Are we obesssed..?

[mk1_4dr]

It sounds like Im in the same boat as most of you, I get fair amount of jip for my choice in car, but thats just it, its my choice. I suppose Im kinda lucky that the escRot is a 'mainstream' classic. Not that it helps, some people do just think im wierd - always tinkering or trying to source one part or another (or pushing it across the carpark at work when it doesn't start) The thing is, much the same as you lot, I love the crusty obscure stuff, the stuff that most folks can't even identify, and that even gets the usually understanding Janie pulling faces at me.

For instance, in Hebden Bridge on Sunday I took these pics

Janie and her Dad just carried on walking, claiming that it was 'just an old shed' I felt as if I couldn't leave without getting a pic, maybe thats when it does become an obsession...

[AnthonyG]

I can well understand the obession, but count myself as normal at present - I only have two cars, neither of which are old or immobile, and have in fact been busy getting rid of old parts etc in anticipation of a parental move. In fact my 1999 Mondeo might be up for grabs once it has got through its MoT in September as it is living in one of their barns.However once I get some space of my own this 'barren' period will no doubt change I am past dead cars in fields/driveways though, they're just a pain.

[Spottedlaurel]

Obsessed? Not sure I’d say that myself, but with a (rather large) shed full of car-related stuff, miscellaneous parts and the Laurel in the garage, a dead car on the driveway, spending time on here when I ought to be doing other things and a 40+ page spots thread some people may suggest otherwise.In terms of the cars I run, it feels so satisfying jumping into something unseen that only cost a few hundred pounds yet does the job brilliantly, more so even than our Primera (which at £1550 would still be a banger to many people). It feels like getting one over on the system, a polite form of anarchy if you like. I was having a conversation about that only this morning with a chap at the dump, who came to admire the Bluebird and was telling me about one he’d had (sadly stolen) and the £300 AX he now drives.Cars like that do the job, they give me more money to spend on tat, doing up the house, family stuff etc. Apart from the first three years or so of my motoring life (when I thought working towards newer and newer cars was A Good Thing) I’ve happily driven slightly older and/or overlooked cars.Mrs SL is pretty tolerant of it all really, often pointing out things she sees when we’re out and about or telling me about something she spotted herself. Even the children notice cars that are just that little bit too square or old-looking.

[Electric Leyland]

I think this forum as encouraged me to be more geeky, before i'd just go oh looks there's an old car i've not seen for a long time, now i'm hunting for them with the camera!only problem i have is that i'm a bit shy at taking the pictures as i worry what other people would say and worry if i had a owner ask why i'm taking photos of there shit heap.

Sometimes I might hold back on photographing something very average if the owners are getting in etc, but nothing, even savage dogs, would prevent me from snapping rare tat if I’m armed with camera/phone. It happenned the other day (pics to appear on here) in Tesco's petrol station, a car pulled up next to us, an orange Daf 44 saloon, bloke with young daughter in the back. I'd swarmed round it and papped 4 photos before he even got out of the car. I then fired a number of cheery Daf ownership related anecdotes his way, still snapping, as he dived for cover behind it locating the fuel cap. He looked in a hurry and wasn’t all that interested in chatting. I think on reflection I could have been a little less over-enthusiastic about it, but hey, it was a Daf 44, same colur as my old 55 Marathon (see A/S logo), and I was like a dog with a bone. Just couldn't help it.Back in February I was in the passenger seat in a car of 4 businessmen in the south of France (our business being Co2 laser optics). We were driving away from a long and important client visit. The atmosphere was charged and heated, and I was banging on about work to our distributor who was driving the car. After a long and drawn out rant I eventually came to delivering my main point, the crux of the whole discussion, and at that very precise moment, in the background beyond the head of our driver, I spotted a knackered old Renault 16 TX in a field. A Holy Grail. I froze. But, so as not to lose momentum or emphasis to my blitherings, I had no option but to ignore it and finish my sentence. That momentary gap in conversation, probably no more than a split second, going completely unnoticed by the others. It was like I’d made eye contact with my best mate from childhood who I’d not seen in 15 years, and as he beamed me a huge smile, I completely blanked him and walked straight past. I felt really bad for the rest of the aternoon. Gutted in fact. That is probably the only time I've had to overcome my passion for tat. On a similar work jaunt in Italy quite a long time ago, passing through a small rural town, I made our Italian distributor pull over mid conversation, jumped out of his car and ran up the street to snap away at a Talbot Matra Rancho. It wasn’t even stopped. The driver of it did eventually stop, frowning wondering what the hell I was up to, but a quick point to my camera, then to his car, and the international thumbs up gesture denoting I'm not the police/press/threatening, had him posing away, big smile and elbow out the window. A couple more clicks, a smile and a nod shared, and he was on his way again, probably feeling satisfied without quite understanding why. My ex's have always tolerated by obsession with tat, they usually draw the comparison to non-safe obsessions a bloke could have, and conclude it keeps me out of trouble so it's ok. In fact their sympathy for it often unwittingly turns into joining in before they know it, as Trigger and Seth have already mentioned here.When you think about it, a tat spotting obsession draws many parallels with the age-old male traits of hunting or fishing, where the camera replaces the rod/weapon, and rare cars are the quarry.So to answer the original question, yes, absolutely obsessed, and can't ever see that changing for any reason.

