How to explain why we love cars to people?

[.:dutchtuner:.]

i distance myself from people who ask stupid things like that.

and if people do ask me i just tell them they dont understand, and im not gonna waste my time trying to explain it,

you don't understand, it's a jersey thing mannnnnn

[Ollie]

All my coworkers **** on my obsession with cars, Think its a waste of time and money. I tell them its a hobby and its fun. They just give me dirty looks, I now have come to the realization that they're hobbies include Drinking and Smoking Weed, Now i drink but not as much as them. Atleast in the Car hobby you dont lose all the money things could be resold, You cant resell drank beer and smoked weed. This is what im going to tell them tomorrow.

hahah all my coworkers think (well, know) that I'm way cooler than them.



I was getting my car ready for a drift event on my lunch break one day when some clients came by to meet with my boss. Theyre like wtf this kids got a race car. My boss was just like yeah that's my accounting intern, he's way more interesting than all of us hahahah

[P78]

u shud ask for a promotion

[SinlessVillainy]

I live in a small town in Texas full of lifted trucks. I *AM* the car scene in this town. This topic comes up all the time. I **** getting into those conversations with people when they ask why do I modify a perfectly good car and change it. I finally typed up something and posted it on my Facebook and Google+ for people to read when they want to ask me why I’m doing something to my car.

"We have become part of something much more complicated than you or I will ever fully comprehend. We build more than just trucks. . . we build friendships, we build futures, we build our dreams. We drive our trucks low and hold our heads high because we have an unwritten and unspoken agreement that we will live life to the fullest and never fall victim to 'the norm'" - Courtney Halowell aka Wyatt Strange

I've been into cars my entire life which is strange to say because I didn't come from a family of gearheads. A lot of my other enthusiast friends come from generations of car guys. I didn't. I can remember being a kid and drooling over cars and trucks. Then when I was around 10 or 11 I saw my first custom truck and realized it was custom. It was a little import dropped LOW with custom paint and a bodykit. Maybe a Mazda or Toyota. I can't remember. That's what really sparked my interest. Wait, not only can I get a cool vehicle, but I can customize it too? This opened the door for me. While other kids in my class were spending their allowances on baseball cards, I was getting a subscription to Truckin' and Mini-truckin' magazines. Ages 10-15 were brutal because I WANTED to drive. I NEEDED to drive. When I was 12 my dad taught me how to drive stick in his Toyota 4x4 out on some land we had. That was the most awesome thing ever at the time. I went back to school bragging. I would spend my weekends washing and waxing my parents' vehicles. My dad bought a '94 S-10 Extended Cab V6 when they first came out. It was the first new body style when they changed over from the boxxy body. It was 2-tone. Radar Blue metallic on top and Silver metallic on the bottom. Radar Blue was a deep dark blue in certain light and purple in other light. It was awesome. He was going to have it paid off and hand it down to me when I turned 16. When I was 14, I took on a long job of weed eating and clearing this vacant lot the size of a city block for my dad. In exchange for that, he went and got the windows tinted on the S-10. I was 2 years away from driving it and already I was customizing it. LOL! The mid-90's were a horrendous time for vehicle mods. I remember buying slotted tail light covers for it when I was 15 and saving up for headlight covers. It had horrible wheels. 15" painted steels with chrome hub rings. When I turned 16, he bought himself a '96 S-10 that had the 5 spoke alloys on them. I begged and begged him and he finally agreed to swap out with me. I can remember when I was 16 and had saved up some money, I went to him and showed him a drop kit in the back of a magazine that I wanted to buy. He wouldn't allow it. He couldn't understand why anyone would want to lower a vehicle. I tried explaining to him how cool it would look, but got nowhere. 14 years later and I just had the same conversation with him about lowering the VW. But at least now he says "As a non 'car person' I don't understand the want to lower a vehicle. But if you like it, then that's good." And I realized that it's not just my dad. It is everyone outside of the enthusiast world. The people who ask you why you do something to your ride are not part of our family. It's the people that point out what you did and compliment you on it that are the real family. That quote is true, but it doesn't just apply to the truck community. It's all car enthusiast communities. It's strange to look back on my life and see all of the relationships I've made over the years. My best friends in HS and college are not near as close to me as my car friends are. Those friends don't call me up randomly to shoot the shit about cars. I can't call them up with a few days notice and expect them to show up to give a hand with something I'm doing to my car. My car friends are that way though. I've been in lots of different scenes/communities over the years and made some great friendships with a lot of people that I would have never met if I wasn't into cars. I'm very thankful for all of those friends that I've made over the years. They all mean a lot to me. So when the outsiders ask "why?" in the future, I will raise my glass and reply "why not?"

