If you're here, we'll just go and assume you love cars. Of course, there's that 0.5% of TTAC readers that hates cars. We know you hate Howard Stern, too. And your Sirius bill is late. But seriously, why? Why do over 20k of you come here every day to read the rantings and ravings of a bunch of OCD cases (sorry Robert) borderline personalities (sorry Justin) ripping the guts out of a handful of global corporations? Oh wait, that does sound like fun. But, you loved cars before TTAC, so why? Yesterday we learned that not only is the Vatican (essentially) calling driving a sin, but that scientists are telling us we have to reduce carbon output to zero. That's getting it from both ends as my old man used to say. And another thing: bio-deisel kills fish. Tadpoles, too. And why do we care about the middle east again? Oh yeah, oil. My point? There's a lot of negatives to this car thing. How do you justify your love? Or do you?
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I don’t justify my love, because love is unconditional, and I unconditionally love cars.
Freedom. The opportunity to go anywhere, anytime you want, as fast as you want, on your time.
And some of them provide an entertaining time while doing that.
Time in the car is *my*, time for better or worse. I don’t talk on the phone. I don’t eat. I drive and I like it.
If I need to drive a smaller car or one that runs on something other than an internal combustion engine then so be it. I just want to drive.
So one day we will be driving EVs around, but nothing beats revving an LS1 and pealing out or pushing a VTEC 4 to the redline. I love cars because they are unique machines that are all engineered to run. The fact that there are tens of thousands of timed explosions going on under the hood and people say “Wow that car sure is quiet” is quite amazing.
You’ll probably hear people say freedom a lot, but it’s absolutely the best way to justify the seduction. Cars are a way to show people that you’ve made it; they’re parts of peoples dreams and goals. To some extent, they’re an extension of one’s personality. When it comes to racing cars, the discipline and competition do it for me.
86er beat me to it.
As for answers to this question, I could respond “how longa ya got?”
That first time you slid into the driver’s seat with no ‘rent riding co-pilot.
Just you and the car (in my case, a 66 Mustang my dad brought home basically in a box and we put together while I spent a year with my learner’s permit in the ol’ F-250).
Remember your first time?
Is there a glimmer of that memory left burning in your soul?
That excitement. Sense of freedom. Personal control.
You took that first corner a little hot — cuz Mom always said, “Slow down here.” And you felt the edge of control coming on, bias ply tires squealing objections, rear-end sliding…
That sudden jolt of electricity down your spine, mouth going dry, hands and feet moving.
I’M DRIVING!
Nothing beats it. Well…
Almost.
Which brings up another, entirely different “first time” — best suited for another time and forum.
I was always told that if you can explain it, it isn’t real. I’ve never been able to explain it. So I guess its real. I don’t care what any federal agency or scientist underwritten by Al Gore says. I’ll get out of my car when you pry my cold lifeless body from it. And they just may do that.
I’ve always loved cars. Before I was of age to drive, I would just stare at ’em, wishing I could get behind the wheel. This evolved into sitting behind the wheel and pretending I was driving. The day my father let me clutch and start up his ’89 Ranger, I was hooked. It worked! I did it! At 13, it was an accomplishment I was proud of until I finally learned to drive on it.
I have never driven a ridiculous powerhouse of a car. I have a 2000 Ford Ranger. But its my Ranger. Nothing can beat driving with the windows down on a warm day, headed down the highway with music up and the wind in in my face. Zoning out on a long trip to Northern who-knows-where Maine. The synchronization of clutch-gear-gas, like a well oiled machine, happening without thinking. Not to rip off of everyone else, but freedom nails it on the head. Its my place, and I alone control it.
Honestly, I like my truck because it is essentially an extension of myself.
Styling got my attention, the sounds got me on the first date, technology kept me coming back for more, and cornering forces put me head-over-heels. I’m married to grip.
Falling in love with the passion in the engineering and execution i.e. R&D rooted in Motorsports
Experiencing timelessness in perfect maneuvering i.e. heal-toe
Good chassis feedback, once you have experienced it, there is no going back
Tuned exhaust notes of harmonically balance firing orders
Tastefully un-silenced induction systems
Externally vented BOV’s
Feeling the LSD working i.e. steering with the throttle
Turbo torque or the wine of a positive displacement supercharger
The feeling of completing a daylong detailing of your beloved automobile
Talking auto geek with a fellow enthusiast
I don’t justify my love, because love is unconditional, and I unconditionally love cars.
