Holding on to your youth
 

So... starting another useless thread, but it kept me up all night

After I got off work at 6pm yesterday, I met up with a friend for a "quick" coffee , ended up not going home till like 1am.

I left my bike at the dealer and he came to pick me up.

Nothing special, he has the typical STi
- stock power
- basic bolt-ons of an intake, full exhaust and BOV
- coilovers, sway bars with wider rims and tires
- bride one piece buckets on the front

The car just
- looked awesome to me
- sounded awesome to me

And we just cruised for a good part of 6 hours.

He is leaving Vancouver for good next week flying back to Asia, already "sold" the car to another mutual friend, thankfully lol.

Because he didn't have to pitch me, I was already doing the numbers in my mind and see what I can tell my wife if I just showed up with a new car in the garage...

Eventually he probably felt sorry for me and I ended up on the driver seat for a good bit.

I wouldn't even say I drove the car in a sporty fashion, just the back to basics, windows down, crusing on empty streets and I found the feeling that I havnt found for a long time. No wife, no kids, just a loud obnoxious car on a warm summer night.

We talked at length on the VI, the gas price, the upkeep, the family aspect, even the manual transmission etc etc

So my question to the rest of you, how many of you held on to these cars. The raw/visceral expirences of these machines...

And what stopped/prompted you from moving on to more mature/capable, albiet dare I say "muted" cars of RS/AMG/M/P-cars. Which by all standards will destory the STi is every which way in a performance metric.

Is it worth it in the current Vancouver car culture climate to keep a car like this?

I told many people before, I was about to buy a VA WRX before I bought the M3. I was one signature away from buying it but didn't at the end.

(under 41k out the door for a WRX Limited still seems like an amazing deal for a car like that)

I hem'ed and haw'ed for awhile and ended up ordering a M3, which to the uninitiated, is actually quite similar to the WRX in terms of utility. Relatively similar size, 4 door sedan with a decent sized boot. If anything the WRX is probably more versatile with AWD.

What ultimately made up my mind was my last car. I had a FBO and tuned MS3. It was a lot of fun but I was done with messing about with parts and figuring the best way to make everything work. Also at the price range of under 50k, there are lots of corners cut to make the car that price. The MS3 was heavier than it needs to be because it has zero aluminum. The hood and trunk weigh about 50lbs each. The long wagon format roof was also steel when it should have been aluminum. There were lots of other corners cut in the suspension etc.

I didn't want to mess about with looking for and researching for parts and wanted a complete car off the showroom floor, so the M3 won most of the battle. The bit that sealed the win for the M3 was that I hated the seats in the WRX. Swapping seats with airbags for ones that didn't and potentially messing with the SRS system, and plans for kids on the horizon was mutually exclusive for me.

me picturing you driving with the windows down :lol
https://media3.giphy.com/media/CiTLZ...200w.webp&ct=g

i sold my GC8 years ago when i upgraded our home and kids started daycare, seemed like the responsible thing to do :lol :okay:

i miss it sometimes, but then my body reminds me i have a bad back and knees (driving clutch).

i can't go back from the comfort of a CUV with heated steering wheel/seats and lumbar support :lawl: still stuck with subaru though

now i feel old :okay:

I never modified or tuned cars much, even in my 20s, but I had a 92 GSR for a long time. It was a lot of fun 10-20 years ago when the streets were less crowded.

I then got into old BMWs for a while before my wife came along. I sold the old BMWs and got out of the scene when my kids were in their toddler years.

The itch never went away for me. I regretted selling my last BMW.

That's why last year, I told my wife that I was going to spend X and find an old BMW, just so that I could make myself "whole" and at least have some sort of link to the past... before life got complicated and the world turned to shit.

That car was an old BMW E46 convertible. It leaks oil, the interior has seen much better days, and there's faded paint. Modern cars eat it for breakfast. But, when I put the top down, go out on a cruise, and load up my favourite early-2000s playlist on Spotify, it's glorious. It's small, it has steering feel, the exhaust note is deep without being obnoxious, and it still turns heads because it's now unique in a sea of Teslas and modern SUVs.

The E46 is the oldest among our 3 cars, but I keep it in the garage and I insure it during the summer months. I buy parts on RockAuto when I have a few extra hundred bucks every once in a while. I can work on it on my own time without the stress of relying on it as a daily driver. That's one part of how I'm holding onto my youth.