Proof I've been into cars my whole life:

[Kielan]

hahah all my coworkers think (well, know) that I'm way cooler than them.



I was getting my car ready for a drift event on my lunch break one day when some clients came by to meet with my boss. Theyre like wtf this kids got a race car. My boss was just like yeah that's my accounting intern, he's way more interesting than all of us hahahah

I remember you telling me about that, shit's fucking hilarious.

I know around here at school people think its fucking rad.

[Lt. Dangle]

People back in high school thought I was absolutely crazy, when we would bring in the video camera and show them pulls down the backroads at 2am, open header just ripping shit up with the camera mounted on the harness bar, or 160 pulls on the highway in my buddies SRT4, or hell us stopping traffic on a 4 lane state route (going one direction) to bust off 8 consecutive sets of cars....

They especially loved it when I was out beating automatic LS1 cars from a stop, and bolt on RSX's back in my junk ass Ford Probe GT haha

Cars are a funny thing, people either completely understand them, and encompass all that they have to offer, or they pretend to know something, just for "cool" points, or because they fit into no other group, or they just blatantly know nothing, and dont care to know anything...

[Nicolaus Pro]

<3 cars and the car scene. I dont have enough energy to type up something good, maybe I will when I'm drunk.

[MaxBell]

Good post SinlessVillainy. I just love having a problem to solve and a job to do. I like being able to work on my car, and then enjoy the fruits of my labours.

I do not like working for a company who takes away what I produce and gives me paper money in exchange. I feel worthless.

[Beanzermin]

I love the satisfaction you get when wrenching on your car all hours through the night just to fix a window that won't roll down or something stupid like that! You get that sense of accomplishment, that feels better then anything else!

[Lt. Dangle]

I also think people have a preconceived notion/stereotype about car guys. Obviously no one that is even remotely a car enthusiast, just a normal average joe, (IMO) think that a "Car guy" is just a grease monkey, blue collar, working class individual, that may not be the smartest, most responsible person, but can "fix things" or is mechanically inclined, rather than a thinker, or for example an engineer, or journalist, etc...

Obviously, this is how it was portrayed in earlier generations, with movies such as American Graffiti, or Two Lane blacktop, Bullitt, etc...So I feel that people stick to that rationale, that a car enthusiast automatically meets that criteria. I personally have a family full of working class people, mechanics, collision repairmen, two that own shops, etc...So I have no lower standard for them, as I have been a mechanic, built cars, worked in bodyshops, etc, and I have an appreciation for all things that require mechanical inclination.

With that being said, the "new car enthusiast" is seen across the boards, from designers, to IT guys, sales positions, college kids, entrepreneurs, along with the mechanics, maintenance guys, etc. Hell I would not consider myself white collar I work as a freight broker, business casual, etc...

The point i'm trying to make, is that this stereotype completely disregards the actual element of the cars/mechanical processes/etc... There is an enormous thought process that goes into modding cars, whether you race scca, nhra, truck pulls, stance cars, bag minitrucks, etc...It's almost scientific, knowing that this part will work well with that, for example, fitting wheels, it'sa fucking algebraic equation for some of these cars to get the fitment they do, with offsets, hub to body measurements, width's, and clearances, or hell getting a carburetor jetted to work with the timing you have in a hemi motor, and ptv clearances in a race motor...