Word…
On top of that, according to my parents I already loved cars as a really small child before I had even the mental ability to evaluate why I liked or didn’t like something (and, no, they didn’t push me into liking cars, since they couldn’t care less about them themselves).
Same with racing, only that came a couple of years later. One of the first races I remember seeing was when Michael Schuey deliberately crashed into Hill in 1994 (must have been 9 or 10) to win the F1 championship. Ah, if only I lived in another country that has a racing culture and my mother wasn’t scared that I would crash and burn had I gone racing when I was a young teen)…
Anyway, I couldn’t say why I love cars…but I do.
86er :
I don’t justify my love, because love is unconditional, and I unconditionally love cars.
Couldn’t be said better. And oddly, I’m not sure I ever met a car I couldn’t love. Hell, I loved my unmarked, detective issue, faded blue K-Car from some years back. I loved my father’s 1963 Studebaker Lark, with rust holes in the floorboard so big my mother warned him not to take us kids in the car. Two cars that were unloved by many – but not me.
I’ve had much “better” cars, obviously, but to me, they’re like kids – you love all of them, no matter what.
Call it a justification, cop out, whatever, but I believe it is the freedom. Although, I have loved cars since I was a child as well – I remember “helping” my grandfather from time to time work on his cars – I still believe that love was due to the future promise of freedom. I appreciate the engineering marvel that a modern, or even classic, car is, but that is not the root of my love of cars. It most definitely is not a status symbol to me at least not in the traditional sense, as a previous poster opined. I couldn’t care less if I or anybody else owned a Mercedes, BMW, etc. As a matter of fact, I think a car that appears quite pedestrian on the outside but has something special under the hood (a sleeper) is particularly cool. So, for me anyway, it all comes back to the freedom of travel across our large country, and all of the different sites, natural and otherwise, that car ownership allows me to see. In that sense my car is like a good friend with whom I share the good and the bad times.
*Love to drive
* love the mobility
* love the technology
* love the commercial artistry, although more of the classic era than the modern era.
* am fascinated by the way people relate to their cars, by the meaning they take from their cars. At one car show I met a father, son, and grandson and their early ’50s Hudson. The old man had bought the car, and gotten married in it, I think. I like art cars. (see my motorlegends.com site and click on art cars for some intersting ones
I could go on and on, but I have to get some work done
I had my first{and last cigarette} in a car
My first sexual encounter was in a car
First time going 155 MPH {on land} in a 1985 Corvette in 1986
Closest I’ve come to death was in a car
Best place to cry is in a car
Best place to relax is in a car
It is all about the car!
POLAR’s antics over at Jalopnik.com. That pretty much embodies why I love cars.
I like how a car can make you feel. I like going fast, and cornering at above average speed. I love how a great engine/exhaust makes me smile unconciously (like a Mustang GT).
I like knowing a lot about something that most people at some point or another want to talk about. I’m their goto guy for car stuff. I like being a “car guy” with its varied definition.
there is a short list of experiences that can excite all your senses at the same time…thats why i love cars. the total package.
My car is my home. I don’t own a house and I never have. The space in my car is the only space that is actually mine, and I spend quite a bit of time there. I really enjoy driving my car.
Also, I do all the work and maintenance on my cars, so I form a bond with them that makes them seem like they’re my children. I’m a mechanical engineer and I own nothing else that compares to my car in terms of mechanical beauty and complexity. I’ll never have real children because I’d rather spend the money on cars! Of course, I’d come up with many other reasons not to have children even if I had enough money to buy every car in the world.
I was born with the bug. One of my oldest memories is that of an orange 1981 Mustang toy I had when I was like two years old… I’ve realized that I am actually in love with the ideas, the projects, the design work behind a car. That’s what earns my attention and appreciation. I am actually bewildered of how humans can blend usefulness, art, passion and all of their current achievements in these devices.
