I'm not sure if this happens with newer sports cars too, but in my experience, the simple act of owning a classic car means you're automatically enrolled in a terribly one-sided game of chicken with dudes who have the Chinese character for fear tattooed on their bicep. This is not a thing I understand. How does that prove machismo? If anything, it seems like they're imbuing the driver with an inordinate amount of power: Obviously you, behind the wheel of your giant steel monstrosity powered by tiny explosions, are not going to be harmed by running over Captain Bought-Those-Dogtags-From-Hot-Topic. So really, they're putting themselves in a massively submissive position; yielding their bodies up to the driver's superior power and baring their proverbial throats for him in the most sexually charged dominance dynamic outside of a James Spader movie. So it's great to own a classic car and all, but just be aware that, by doing so, you're agreeing to spend several minutes out of every day satisfying the danger-fetishes of dudes whose personality type is "pectoral muscle."
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![5 Bizarre Pitfalls of Owning a Classic Car]()
If you own, say, a Ford Windstar, nobody assumes that you know shit about anything. There is no implied special knowledge that you, a Windstar driver, are expected to share with the world. And you have to admit, that's probably a pretty fair assumption. But if you own a classic car, you can expect to be quizzed, at any time, about every single component of it, as well as those of every other conceivable car built within the same decade. This will happen literally everywhere: At the auto parts store, in your driveway, stopped at a light, or just pulling into the parking lot of a 7-Eleven to snag a Coke Slurpee to mix with your bottle of Jack and night of crushing solitude. Regardless of location, you will eventually be sidelined by some dude (there's a 73% chance he'll have mutton chops,) who will intensely drill you on the technical specifications of your automobile, no matter how busy you seem, or how plainly, visibly incompetent you are.
"What the fuck is this thing?!"
"Nice car," he'll start. "Whaddaya got in there?"
"In ... the car? Like eight pounds of Jack in the Box wrappers, a flat 2-liter of Alpine Mist and a broken flashlight," you'll answer, entirely accurately.
"Ha! No, I mean, what is that, the 318?"
"No, it's ... uh," you'll stammer, just trying to save some face, "the other one."
"The 426?" He'll reply, impressed.
"Hell yes," you'll answer, practically ejaculating relief.
"The 4-barrel?"
"Naw, man, like ... seven. Seven barrels."
"Shit, custom job. You bore that thing out?"
"Bored it till it couldn't walk in the morning," you'll laughingly reply, at no point in this conversation having had the slightest clue what you two were discussing. Cars, you'd say, if you had to venture a guess.
"Cool, man, cool. Got a 440 myself. Went to put a new intake on her yesterday, forgot to hook back up the PCV valve and fouled the plugs. Came out to pick up some new ones and a pack of smokes. But man, now I'm thinking I should just take that money and go for a 777 instead."
"Yeah, I was thinking the same thing," you'll blindly agree.
"Yeah? Shit, really? Saw a place around the corner. Wanna take a look?"
So you get in his car, expecting to be taken to a garage or possibly some kind of hangar, only to find that you've accidentally agreed to get fisted in a back alley by three tired-eyed Puerto Rican girls while a guy with a statistically significant chance of having mutton-chops jacks off into a puppet.