Still currently have a 2017 sti with two kids age 2 and 4. The kids love the loud exhaust and bumpy ride even though the car doesn't go as fast the modern car these days. I'll admit I started a bit older into the modded car scene since I didn't start good money until I was in my late twenties. 37 and still hoding on to the true experience of driving. The thought of picking up and dropping off the kids at school with an obnoxious car puts a smile on my face. Keeping this until I hear a knock knock.

I pick up my oldest from cheerleading practice quite often with the convertible, top down. Kids often ask their parents about my car.

In a sea of F150s and 7-seater SUVs and minivans (cause I live in the suburbs), the E46 convertible is ancient and unique. Judgy moms probably think I'm crazy for taking my kids around in it, but whatever. My kids are still young enough to enjoy riding around in the back seat, hair in their faces and all.

I think it happens when you become a home owner. FeelsBadMan instead of spending $4000 on wheels you spend it on the payment. FeelsBadMan I sold off my heavily modified cars as I wasn't driving them much, worried about damage, theft, break ins, getting crashed into. And daily driving in a modified manual tin can car just ain't fun. Given how bad traffic is now, vi, and just no real time to take it out on a cruise.

I do have the itch for a manual car again, maybe a Miata. But everything I have now is just v8 covered in leather, just much better to sit in traffic with and just enjoy the music. I end up mainly with cruiser gt cars because of this. Only thing I do is slight lower and wheels now. O yea and I can't bmw anymore, every single one just nickel and dime you to death. And every time you turn it on, you wonder what's gonna break now and it just ruins the experience. And I'm already talking about peak old BMW not the new turbo crap. E36, e39, e53, almost bought a e90 Mt but I just don't need another rwd sedan right now.

:QQ::okay: ma youth, and yes the lack of storage space, gas and insurance is also a factor.

That's quite a miserable life.

I had a fully sorted out (with basic bolt-ons) NC Miata in my younger days, and I miss it dearly everyday. A couple weeks ago when I was at the autox, it was blatantly obvious that my current sports car, despite it being much better on paper in every possible way than the Miata was -- it was a far lesser autox car, and probably less of a motorsports car as well enough though it'd almost certainly be faster at the track. Don't get me wrong, I love what I have now, but it was a totally different visceral feeling with the Miata, esp with the top down.

At the time when I sold the Miata, it was something just that "made sense" -- I was dealing with some health issues at the time, and couldn't really drive the car for any meaningful amount of time at all. There was also no telling how soon I would be able to make a full recovery (if ever) that would allow me to drive the car again, so it was the "correct" decision to make at the time.

I have since made a good enough recovery to a point where I think I should be able to meaningfully drive my old Miata again, but of course she is no longer with me. In hindsight, if I hadn't sold the car, and knew that I would make the recovery that I did, I probably would have kept it, and continue to keep the car.

The only time I am able to enjoy a bit of my old youth again is to sacrifice sleep and either go out for a cruise late at night, or wake up super insanely early for a Saturday/Sunday morning drive, and come home by the time the wife and the kids finish breakfast.

But that's how it's gonna be in the near and medium future. By the time the kids hit their mid teens (or maybe even earlier), I wouldn't be able to get them to spend time with me even if I want to. And then I'd be able to go back to doing the car things that I did in my younger days LOL~

Never give it up in the first place. Still own my childhood dream car, 18 years now.

Spent 20k over the last 15 years restoring my first car I bought for 4k. Probably worth 7kish now if I were to sell it. No point in selling it since it won't make a dent in the mortgage, that's the secret to keeping it!

by far my cheapest and junkiest car is my purple Corrado

it's also my favourite. it's the car I wanted in high school. It's nearly identical to the car I eventually did get a year after graduation.

it's an absolute time machine. as soon as I open the door I'm 20 again. I can drive it around for no reason, and have a blast every minute.

My other cars all do everything better than the purple C - but none of them plaster a shit eating grin on my face for the entire time I'm in it.

I haven't had it out this year - i really should get a couple of weeks in before the end of the season.

One of the biggest mistakes I made was selling my EK hatch. Had a b18 when I sold it. Also had I/H/E, wheels, suspension, custom paint, and a killer sound system. I bought the GR Corolla to fill the void.

