America is no stranger to automobiles. If you’ve read anything I’ve written in this newspaper you’d know that I’m not too fond of the car dependency that exists today. It’s unsustainable, bad for your health, and kills way more people than it has to. If you want to read more about car-dependency and its woes, then go check out StrongTowns or NotJustBikes or a proper urbanist channel. I’d be flattered if you went onto The Spectrum’s website and read some of my own articles as well.
Shameless plug aside, I’m making a complete-180 pivot. America may be car-dependent, but amongst the weeds the car culture in the States is quite nice. There are so many varieties of vehicles that people are falling for: domestic powerhouses from GM and Ford, European imports from Germany, and Asian underdogs from the likes of Hyundai and Honda. I don’t think you’d find such diversity anywhere else in the world in terms of enthusiast cars.
That being said, there’s a stringent definition for an enthusiast in my mind. Not anyone can be a ‘car enthusiast’, or claim to be one.
A “Car-Enthusiast” and Muddying Definitions
The definition of a car enthusiast is simply one who adores the motor vehicle, and every aspect or counterpart to it. They can drone on and on for hours about the four-wheeled machine. Their pupils will literally turn into hearts if they spot a car they love. They most likely own their own car, whether it be some sort of sleek sports car or an affordable daily drive, and they care for the car like it’s their child. They go to car meets and form little cliques, whether that’s the art of drifting, rallying, drag racing, or touge-running.
To put it simply, a car enthusiast is mature. They understand the blood, sweat, and tears it took to bring what was essentially a drawing on a piece of paper to reality. They have respect for what others construct or own. They make tasteful, realistic modifications—sometimes they prefer to preserve the raw nature of the car in of itself.
Of course, then you have the opposite end of the spectrum. You have those who steal old Hyundais and joy-ride them around town with no regard for other people’s lives. You have the fools who shut down highways or intersections just so they can spin their cars in circles (we call these events “takeovers”). You have the people who decide that a car is not merely a work of art or even a tool, and instead perceive it as a toy and decide to waste hundreds of thousands of dollars buying and destroying perfectly created automobiles for the sheer “enjoyment” of it all (WhistlinDiesel, I’m looking at you).
On the modification spectrum, I can’t say too much. Each person finds their clique, as I’ve said before. Some cliques are awful— “Carolina-squat” trucks, “slammed” culture, “rice” culture, to name a few—but the opinions that revolve around these cliques are very much subjective. Which is why, in this article, I won’t be bringing up these cultures as much as the treatment of their respective vehicles overall. You could have a guy with a fairly-slammed car but who still babies it, after all.
A Personal Verdict
Being a car enthusiast is not some sort of secret club. There’s no requirement for one to become a car enthusiast, in practice, it’s more of a mentality if anything. It’s like with any sport or hobby, right? You can be classified as a sports fan if you love a particular sport very much. But look at the mentality of a sports fan: someone who probably loves the competitive nature of the sport, or a particular team, or obsesses over the history of a sport.
The same goes for a car enthusiast.