My family were GM dealers for 80 years, so it was a gimme that cars would become a passion. I spent nearly 40 years working in the carbiz, but not for dad.
He once told me “you’ll come to hate cars!”
He was right, but I only hate the crap Detroit began turning out in the 1970’s.
There’s 8 collector cars dating from 1934 thru 1963 in my garage. I’d have more…if I had the space.
My personal library contains over 3,000 books on the history of the automobile.
Nothing gives me the same satisfaction as a long drive on beautiful mountain roads.
From my earliest memories, cars were the center of my relationship with my father. We didn’t have that much in common, but we could always talk for hours about cars.
I think it has something to do with cars being such a large part of our lives. Driving to work and anywhere else in them.
I fell for cars at the age of five while watching my dad work on a 1979 Datsun 120Y 4-dr ‘sport’ sedan. I have no explanation for it, my mom still asks why. I watched my dad drive, I wanted to do the same,… and when I did, I wanted to again and again and again and again and …
All very good answers. I love cars (and motorcycles) because I like the challenge of improving both my driving technique and the vehicle with which I do so (upgrades, maintenance, etc…). I enjoy working on vehicles and have yet to find a transportation solution more elegant and involving. I also love sites like this with like-minded commenters, readers, and writers.
I was born in 1942 and became a teenager in 1955 right when the yearly styling change became real exciting. I remember the new 1957’s like it was yesterday. The ’57 Chrysler products took my breath away. And the excitement of GM’s fiftieth anniversary in 1958 was like yesterday. The 1958 Roadmaster was so huge and had so much chrome that I was hooked. The styling changes kept me addicted into the 1960’s. And then the small car revolution took me in and I bought my first car, a new 1962 VW bug, white with a red interior. The car was tight and the fit and finish was great. Too bad it didn’t run much past 50K. It goes on and on ’til this very day.
1957 Chrysler Corporation ad slogan:
“Suddenly, it’s 1960!”
The total amount of chrome plating (not including what was plated, just the plating itself) on a 1958 Oldsmobile 98 sedan was 44 lbs, 2 more than the 1958 Buick Limited had.
97escort: Ya got me by 2.
I love cars because otherwise Deals Gap is a long, boring walk.
BTW, QOTD needs its own link on the front page.
I’ve had the car bug since I was very small. My second memory is of riding in the car in my baby bassinet.
I suspect that part of my love for cars–beyond the stuff I said above–comes from the fact that my parents worked a lot, and the times I got the most attention from them were the long drives–Seattle to LA and back when I was 3, Seattle to Menlo Park just before I turned 4, and then Menlo Park to Boston at the end of that summer, Boston back to Seattle when I was 7, Seattle back to Boston when I was 8, lots and lots and lots of trips in France and England when I was 12, followed by 3000 miles all over Europe for two months.
I drive Boston to DC and back at least once a year, and despite the fact that it is definitely not the most inspiring ride, I’m always happy in the car.
Like 97escort, those model year changes, for me beginning in the early ’60s, were tremendously exciting. The ’64 Chevies still feel new to me the way they did the first time I saw them.
You can see more of why I love cars on my website, motorlegends.com
I have a picture of myself at 18 months behind the wheel of my dads ’71 Volvo P1800 coupe manipulating the steering wheel and my obsession must have started then. It’s only gotten worse since then and being a G-force addict only makes it worse. Smoking tires, taking corners at the limit, enjoying the amazing things cars do to your soul, the mechanics, simplicity(older cars), involvement in the motion, you name it I love it.
Everything has negatives to go with the positives, not just cars. We just have to balance the good with the bad. Maybe if cars weren’t appliances to so much of the population they would remember the great joys cars give that can out weigh the negatives. Life is more fun if your actually allowed to live it rather then pass through it as a spectator.
I don’t know when I fall, I think it’s in my blood.
When I was a kid, one of my uncles was a drag racer, another was a rally racer, and the drag racer was also rebuilding a 72 Vette in the garage.
I have been playing with cars since I was at least 2 years old… and continue :D
Then I learned how to drive… and I couldn’t go back… ever
Cars are magic and complex machines. It’s magic that every morning you turn a key and it comes to life, with all that termodinamic complexity. A diesel is even more magic, it ignites only with compression.