Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Let's see your Bucket List Cars and Trucks!

The cars in this thread are obviously more than just transportation. I wonder what all they are. I've been a "car guy" myself and had a few project cars but my means were modest and there's not much worth noting here other than to say the passion towards machines is not foreign to me and that I've indulged it in various stages of my life. Presently, while I can admire and appreciate a lot of machines, I'm unable to muster the least bit of covetousness for a car, truck or motorcycle. What does the kind of car in this thread do for a person who owns it?

Does it establish or reinforce something about your identity?
Does it display something about your social status?
Does it display your wealth?
Is it a thrill and amusement to drive?
Is a it a project that keeps your mind occupied solving problems and engineering solutions?

No one displayed a race car. I will do that:



This is a Formula 3 car which can be raced for a season with a budget under a million dollars, maybe even just a quarter million depending on various factors. Obviously, doing something with a car is going to cost a lot more than just owning it. You could probably buy just the car in the picture for less than any one of many of the cars in this thread, but what use is it? Doing something with a car is more meaningful than just possessing it. I learned that the expensive way when I transitioned from owning track bikes to racing one. Trying to do something would have been much more affordable if I had begun with a motorcycle that cost me a small fraction of my total budget instead of a large portion of it like 15 or 20 percent. Instead of racing a motorcycle, I could have used the same money to buy a Porsche, but I remember talking to a guy at the track who was racing Porsches. He was spending my annual budget if one of this drivers just hit the curbing.

With racing, and I'm talking about racing to win championships not just turn laps on a glorified track day, I had clear goals and could persue them with strategies. Just acquiring something like Jay Leno buys stuff, I'm not sure it does anything I care for. I do sometimes enjoy a tinkering project, but if I wanted a thrill, I think it would have to be something other than a car -- keeping it strictly vehicular, maybe an airplane or a sail boat. When I was younger, I might have wanted to display wealth to gratify my ego or impress a woman (until I realized I had no use for that kind of woman). Now that I'm older, I'm more interested in sharing wealth than showing it off. I prefer things where I can put someone else in the driver's seat. As for social status, cars are useless. Maybe you're thinking that even being aware of your social status is vain and absurd, but you can't tell me that other people don't buy stuff like the vehicles in this thread as "status symbols." The thing is, if your status can be conveyed by a mere purchase, no matter the price, it isn't very high. I mean, even Bieber can buy lambos. So what does it say about your identity if you buy a D8 or a Pete 379 instead? That you're a redneck?