive mine until the wheels fall off then I’ll just replace the wheel hubs 🤣
My goal is to pretty much put all my money into older cars because all the new ones besides being rolling spyware are also impossible to work on.
Cars really were better in ye olden days(as kids would think the 90s are). 1990-2005 was the perfect spot for cars.
I can start by saying that I’m a tech “guy”. The evolution was simple: Puzzles, Lego, bikes, model R/C cars/planes, computers, motorcycles then cars. Add to that motorcycles and cars give you freedom of movement to go anywhere anytime in a whim, it is difficult to not geek about them.
Then, during a brief period of my life I lived in a big (for me) city and had to use the public transport and it was horrible. This only exacerbated my dreams of owning a motor vehicle. Car magazines helped fuel these dreams.
My dad loved sports cars, that didn’t help the addiction ;)
Sounds like you lived in a bad city.
Just another form of expression and status. Think of it like fashion. We “wear” our cars for a big chunk of our lives.
Yeah, thats the main understanding I have of it. Just seems like an odd way to express your personality.
Just wait til we’re cyborgs. How do you express your personality?
Hopefully with a metal back that doesn’t hurt all the time.
It’ll just be easier to replace
Don’t forget to upgrade to the “shiny metal ass” package while you’re at it. You’ll thank me later.
It is one of the few things you can take to work and be conversational about. You cant to that with a lot of other hobbies (im not going to take my tube amp collection or gaming pc into work for example)
Do you have a long commute or take road trips often? I ask because I used to have an hour commute. I enjoyed my car, but to your example, I enjoyed it only when I ‘wore’ it.
After I realised I didn’t enjoy the car when I wasn’t driving it, I realised something else. 90% of it’s life, 85% of my waking life, and 95% of my time away from work, it was just sitting somewhere waiting to driven again - not being ‘worn’. So I sold it and got something much cheaper in every way; to purchase, maintain, insure, refuel, etc.
Once I’d downgraded, it was funny to me how many people I knew were asking me if I were okay, as if I lost the nice car in a divorce or something haha.
Yeah I used to have a long commute, and had a Q50. I was leasing my car so didn’t want to take it to the track, nor did I have the money at the time to race it, so it was just vehicle to get me around. Definitely had fun with it, but when I started working from home it just sat there a lot. Got an old SUV for other purposes and had to run it just so the battery didn’t die. Eventually sold it for a newer SUV.
I get it tho. Don’t need a fancy car. Funny people associate downgrading your car with hard times. I wish my new car was paid off, but I use every bit of it.
Cars are like big, greasy legos
That are rusted together and impossible to detach
That is also true
