Is it always "In You"???

[pwd72s]

In the interest of getting the off topic board away from some subjects, I propose a question:

Is being a "car guy" just part of you? Something a guy cannot change? I don't really know why, but I've been a "car guy" my whole life. I remember as an 8th grader riding my bike to main street on Saturday nights so I could see the cars of the people "dragging the gut". (That's what we called it...the phrase "cruisin'" came much later.)

But you know, today's club scenes are boring the hell out of me...a new breed of moneyed folks entering who know the cost of everything, but not it's value. A bunch of well off people who write checks to builders & tuners for bragging rights only. Pretentious bozos, IMO.

I've heard a rumor that this country contains literally millions of people who couldn't care less about cars. They treat cars as the basic appliances they are.

So, to the real question: Would it be possible for a life long car guy to flick the car thing in, and permanently join the well balanced majority? Or, would he soon find himself wanting another "special" car?

[tabs]

I LOVE my 911S and would fix the thing if I could ever get over my addicition to buying Cold Blue Steel objects. Both things go back to when I was a youngster....My GrandPA had a few Cold Blue Steel items and my Daddy owned a P car....

My advice to PWD is if you LOVE it keep it no matter what people say or what the trendy thing is....Sooner or later the Trendy people go away...onto something else...allthough prices never go back to what they once were.

[Tervuren]

I don't know, I grew up in an area where it was about heavy equipment, nad pickup trucks. Somehow, I was drawn to exotics. I got a ride in a 944 at fourteen while working at a place in Georgia, that was it for me.

[livi]

Thanks for posting out of the political / religious range.

I tend to believe that men in general are CG (CarGuys). As opposed to woman (generally). Some men however have not been given the opportunity to find out. They grew up and studied other technical stuff and are as grown men still fiddling around in the perimeter of the real tech. deal - cars.

Those of us who had an interest, or even passion, from childhood will probably always be CG. Wifes will come and go, children will be born, cared fore and eventually moved out - but the passion for powerful, sexy, rolling pieces of metal will remain for life.

My feelings regarding Porsche is pure passion. I am a pure academic / theoretical / analytical kind of guy with no experience what so ever with tech stuff, let alone cars, before I bought my Porsche. I would not have dreamed of even changing the oil in my previous cars. Now I canīt wait to dig in on my next project on the Porsche. I read all the P- magazines, follow this board on a almost daily basis and if I pass another Porsche in traffic I roll down my window to hear the sound of his Boxer engine. A picture of a GT3 or older RS or turbo will have me ruin my shirt with drooling.

Me and my brother will be lying out in the garage for hours, wrenching, discussing car stuff, drinking beer and generally having the best time.

Oops..sorry for rambling!

[artplumber]

Originally posted by pwd72s
...But you know, today's club scenes are boring the hell out of me...a new breed of moneyed folks entering who know the cost of everything, but not it's value. A bunch of well off people who write checks to builders & tuners for bragging rights only. Pretentious bozos, IMO.

I've heard a rumor that this country contains literally millions of people who couldn't care less about cars. They treat cars as the basic appliances they are...

The sad fact is that cars are no longer contain the "artisan" component that made the passion so easy to generate. I could care less about most of the fodder out there today, but they run, and run well unlike some of ours. What I care about in cars is the "machine" aspect, and getting it all to work in that "sweet spot" where it's just right. So while I enjoy my P-car, it's not the only car I could enjoy, nor are cars the only things which are enjoyable. (too many components to that compound sentence).

[David]

I think it is. I've loved 911's and cars in general since I can remember. My 12yo has no interest in cars, motorcycles, or anything that goes fast. And I've bought him a motorcycle and I've told him he can race bikes or karts or anything and he has no interest. Kind of bums me out, but I support his computer aspirations or anything else he wants to do.

BTW, my father died when I was very young and I didn't have anyone that was into cars to help my car interest so I guess I was somewhat born with it.

[Instrument 41]

Once a car guy, always a car guy..with one caveat. I use to love working on my cars. Would not flinch at a brake job, clutch replacement or major tune up. As I get older though some of that passion to do those sort of things has gone away. Maybe I find I don't have the time I do them anymore? I still love cars, the smells, the sounds, and as earlier posted when they are running just right, in the sweet spot, when everything is just tuned perfectly, and the satisfaction you get when going full throttle.

