Is it aesthetics? Performance? Engineering? Sentimental value? Nostalgia? Weirdness?..
I could go on, there’s as many ways to enjoy a car as there are car owners and I find it very interesting what people value in what is ultimately a tool of conveyance that is elevated by social and personal values.
I always love cars that are just a little weird, they have features that don’t quite make sense, they have styling that just doesn’t fit in with other modern cars, and they certainly don’t blend in at the grocery parking lot. They emanate a certain incongruence with the world around them.
I‘m from Germany, we more or less stick to the driving rules. One day I had to drive through Paris around the Arc de Triomphe with its eight lanes, in a foreign car which was bigger than I was used to, with three other people in it and a broken second gear. So it was either first or third gear. Stop and go for hours, and the French don’t care much about overtaking rules, any driving rules to be exact. In hindsight it was fun, but in that moment I was drenched in sweat.
