Boys and their toys...
Continuing my series of posts on New Year Resolutions, I get to cars...
Used Car Sales raised a question some time ago about the pointless nature of owning high end automobiles. Since I've confessed to an unhealthy fascination with these beasts I thought that I better tackle it. I put some of this in comments on Robert's blog but I thought it worth a follow up here.
Am I a tosser for buying these cars? Fair question. Well, we all know the answer...
Why do I waste money on cars? Well, I love cars. Ever since I was a little boy of about 7, I could recognise any car on the road, even from a tiny detail. I was obsessed. But my parents could only afford a second hand shit bucket (and I mean shitty). I wanted to be in one of the gleaming monsters I dreamed about. Now I can afford to have a dream machine or two, I have seized it with both hands.
I don't do it for anyone else - the effect it has on others - I do it for me. I don't need that sort of affirmation (I get that in other ways - my properties, for instance, were selected to impress). Indeed, my favorite car of the moment in the Salvatori stable is anonymous in that most people don't know what it is (I mean that they have to ask what type of car it is - I won't elaborate, as it may serve to identify me). Rest assured, it is flash, fast and fantastically expensive, however. As for people who say it's a penis extension or designed to impress women, well the only people who are impressed by that car are 12 year old boys and that's certainly NOT my sexual demographic...
Also, as I got in my car this frosty morning and fired up the heated front screen, heated rear screen, heated seats and heated steering wheel, secure in the knowledge that I had 4 wheel drive and a complex stability program to keep me on the road, I didn't really want to be in some piece of shit car, sliding around, freezing my arse off - why do I work 12 hour days?
Finally, I have found ways of defraying the cost. I drove one high end, £100k car for two years and sold it for what I paid. My current car is still worth more than I paid six months after I bought it. How? personal imports and buying high demand models with long waiting lists.
That said there is the Tony Dron quote,
Enjoy!
Did any of you spot that literary device - a post on each resolution? Cool, eh! It's deep, this blog. Really deep. I could be the next Joyce. This could all be a metaphor for man's Sisyphean struggle with self doubt and the ineluctable modality of desire. Or I could just be a self-obsessed sex addict wittering on in an onanistic celebration of my frailties. What's that? I'm a fuckwit? Oh, OK then...
Used Car Sales raised a question some time ago about the pointless nature of owning high end automobiles. Since I've confessed to an unhealthy fascination with these beasts I thought that I better tackle it. I put some of this in comments on Robert's blog but I thought it worth a follow up here.
Am I a tosser for buying these cars? Fair question. Well, we all know the answer...
Why do I waste money on cars? Well, I love cars. Ever since I was a little boy of about 7, I could recognise any car on the road, even from a tiny detail. I was obsessed. But my parents could only afford a second hand shit bucket (and I mean shitty). I wanted to be in one of the gleaming monsters I dreamed about. Now I can afford to have a dream machine or two, I have seized it with both hands.
I don't do it for anyone else - the effect it has on others - I do it for me. I don't need that sort of affirmation (I get that in other ways - my properties, for instance, were selected to impress). Indeed, my favorite car of the moment in the Salvatori stable is anonymous in that most people don't know what it is (I mean that they have to ask what type of car it is - I won't elaborate, as it may serve to identify me). Rest assured, it is flash, fast and fantastically expensive, however. As for people who say it's a penis extension or designed to impress women, well the only people who are impressed by that car are 12 year old boys and that's certainly NOT my sexual demographic...
Also, as I got in my car this frosty morning and fired up the heated front screen, heated rear screen, heated seats and heated steering wheel, secure in the knowledge that I had 4 wheel drive and a complex stability program to keep me on the road, I didn't really want to be in some piece of shit car, sliding around, freezing my arse off - why do I work 12 hour days?
Finally, I have found ways of defraying the cost. I drove one high end, £100k car for two years and sold it for what I paid. My current car is still worth more than I paid six months after I bought it. How? personal imports and buying high demand models with long waiting lists.
That said there is the Tony Dron quote,
"The definition of an optimist is someone who thinks they can just afford to run an Aston Martin."These things are money pits and best avoided unless you are a rich hopeless addict like me.
Enjoy!
posted by Salvatori at 9:00 am
3 Comments:
Salvatori, I think you would benifit from reading "money" by Martin Amis it is a short novel. I will even send you a copy if you send me an address. you can email me at bobdobbs23@gmail.com. Sal, if you want to try g-mail I will send you an invite.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Gosh, I read "Money" 20 years ago. It was qute shocking at the time. You are so right - I really ought to pick it up again. It would put my life into a different context now (I read it as a penniless, straightlaced student - for me, though enjoyable it was a rather remote work of fiction at the time).
What a resonance it would have now... Thanks for your kind offer of the book but there really is no need - I am a total hoarder of books: I'm sure it'll be in the library at home!
I have also sent you an email.
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