If it makes you happy, do it. You don't have to grow out of things. I like my high school dream cars, still listen to punk rock and go to shows, snowboard 25 days a season. It's all the same things I wanted to do when I was 18, now I'm 38 with a family. If you enjoy it, do what you can to make it work. If people think you should have grown out of it, fuck em, they are probably boring anyways. I'd rather have a boring daily for boring driving and a dream car for fun instead of trying to combine both in a new m car or something, but totally understand why someone would want to. It's just a "what's good for you" sort of decision to make.

I think beyond the question "does it make you happy", you might consider extending that to "how much more happy does this make me, because I'll have to give something else up for this?"

I think every individual, and every family, is limited in capacity. Capacity in time, energy, and money. It's straight-up brutal math that we can't have it all, and part of the fun is in making the best with what you got.

My wife and I worked it out that we should only have one vehicle per person. That meant prioritizing, and focusing on what would give us the biggest payoff in happiness per unit time/energy/money. For me, that turned out to be off-road adventuring. I love going to the track, canyon carving, and wrenching on mods too, but I don't love it as much anymore, and something had to give. So I sold the FJ, the R6, and [getting ready to sell] the S2000. Still like to drive though. So the R1T is supposed to be a consolidation, in an effort to more efficiently use time and energy, while having to cough up a little money. I think that's roughly analogous to your point on moving onto "muted" GT cars.

To westopher's point, doing something like this got me a jack of all trades and master of none, but it's what I / my family could afford in total net capacity.

dark I'm curious: did this experience make you as happy as it would make you sad to get rid of the GSXR + Model3? :)

edit: fuck. now you got me thinking about my first car again, and looking for an AW11. fuck you. :lol

That's why I ended up with the S2K - finally get to drive one of my "hero" cars and enjoy some of the glorious early to mid 00's era of cars. My 2010 GTI was a little late and a little too refined, even after modding, but I still dearly miss that car. I kind of wish I hadn't traded the GTI in on the Audi wagon but I do have to say that the Audi wagon makes for a wonderful daily/road trip car.

It's nice to be old enough to have a 2 car garage (of sorts).

Not sure if this is holding onto my youth or not but I'll be keeping my Abarth cabriolet for life even though I barely drive it now.

But on the topic of holding onto your youth, here's what I found that's a bit depressing (and ironic).
We spend all of our younger years trying to grow up and become an adult and do "adult" things... and once we become an adult we spend the rest of our years trying to relive our youth.

That's the advice that I am going to give my son when he's old enough to understand it (which means it'll be too late LOL).

I'm considering parting out my car and trading it in. I think if i was able to get a replacement, I would spend less on modifications (just lower and wheels). I'm getting to the point even if I were to revert the car back to stock, I think I'd be ok with it. I think after having kids, house/mortgage. I seem to be less and less interested in heavily modding the car. My tastes have definately changed since going to stancewars with you 12 years ago.

i remember reading about the elise officially coming to canada when i just got my license in high school and the local auto journalist made a big deal about it colin chapman celica engine blah blah blah

it piqued my interest so went to the auto show to look at it and left with quite the impression

garaged one about a week ago lol

Congrats! Post pics :)

I drive a very "muted" car now. Model 3 Performance with child seat at the back :okay:

Its been 12 years? holy **** LOL

Looks like you need to drive your NA MX-5 more.

When VI's were a thing a few years back I sold some really obnoxious vehicles. But I know what you mean, we sometimes just go rip around in the old cars. A few friends kept their cars, every time I bring mine out they want to get theirs back on the road.

So yes, I held on to a bunch of these modded cars. I'm still buying and messing with them. Sad truth is the time will come when I'll have to give up the garage and get down to a couple of cars.

I had a 97GSR for university and on occasion I'll yearn for something similar now...

But as an average car enthusiast (i.e. you don't have a climate controlled garage to store your collection of vehicles), how many cars do you need?

For my household (2 drivers), I currently have cars that fill the following needs:

Fun/sporty: 20 M340
Daily/Practical: 05 Pilot
Beater: 00 Civic

I've been on the waitlist since March 2022 for an Ioniq 5, so eventually that will become the daily. My son will turn 16 soon, so he'll learn to drive in the Civic, but will probably end up with the Pilot (as I feel it's safer than the tin can). Maybe in a few years I can replace the beater with something a bit newer.

With 4 cars, I can't imagine what else I would need. And when you have limited space/funds, you can only focus on the needs. :)