The pursuit of more power, it never ends...the lesson we learn

[DarkSunrise]

Originally Posted by fatoni

thats why you spend an extra 3k on a miata silly. you can draw comparisons between cars all day but like you mentioned, its hard to entirely enjoy a car you are afraid you might total. i can buy trackable coilovers, sways, rims and tires for my miata for the price i can buy coilovers for the brz. plus, when you drive a miata, you arent too worried that the frs is underpowered

I've thought about doing a full track build on a Miata or S2000. Three things are holding me back though. (1) I'm not sure I want to buy/maintain/insure a car that can only be driven on the track; (2) I've only got garage space for two cars right now; and (3) Some of the groups I track with don't allow convertibles.

For now I'm enjoying the FR-S as an 80/20 street/track car. Hasn't cost me that much to get it ready for the track -- just tires/wheels & brakes mainly -- and it's pretty good in this role. I'll probably upgrade to an 09+ Cayman S in a few years.

[regal]

Originally Posted by Marchy

Agreed, but technically car ownership is a throw away money item in general.

Tell that to my neighbor. He bought a 92 Honda Civic VX (50 mpg) for $5k in 1997. Ten years and 200k miles later he sold it for $5k. Basically drove it for free other than gas, belts, oil, and tires.

My friend bought a clean 2005 elise in 2008 for $20k, sold it last month 50k miles later for $28k. all he did was oil, gas, and tires. Actually made money on the car.

Another guy bought a '92 240sx new drove it for over a decade and sold it for nearly what he paid new (wishes he had kept it.)

Then there's they guy who still drives the '84 Toyota pickup he bought 30 years ago, looks and drives like new.


Then a guy I grew up with who bought a Plymouth Superbird in 1985 for $3k, he did a lot of work painstaking work on it himself. By the early 90's he parked it thinking he lost his shirt, 20 years later started taking it to shows/auctions and basically retired for what he sold it.




There are vehicles that have been made to hold true value. They don't have to be rare or fast but most all are well engineered and durable and have some unique feature. The trick is figuring out what those are before everyone else does.

[CyberFormula]

Tires, wheels, bbk, suspension

headerback exhaust with tune, and then call it quits.

[BlueDubbinTDI]

Originally Posted by Whitigir

The reason why he regret it, or anybody else may, or why the market turns toward sport SUV/Sedan more than compact coupe. Because it serves no purpose....because he does not race it

1/ The majority of people who love sleek looking car, or sport car enthusiast, do not know how to work their engine, or dont want to bother.

2/ The majority of people who can afford cars are the people who has settled down, have a family

3/ The majority of sport car enthusiast do not go to the track to race their car and enjoy the car potential. Unfortunately, with legalized 70 Mph on the HighWay, you can do so in a smart car.

Therefore, it all comes down to the reality why mod your car ? Or having sport car at all.

****Mod your car for performance, you face the reliability issue, and you dont race it. Even if you do, you dont win the reward to buy a new car as in Need For Speed game, which makes it pointless

****Mod your car for cosmetic look, people laugh at you, and you cant even bring it to the track, because your car has no power......

Both modding are bad for reliability, and resell value.

****Or mod your car to go to auto show, car meet, just to show that you have balls. You ended up losing money, and gains nothing.


Modding cars only work in other countries, such as Mexico, China...etc. Their law enforcements are easy to bribe with, under ground people have huge price reward, similar to fast and furious first movie. People lives are cheap....

Wheres the modding for personal satisfaction and happiness option?
And modding isn't always a horrible investment because if you keep the boxes the parts come in and clean them up you can typically get about 75% back of what it was worth new if you are patient. The only thing I hate about the enthusiast scene is that some people think they're better than others because of what they have done to their cars over you. I hate this. Why cant we all just coexist regardless of financial income. I'm 24 and don't even own a credit card but some of these owners have minimum wadge jobs. Trust me I've seen people with FI kits say they cant decide between an $8/hr job or a $12/hr job based on what the work is....really...you have a turbo kit on a 2013 $25k+ car and you cant make THAT decision up?!?!?! You swiped a credit card and will be in debt forever. Good call. Shit like that kills me for real.

Some kids got rich parents that don't give a fuck I get that (a friend of mine still has his 2007 G35 hit parents bought him new his senior year of highschool, is still in med school, never had a job in his life and will walk away with no debt to his name either). But he's a classy dude. WHY THE FUCK do some of these kids that have everything handed to them feel the need to rub it in your face when they didn't earn shit?!

/rant