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’ve got a 1972 VW Super Beetle that I’ll never get rid of. It’s not really a desirable version or year of the Beetle, but my dad, grandpa, and I restored it when I was 9. My grandpa died in 2020 and he worked on cars his whole life. It’s cool to have a physical thing that he made possible using a lifetime of skills. Plus, my kid is getting old enough to work on it with me, and I think it’s awesome to have 4 generations of my family wrenching on it.
That’s awesome, my father was never a big gearhead but I have a lot of good memories helping him maintain the family cars. It saves you a lot of money to be able to do ultimately relatively simple jobs like brakes and belts. Definitely helped fuel my fascination with cars growing up. I know we did it because we were broke, but it’s special all the same.
I don’t think I particularly wanted to inherit the Plymouth van with a rebuilt title and only 70% of its white paint remaining. As a kid I though it was the coolest thing that you could take the seats out though.
I’ve never had a fancy car, so it’s the jank stuff I remember fondly on my old vehicles. Having to start the truck by jumping the solenoid with a pair of pliers, that time Reverse just didn’t work for a month so I had to really think through my parking situations, when it insisted on starting in Drive no matter what so I had to keep a brick in front of the tire and then pull it out and jump in real fast.
Anybody can get in a functional vehicle and drive; I like having to learn and overcome the weird stuff. It’s like taming a horse, it’s a bonding experience.
Now that I’m an adult though, I am quite fond of heated seats.
I had an absolutely slammed golf mk3 K2 edition with the coil overs corroded into that position, it had so much blowby you had to clean the MAF daily, and the radiator fan was connected to a switch on the dash, you also had to smack the dash occasionally to get the radio and gauges to work. I’m glad I don’t drive that anymore, but looking back it was more fun than bad. The Sceptre hot air intake and Borla exhaust actually sounded really good for an NA 4 banger.
Heated steering wheel does it for me, nothing worse than getting in your car and feeling yourself nearly get frostbite for 20minutes holding the wheel, driving gloves help but they can’t be too thick.
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.
I also like weird cars. Old cars, used cars. Just because it’s a useful object, as many in the thread have pointed out, doesn’t mean it’s not a special useful object. It takes me and my wife and our dogs on many road trips.
What makes a car special to me are the modifications we put into it to make it OURS. My grandmother-in-law has completely removed the back seats for her minivan and installed blankets and carpet there instead so her dog is more comfortable. I love that. It’s shaped around her and her life.
Yeah that was kind of part of my point of this discussion, you don’t have to be a gearhead to care about your car or have a strong preference for how a car should be for yourself. I too love seeing when people modify things to fit their needs. One size doesn’t fit all and I like that people don’t just accept things the way they are and create what they need/want in the world.
I don’t really like driving, but it is necessary. My (main) car is a 1993 Mazda Miata, which is currently being repainted bright yellow, and I’m gonna put a new top on it next. It isn’t fast, but it handles extremely well and it’s fun to drive. Or at least, it makes driving as fun as it can be.
I think anyone who’s driven a Miata understands.
Miatas are a blast partly because they are so slow and have such small tires. You can really wring them out and feel the dynamics of a sports car without going to jail. A cliche at this point but for good reason.
Plus being small, low to the ground, and with even weight distribution, it’s like driving a slow moving cloud.
Feeling comfortable in it as the driver, especially with the design of the front console and cup holders.
When I was shopping for my first new car ever, there were several cars that I thought I probably should consider (Honda Fit '16ish, Scion xB were a couple of them) but they just felt so uncomfortable sitting in the driver’s seat. Now, I don’t mean the seats themselves were literally physically uncomfortable, but the general environment of the driver’s seat.
When I sat in a Scion iM it immediately felt right. The cup holders were accessible and not tucked under the console, the console itself felt clean and minimalistic, useful but unobtrusive. It also still has a turn-key start, rather than a button, and it’s silly but that’s important to me (and I also worry about being locked out of push-to-start cars should the key fob die). Got it at 30k miles and plan to keep on going for as long as I can take it into the 100k+ amount! Hopefully by the time I have to replace it, the electric and hybrid car options will have increased even more.
Comfort is important, a car can have everything but if it isn’t comfortable you won’t want to drive it, amazing when you find a car that fits you perfectly.
Just a tip, just about every keyless entry/push to start car has a backup key, hidden in the key fob, usually with a hidden tumbler under some removeable trim and there’s a spot on the car where you can put the key where it will work even if the battery is dead/nearly dead. On Mazdas you just push the button with the fob and it should start. Others have labeled spaces to put the key, my Alfa has a little cutout in the shape of the key in the center console.
