A Return to Form

Hello All,

I am back after some time apart from all of you. I met with some of my car enthusiast friends over this past weekend and it got me thinking about what we like about the car hobby and what is important for us to gain enjoyment from it.

Its officially winter here in the Industrial Midwest, snow on the roads. I am thankfully for my four wheel drive sleigh and snow tires during this time of year and I highly suggest being prepared and properly outfitted to any motorist. So while using my incredibly practical, economical, and safe vehicle, I thought, why is this not the pinnacle of motoring? Modern cars are quicker and faster than ever before. They are safer, have better technology and features than ever before. They do most everything well and don't complain about the abuse.

So do interesting cars have to be flawed? Do we need to have imperfection to have character? Has personification of vehicles lead to a need to hate the well adjusted and well rounded? These are all probably good theories on what the gear-head desires in a car and I want to summarize this as companionship. I think a car nut will look for a vehicle that creates a relationship, sometimes you are looking for the same things, you want to compliment the traits that you value already, a silky smooth engine note, telepathic seeming steering, a perfect cockpit for heel toeing though the twisties. Sometimes you are looking for a challenge, traits that make you grow and realize new things about yourself, a non-syncro first, massive turbo lag, way too much rear camber on a wet road. But all of these things can be understood and from this understanding we as owners, drivers, motorists grow and that makes these short comings highlight our experience.

I think this also drives most peoples' desire for a second, third, ninth car. We begin to understand that automotive polygamy is unnatural. Certain vehicles can do certain things, but they can't do everything. We are not the same driver everyday, some days we want to be challenged, some days we want collaboration, some days we want to discover new things.

So why do we dislike universally good cars? Simple, when everything is good, good becomes average and who wants to be average?

Keep on motoring and I'll try to write more often

- Jay