[Grady Clay]

Paul,

You will never shake it. Don’t even try. I suppose it’s like asking a heron addict to switch to diet pop and telling him he won’t know the difference.

I think I have inspired the next generation to be worthy of the responsibility to take care of the car stuff. Chris (20) is enthusiastic, knowledgeable, a good driver & racer, a reasonable mechanic and fabricator and will be a good caretaker. I am the one encouraging the wider horizons. At this time in his life he is doing his other passion (horses) traveling the country, meeting people and going to school. Regardless of what he does in life; he is a life-long car guy.

One of our missions should be to find those guys that had a deprived childhood and never experienced the full range of automobiles. The goal is to educate them in this “art.” An automobile is a platform (canvas?) to express yourself. It may take the form of a racecar (like a good pair of skis & boots) to perform some physical feats. It may take the form of a show car (in many forms) to display visual creativity to attention to miniscule detail. It may just sit in the garage being the object of thought experiments. Of course it can and are meant to be driven. And much more.

A 911 is a wonderful extension of Tonka Toys, Legos, etc. for adult men (and a few women). How much can I move the spindle and still clear a 16” Fuchs? If I start with Airport ratios and raise 5th one then…. How high can I raise the compression …. Take one ’69 chassis, add one part 3.6, a 915 mit LSD, alu trailing arms … and stir gently. Add fuel, light the fire and loos the monster.

Who would want to “join the well balanced majority”? I may be part of the mainstream in many things but I like being on the fringe with cars.

Best,
Grady

Markus, I agree.
Gee, we may get MOVED to the 911 Technical Forum.

[Icemaster]

I agree, you'll never shake it.

To me it's an addiction to all things mechanical. Whether it be a Cat excavator, a 911, an F1 car, a B-17G, or a simple model steam engine. It's the fascination of all the moving parts coming/being put together to create something that does amazing stuff.

Kinda deus ex machina by the hand of man.

[nostatic]

I'm not sure. I appreciated cars, and learned to drive at the age of 12 in my dad's dune buggy out in the desert. But I wasn't one of the kids up to his elbows in car parts. Instead I was playing music during those years (and taking drugs but that's a whole 'nother thread). I always had an appreciation, but was a peripheral guy. Fast forward to now where I'm still not up to my elbows in parts, but I am well down a slippery slope of racing. So go figure. Lately I've been thinking about spending some time in another country, and one factor that holds me back is that I'd miss track days

[pwd72s]

Thanks for all the input guys. As you can tell, I'm doing some soul searching here. Going offline to write a couple of old car guys I know...by snail mail. Yep, there are folks out there who still refuse to join the world of the internet. So, if you think I'm old at 62, imagine how ancient both of them are. As Arnie says, "I'll be Bach"....

[Moneyguy1]

SOme excellent points here.

pwd..I am in your "age group" now and still love to be around cars, but do not always feel like getting "out and under" anymore. However, strange as it may seem, some projects just demand attention. My wife's Passat A/C went south and she needed something to drive for the rest of the Summer. I found a Ford Taurus (2000), (yeah, I know...I know..) one owner (retired Air Force, deceased) with 26 k on it for a price too good to pass up. So far, I have located a factory radio with CD to replace the pain Jane unit and am in the process of amassing the things necessary to power the front door locks. I still love to tinker, just not get involved with engine swaps and such. I belong to PCA and do find there are very few who could tell you the specifics of their cars mechanical systems. I miss the days when I was a member of NHRA back east. We were a bunch of dedicated gearheads who admired each other's rides, gave a hand where asked and all in all enjoyed each other's company. I have wondered if the fascination with Japanese cars by the fiscally challenged younger set isn't a rebirth of the "hands on" movement.

[legion]

Originally posted by pwd72s
So, to the real question: Would it be possible for a life long car guy to flick the car thing in, and permanently join the well balanced majority? Or, would he soon find himself wanting another "special" car?

I think it would require an exorcism or abortion to get the car guy out of me.

