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Last night I was watching the collection of Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry movies that my wife gave me for my birthday. Fans of the franchise will recall that Harry Callahan usually had a catchphrase he repeated at opportune moments throughout each film. For Magnum Force, the one with the vigilante rookie cops, it was, “A man has got to know his limitations.” They were words to live by when I first saw the movie at about 10 years old in the 1970s (sanitized for network TV) and now.
It got me thinking about how that phrase applies to us and the cars we own, restore, drive or simply worship. Though this hobby is comprised of diverse people—the common thread tying us together being an affinity for cars (usually vintage ones)—we can still be categorized.
I’m not saying we should be pigeonholed into this group or that and we can never change. Rather, by realizing we have commonality with a certain group, it may help us to determine our own limitations regarding our cars. We can finally stop banging ours heads against the wall and begin removing obstacles that inhibit enjoying our cars in the way we had initially hoped.
See which groups listed below best describe you and then recognize what the strengths and limitations are of that group. Keep in mind, none of them are bad and no one group is better than any another. They are all simply different approaches to enjoying the same hobby. I’ve only covered a few possibilities here. Tell us about other groups you think of.
Driver
What you do: All the enjoyment of owning your car comes from time spent behind the wheel. You’ll make any excuse for a road trip—a ½-gallon of milk at 10 o’clock at night, Yosemite for the weekend—whatever. Your ride has presentable paint, a satisfactory interior, an engine compartment clean enough to work in easily, but no suspension detailing. It’s a driver in the true sense of the word and has that patina. Of course, all mechanical and electrical systems perform exactly as they should. It may even have modern rubber and gas shocks. Every ding and paint chip elicits a story with enough style to make Jean Shepherd envious.
What you don’t do: Pick blades of grass from between the tire treads. Put Armor All on the pedals. Obsess over all those dings and chips.
Cruise-nighter
What you do: You enjoy the social aspect of owning your particular car(s). Cruise nights, car shows, poker runs and charity events are all your favorite excuses for sharing your pride and joy with family and other like-minded people. You don’t mind performing basic maintenance and light mechanical work, but the heavy stuff is left to the professionals. You will subtly modify the car to suit your needs.
What you don’t do: Get bogged down with major mechanical or body work that would interrupt participation in the aforementioned events. Worry about point reductions at the car show for having non-factory air in the tires.
Tuner/Tinkerer
What you do: Your pleasure comes from fixing the little things or making small improvements that separate your car from the loose buckets of bolts, you’ve seen others put together. If it’s a street car, you chase down and repair every squeak and rattle. If the carburetor has a stumble off idle, you track it down and fix it. If there is a high rpm miss you find it. Every light bulb in your car lights, the wipers work on all speeds, as do the heater blower settings and the radio. If you are a racer, you’ re the guy with a weather station, a specific gravity tester for your fuel, carb box full of jets and metering rods and a timing light to cover any situation.
What you don’t do: Body-off restorations or complete teardowns and rebuilds of your engine, transmission or rear.
Modifier/Racer
What you do: Your car is the blank canvas on which your carefully chosen and integrated modifications will transform it into a work of art and/or an incredible performer. With you it’s all about measurable improvements applied to a solid foundation resulting in a unique yet congruous package. Your approach to everything begins with the thought, “How can I make this better, or at least quicker?” Be it a street car a drag racer or a road racer, it doesn’t matter.
What you don’t do: Look for factory paint in a protected area to take a sample and send to a paint house to ensure a perfect match, because you feel the restoration paint colors are always a little off. Retain 9.5-inch drum brakes up front in a 3,800 pound car because the factory did it that way.
Restorer
What you do: Craftsmanship is your hallmark. Factory fresh or better are your only approaches to a project. Satisfaction is found in applying your considerable skills to transform that which is old, rusty and tattered into pristine, shiny and new. You will not only consider selling the car once it’s completed, it’s built into the plan in order to finance the next project. You didn’t build it to drive it or hoard it, so in your mind, the day the restoration was completed was the day the car began to deteriorate, and you don’t want it to be around so you can witness your hard work diminish over time. Generally, you’ll keep it for one, maybe two, show seasons to share it with others and collect a few trophies, and then down the road it goes to make room for the next restoration.
What you don’t do: Race it. Put 10,000 miles on it in the first year. Eat french-fries inside it. Bolt on a set of headers. Install air shocks…unless of course they were a factory option.
Collector
What you do: You have carefully amassed a group of cars that you keep in pristine condition. Having other people appreciate them and create a buzz about them brings you great pride. You may or may not desire to get your hands dirty, but you’re willing to pay professionals to ensure that you can start and drive any of them anywhere at any time. You consider the collection a well-deserved indulgence for all the hard work you did to earn the money to afford them, and you feel that you are guardian of automotive history.
What you don’t do: Scratch and save just to afford to keep the cars in storage. Sweat over every detail of how the cars run, drive or perform—they don’t have to win races, just be capable on the street. Mistreat the cars for any reason.
Hoarder
What you do: You buy another car every chance you get—you can’t pass up a deal. You have three parts cars for a restoration project you know you’ll never start, but it served as a great excuse to buy three unrestorable cars. Presented with the choice of finishing a car you have for say $3,500 or acquiring another car at the same price will definitely have you buying and not building. Your pride in ownership comes from rescuing as many examples as possible of automotive history and being able to look out over the collection you have amassed. You may be happy to help out your friends with parts, even though it sometimes causes separation anxiety. You also like to be known as the guy who has hands-on knowledge of his cars and can explain how just about any parts of them bolt together.
What you don’t do: Finish a project. Sweat over every detail of your drivers. Let anyone junk one of your favorite models, when you feel it can be saved. (Problem is you feel that they can all be saved.)
Trophy Hound
What you do: You have worked diligently on your car and the results are stunning—maybe you did it all yourself, maybe you farmed some or all of it out—and your payoff is to share your efforts at car shows and collect as many trophies as you possibly can. Pride in your ride is derived from the acceptance and affirmation of your peers that they think your car looks a great as you do. You display the trophies at the shows with your car and you have a specific display area for them at home with room for expansion already figured in.
What you don’t do: Drive it dirty. Let it end up in the wrong show class. Let its display area end up under a shedding tree.
One Hit Wonder
What you do: One particular vehicle made such an indelible impression on you that it’s the only car you ever want to own. You are consumed by it and loyal to it and it alone has been your inspiration to learn all of your mechanical and/or body skills. Your car is perfection from stem to stern, and while you now possess the talent to make any vehicle pristine, you just don’t have the motivation to work on anything else. Your pride in ownership is derived from knowing that you got the exact model you wanted and built it into exactly what you wanted it to be. You enjoy discussing who in your family you are going to leave it to when you pass away.
What you don’t do: Work on other peoples’ cars. Sell this car to make room for your next project.
Professor
What you do: You are a major fan who wants to absorb every fact, figure and subtle nuance of your favorite machines, so you collect all the literature and any other available information that you can get your hands on. You may have owned the car(s) in the past but no longer do, yet your special memories still provide motivation to increase your knowledge base. Your pride is derived from being the “go-to-guy” regarding that car(s) in your circle of friends and being able to share what you know with them to help get their projects completed.
What you don’t do: Get your hands dirty or feel the need to satisfy your thirst for knowledge by having said model(s) actually materialize in your garage.
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