[michiel]

Wonderful stuff here... My girlfriend's fairly tolerant and although she doesn't share my obsession with the shite side of the car hobby she does like some of the normal classic cars such as the DS, but my timing's usually wrong - and timing's very important with her, when I point at cars, tell how much I'll have to spend on repairs etc. This weekend we were cycling to her tennis match when I saw a Zastava 1100 I knew from a Dutch forum parked on the sidewalk, + owner and girlfriend fiddling with a jerrycan next to it. I wanted to stop and chat for a bit, but even pointing to the car and mentioning I 'knew' the owner ('what do you mean 'know'? he's on some forum, so you don't know him at all!') was all wrong at the time... whoops.

[Guest Kyle]

Is she wrong? Is she right? an extra 25mph, which you'd never be able to use anyway? An extra 200bhp that's really quite 'spare'. £500 can buy some lovely old rammle. But even though I love shite, I;d love something "Proper" one day.Automotive pragmatism, that what she practises. It's a tool, a white good, like a fridge. As long as she gets a new one every couple of years that's adequate - you know, safe, economical, does the job - and is CHEAP (never ever pay book!), then that's her sorted. Head over heart.

A mate has a 53 plate M3, hardly drives it. Ok, it's fast in a very brutish way but within 6 months his Mrs picked up a supermarket ding in the door, the diff blew, he was outside the workshop cleaning it when the wind caught the huge steel workshop door and smacked the shit of of his back arch, then a few days after getting new alloys under warranty due to laquer peel, he hit a pothole and smashed the rim and killed the tyre.In a shitter this wouldn't matter, but with a M3 he was crying.Price of tyres alone for these are obscene even at trade price.As you righly pointed out, the performance is useless in this country anyhow.Stick to shite...

[Pillock]

The 25mph extra is useless. The biggest WIN you can get is the smug feeling as on 90% of roads, an M3 won't leave you behind by that much at all.... we're not talking 911 vs Lada Riva here.And the £8500 saving means you can do a few 'drive a porsche/ferarri/tagora' track day things and still have a few grand left.

[VWPowered]

the misses loves ruins/urbex isnt as keen on scrap metal... everytime i go out in the car first thing in is my camera

[Colonel Privet]

I've got to admit that it's an obsession, I'm afraid. Fortunately, the wife understands - she's actually something of an expert in Autistic Spectrum Disorders and is probably used to far more doolally behaviour than her husband shouting things like "Christ, Marina 1.8TC!" at inopportune moments. Mind you, after seven years of being married to me, she seems more attuned to tat these days. She actually pointed out a rather nice P5 that I nearly missed the other day

[Futuramic]

In most respects I'm fairly normal; I occasionally talk to people with old tin - but that's about it. I do keep a look out for old shite, but haven't reached the photographing stage yet.I just like driving and fixing cars, old ones are better for both; thus I like shitters. Plus they're cheap. A friend at work with a new car, I have discovered, is actually quite jealous of my Volvo. At the workplace only one car ever gets talked about, and it's mine. Some laugh at it and others congratulate me on the good condition of the old barge. It is a talking point, however.My friend owns a brand new, ordinary spec, Vauxhall Astra. Apart from "it's an Astra" and "How much is the finance?" there is literally nothing to say about it. He spent all that money to become completely invisible; his car is forgettable and is ignored by everybody - from car enthusiasts to automotive hating luddites. That's the shitter difference - you have to be something of an exhibitionist to drive one; you will get noticed. It's usually positive, I have never had an adverse reaction.

[pogweasel]

... can do a few 'drive a tagora' track day things

What a brilliant idea!I would happily hand over money to drive in a fairly sedate fashion in a range of bland 1980's saloons, rather than 30 minutes in a 355.Imagine, they start you in a 1985 Hyundai Pony (don't want to peak too soon), before a few laps in a '72 Maxi (Limeflower, one orange door), and the day culminating in a treat of some time driving & fiddling with knobs in a Tagora SX. HEAVEN. I really would pay for that. Really. Or at least put it top of my christmas list.

[trigger]

This weekend we were cycling to her tennis match when I saw a Zastava 1100 I knew from a Dutch forum parked on the sidewalk, + owner and girlfriend fiddling with a jerrycan next to it. I wanted to stop and chat for a bit, but even pointing to the car and mentioning I 'knew' the owner ('what do you mean 'know'? he's on some forum, so you don't know him at all!') was all wrong at the time... whoops.

I had something similar to that happen to me, was at work a while back chatting to some mates about Ashes to Ashes, I told them how i knew the owner of the Mk 2 Transit that was on the show the night before, All interestedly that asked me how i knew them, So i told them it was from a web forum i go on, of course i then got the piss rip out of me as i didn't really know them (Fred) at all...

[michiel]

Ha, I did that too with A2A... Fred's a celebrity!

[pogweasel]

Ha, I did that too with A2A... Fred's a celebrity!

I misread that as "A2M".

[trigger]

Ha, I did that too with A2A... Fred's a celebrity!

I misread that as "A2M".

Don't start Fred off again, Still getting over the last set of pictures!

[Justin Case]

Obsessive, this is really obsessive, a gallery of photos of batches identical and rather boring buses, I regularly travel on some of these and they are BLAND:

http://wmbuses.community.fotopic.net/ga ... topic.net/

 

If the immediate family don't complain to much you are probably OK; if they have all left you then you are probably not Anyway ignore the car snobs, their obsession with status is far more unhealthy than anything which has been confessed to in this thread.

[garethj]

Imagine, they start you in a 1985 Hyundai Pony (don't want to peak too soon), before a few laps in a '72 Maxi (Limeflower, one orange door), and the day culminating in a treat of some time driving & fiddling with knobs in a Tagora SX. HEAVEN.

The third lap would be a bit slow, cos you'd have to stop and fix the gear linkage halfway around Paddocks curve