[dd74]

Paul - for what it's worth, the only advice I trust, aside from Tyson's, Jack's and a few others on this board, are the old guys who come nowhere near this board. Every Friday night in Burbank, at Bob's Big Boy, very old school hot rodders gather to show off their steeds - and the stuff is gorgeous compared to what's around now. I think it was BlueSkyJaunte who once had as his signature "All new cars look like electric razors." That could not be closer to the truth. New cars are boring. They do everything for you. They make unschooled souls Schumachers after a couple of track laps. The only good thing new cars have, in fact, are warranties.

The love of cars, I think, is like eye color - it's genetic. There's a deeper attraction to a rumbling V8 that has some guys turning in their shoes with delight, while others either ignore it or find the sound menacing. I've never understood those type of people; or people who think of cars as tools, which they are not. Each car has a personality, a style and purpose, even if some of those purposes are similar.

There's more to it than they carrying around our fat American asses from place to place. There's public transportation that can do that just as well.

As far as losing the joy - you'd be just as apt to change the color of your eyes.

[Noah930]

No question, for me. I'm a car guy. I definitely missed my calling to earn a living in an automotive field, and I somewhat regret those early life decisions on a daily basis.

According to my parents, I've loved cars ever since I was a little kid. As proof, I received my only 4 stitches when I was a 2-year-old; I jumped up to show my dad (who was coming home from work) 2 new toy cars. Unfortunately, I had been playing with them under a glass coffee table and caught my forehead/eyebrow on the edge of the glass. Blood and a trip to the ER ensued.

My parents were definitely never "car people," so it's not something they passed on to me. We had a couple Benz's growing up, but that was in LA, where they're more common than Fords and Chevys. At the same time, I'm sure SoCal car culture helped to cultivate my interest. It's nice to have neighbors with Porsches and Cobras. I wonder how my natural interest would have channeled out, had I grown up in a different time (i.e. before cars).

My son is 16 months-old. He's shaping up to be a car guy, too. I've purposefully made an effort to try to NOT encourage him in following my footsteps of moto-addiction. Peter Egan's quote of racing making heroin seem like a craving for something salty certainly rings true for me. But the kid still points at every friggin' car that goes by, and very clearly declares, "car!" No Boston accent for him. and he giggles when I suit up for a ride on the motorcycle, too. If petroleum products last long enough, I'm hoping to hand over the 930 to him when he's old/mature enough to drive it.

[gsxrken]

Oh, it's wired in there. No inheritance from any family member, but my mother has remarked how I used to point out VW Bugs when I was 2-3 years old in the late 1960s! Now its the 930 and a strong 69 Mach 1 I have had for almost 20 years.

What is worse, though is the sport bike thing. I sold my namesake- my GSXR 1100- 3 years ago in a fit of responsiblity, (kids & all) and now the wife has settled into a strong ant-bike stance.
She HAS NO IDEA how deep that current runs, and WWIII will eventually erupt. Maybe not this year, maybe even not this decade, but when that bomb goes off in me...

[sewell94]

For me its a CURSE, i love cars they are my life and thats what scares me about them.

[VINMAN]

In my 41 yrs I couldn't ever remember a time when I wasn't into cars. I guess I inherited that from my big brother who was always messing with a car. While I love my P-car my true love is and always has been American Muscle.
Unfortunately the muscle car scene has turned into a joke. All the Barrett -Jackson rich boys have ruined the hobby for the true Muscle car enthusiast. Also the average guy nowadays has no interest in workin on his car. I'ts just, "I'll write a check and you make it prettier and faster for me". Totally turns me off

[Evans, Marv]

Well, I'm in "your age group" also. I have always liked cars and think you're either wired for it or you're not. I remember the early fifties Mercs lowered in the back. I remember "draggin the main" in the central vally of CA in the late fifties. I also remember stories from much older car guys of chugging up & down main streets of little towns in their model T's & A's. From a young age there was a thrill of making a machine do my bidding and the thrill of acceleration that went with it. I worked in a gas station (when they were "real" gas stations) in the late fifties after school & on weekends pumping gas, doing brake jobs, tune ups, etc. I'm glad the majority of people look at cars as an appliance or status cruiser. Actually that's about all they are these days, except for some exotics. It seems like there isn't much to do with them without a lot of money except for putting more plastic on them. Right now I'm happy to just piddle around with my little old '69.