Most people aren’t “car guys.” If they were, our roads would probably look quite a bit different than they do now.
It takes time, effort, and sometimes a lot of money to really take care of a car. Some people just don’t have the interest that it takes to keep up the hobby.
The manual transmission is disappearing, sports cars don’t sell as well as most other cars, and a lot of “car guys” are misunderstood. Still, there are quite a lot of us around.
So… what exactly is the truth about “car guys?”
Well, the first thing is that, “car guy” is just a general, singular term for someone who is part of a larger community. Because of that, some of these will be more geared toward the automotive community as a whole rather than just an individual.
With that out of the way, here is the truth about “car guys” and the automotive community as a whole:
“Car women” exist too:
We have to get this one out of the way early. There are a lot more “car guys” that are women than you think. It’s pretty cool!
Yes, please ask about it:
One of the best things in the world for us is when you ask us about our car or truck. It may only have a few distinctive features or a few simple modifications, but if you notice them, it’s a major win! Even noticing how clean our ride is goes a long way.
We love your shiny new Lamborghini, but my own car is better:
All of us have dream cars we want to own. One of them may or may not be some exotic supercar, but right now, we don’t have one. It’s awesome to look at yours, but my 1998 Mustang GT is a step in the right direction. And, I love it because it’s mine right now.
And seriously… there are a lot of us that don’t want a Lamborghini, Ferrari, or Porsche:
But, doesn’t every guy dreaming of having a few hundred thousand dollars to spend on an exotic supercar? No, not all of us do.
Inconvenient does not equal impossible:
We might have a family and live in Canada, but my LS-swapped, two door Volkswagen Golf GTI still has a back seat. That technically means I can fit my family in the back. As for the snow… it makes for easier donuts!
A lot of us might be young, but simple old school is cool:
Fancy tech and features can be cool in some cars, but who really needs them? Weight reduction is cool, manual transmissions are cooler, and traction control just gets in the way. A radio might be nice every once in a while, though…
We get frustrated when it breaks, but it also makes us secretly excited that we get to work on our baby:
A lot of us use our cars every day. Many of us don’t have a third or fourth vehicle to keep in a garage. Because of that, our cars break like everybody else’s, and it can be a real pain. Despite that, it just brings us a little closer to the thing we love. We secretly love it.
And yes… I said baby:
Of course we love our spouses, family, and friends more, but for us, our own car is a part of our family… in a different way. We want to take care of it, and we put hours of work each week into keeping our vehicles nice.
And because of that, we know we’re better drivers than you:
We don’t want anything to happen to our cars because they are so special to us. That’s why we care about driving them. Because we care about driving them, we care about driving more than the average person. Simply put, that’s why we’re better drivers.
And before you say anything else… those kids who do burnouts and wreck their cars make up only about 1% of us:
Every town or car meet has that one or two guys. They’re the ones who do donuts at the traffic light and ruin it for the rest of us.
We want to show off our cars and what they can do, but we also want to keep them nice so we can continue showing them off. Blowing them up and getting put in jail doesn’t really help us accomplish that goal. That one guy is what makes people assume the worst about what we love and do.
Most of us don’t really hate your Toyota Camry, it’s just boring, uninteresting, and we think there are better options:
Every car has some kind of value because it’s a car. We wouldn’t be real “car guys” if we didn’t think that. It’s just that your Camry is a bit dull, and there are many more exciting options out there.
We don’t always understand why you wouldn’t buy any of the “better options”:
We just don’t understand why you wouldn’t get a BMW M3, Chevy SS, or a Subaru WRX. All of them are faster than what you have, are more interesting, and all of them have four doors. The Subaru even has all-wheel drive! What’s the problem?
But even if we have to get a “boring car”, we can make it interesting:
Ok… cost might be the problem, and sometimes that affects us too. Our solution? Slap a turbo on our 1999 Hyundai Accent, and drive it until it blows up! We know it will be the best 100 yards of our life!
We still have our own biases and opinions on every car:
There will always be cars and trucks that we like more than others. Not all vehicles are created equal. We know which ones aren’t… in our own minds, at least. That doesn’t mean we hate yours.
But…
There is still a lot of hate within the car community:
Those biases and opinions I just talked about come out a little too often. When they do, it spreads like a wildfire.
One of the biggest enemies of the car community is itself. There are so many people, both young and old, who look down on everyone else just because of what kind of car they drive. It’s sad.
A lot of us just do what we can with the car we have. It may not be super special, but it’s special to us. Because of the hate, the car community is in danger of eating itself alive. The best car clubs are the ones who call themselves a car community and function as such.
You can find make and model specific car clubs all over. If you have that much of a problem with others, you can always go to one of them.
And that’s at least some of the truth about “car guys.” Giving you a little glimpse into our world hopefully helped you see a little about how we think. Maybe you learned something. Maybe you thought differently about something before and this changed your mind a little bit.
“Car guys” aren’t any different than anyone else with a hobby. They are just more passionate about their hobby than most people know. If you’re fortunate enough to know a “car guy,” just know that they have in incurable disease that you will have to deal with.