Normal individuals dont see these things, they see a way to get from point a to point b, and anything otherwise to them, is irrational. So basically the general public as a whole, are simple minded I guess, or just dont give a fuck. It is what it is, and I will strive to build these "irrational" things, things that smell like gas all the time, make a lot of noise, barely make it over speedbumps at an 85* slant, or rip the back bumper off cutting a 1.3 60ft time It's more fun that way.

[Vince30]

People back in high school thought I was absolutely crazy, when we would bring in the video camera and show them pulls down the backroads at 2am, open header just ripping shit up with the camera mounted on the harness bar, or 160 pulls on the highway in my buddies SRT4, or hell us stopping traffic on a 4 lane state route (going one direction) to bust off 8 consecutive sets of cars....

I think that's just stupid not gonna lie. Don't have the $20 to run your cars down the strip? My friends and I will drive an hour and a half each way to run our cars a couple times a year. Street racing is stupid and its people like you that give real car guys a bad name.

[Lt. Dangle]

I think that's just stupid not gonna lie. Don't have the $20 to run your cars down the strip? My friends and I will drive an hour and a half each way to run our cars a couple times a year. Street racing is stupid and its people like you that give real car guys a bad name.

Well i'm not going to dive into this, cause it's your opinion, I will say that it's what I "grew up" around, have done for years, yes I had the $20 to race, and yes I chose to do it on the street before/after the track, or any other time. Dangerous, sure. Oblivious to this danger, no.

Chalk it up to young, and dumb I guess, but it was a hell of a time, and I'm still typing this message, not from a jail cell, and not from a coffin. So it was okay in my eyes.

[SeanDub]

Street racing were some of my favorite years. I've long since grown up though.

[ztman92]

I also think people have a preconceived notion/stereotype about car guys. Obviously no one that is even remotely a car enthusiast, just a normal average joe, (IMO) think that a "Car guy" is just a grease monkey, blue collar, working class individual, that may not be the smartest, most responsible person, but can "fix things" or is mechanically inclined, rather than a thinker, or for example an engineer, or journalist, etc...

Obviously, this is how it was portrayed in earlier generations, with movies such as American Graffiti, or Two Lane blacktop, Bullitt, etc...So I feel that people stick to that rationale, that a car enthusiast automatically meets that criteria. I personally have a family full of working class people, mechanics, collision repairmen, two that own shops, etc...So I have no lower standard for them, as I have been a mechanic, built cars, worked in bodyshops, etc, and I have an appreciation for all things that require mechanical inclination.

With that being said, the "new car enthusiast" is seen across the boards, from designers, to IT guys, sales positions, college kids, entrepreneurs, along with the mechanics, maintenance guys, etc. Hell I would not consider myself white collar I work as a freight broker, business casual, etc...

The point i'm trying to make, is that this stereotype completely disregards the actual element of the cars/mechanical processes/etc... There is an enormous thought process that goes into modding cars, whether you race scca, nhra, truck pulls, stance cars, bag minitrucks, etc...It's almost scientific, knowing that this part will work well with that, for example, fitting wheels, it'sa fucking algebraic equation for some of these cars to get the fitment they do, with offsets, hub to body measurements, width's, and clearances, or hell getting a carburetor jetted to work with the timing you have in a hemi motor, and ptv clearances in a race motor...

Normal individuals dont see these things, they see a way to get from point a to point b, and anything otherwise to them, is irrational. So basically the general public as a whole, are simple minded I guess, or just dont give a fuck. It is what it is, and I will strive to build these "irrational" things, things that smell like gas all the time, make a lot of noise, barely make it over speedbumps at an 85* slant, or rip the back bumper off cutting a 1.3 60ft time It's more fun that way.

i think i agree with you, that car people use to be a rougher crowd but now its become a bit of a fashion accessory i think, not that necessarily this is a bad thing. and i personally am going to college for mechanical engineering so hopefully i can work with cars. but as for right now i mow lawns and shit for a school district and i like it because i am able to get my hands dirty even though the car i have now i dont work on, because its just the worst set up car ever but i digress.