Better Beaters - Building Cars and Daily Drivers

 Rosebud.

If you have ever watched the movie Citizen Kane, you will remember his final dying words. He is in bed holding onto a snow globe, which falls out of his hands as he mutters the word, "Rosebud." Then he expires.

Reviewers have analyzed this scene and it appears that Kane was expressing his affection for his boyhood sled. This was significant, because it symbolized a certain period in his life. It was the last time that he enjoyed the love of his family and the innocence of childhood. He eventually became a very successful man financially and socially, but it appears that despite all his possessions and former relationships, he dies alone and apparently, unsatisfied. 

Hopefully, few of us will have to experience really tragic or epic events in our lives, but still most of us have experienced some level of loss.

As car guys do we have our own personal versions of "Rosebud?" Was there something in our young automotive lives that went unfulfilled? Is there something that we had and lost, and have spent a lot of time and energy trying to reclaim or reconnect with? 

As a young person we spent a lot of time looking at, and dreaming about the cars that were desirable at the time. Cars represent freedom and independence. Dreaming was all that we could do at the time, we were kids with no money or ability to buy and keep any car. If our parents or close relatives were not interested in cars, we wouldn't have much opportunity to interact with different types of vehicles. 

All we could do was to look at them on the street, and later in the magazines that we read.

Sometimes as we got older we'd actually have the opportunity to buy a car that we'd been wanting for years.

Is there a car that we once owned, and that we got rid of, because holding onto it was beyond the resources that we had at the time? Or maybe one that we had to sell to handle one of the other priorities that took precedent over our hobby activities?

Oftentimes a pursuit of a certain car, or a type of car that we once owned or we wished that we could own, becomes a life long obsession.

I have to admit that I often envy the guy that wants something really bad. At least they know what they want, and now all they have to do is to figure out how to acquire it.

Unfortunately I'm not that guy, or I haven't been that guy... yet.

Peter Egan once wrote that in his middle age he has come to realize that the loss of any physical thing could never break his heart again. The things that he has owned and valued, like his Jaguar E Type or Porsche 356, were things that he had wanted for a long time, and had worked hard to acquire. He would be sad to see them go, but if circumstances required it, he wouldn't hesitate to sell them.

There were just so many alternatives out there, that were just as interesting, as well as affordable and available. He could easily move on and be happy with the next thing.

My Wife and I were having a conversation about one of her quilting projects. It may not have been an actual conversation, it was probably more like what I do when I talk to her about cars. I think out loud while I explain something that I'm doing with them. 

She nods her head occassionaly, and says umhmm a few times until I finally stop talking. 

The crux of this conversation was that some quilters start with a pattern, then like to pick out the fabric and colors of the material used in the project. Others buy a kit, which consists of a pattern and a preselected amount of fabric necessary to complete the project. My Wife said that she prefers to work with a kit, she likes to put the quilt together, but doesn't feel the need to fuss over all the little details.

I told her that it's the same situation with car guys.

Some guys are very detail oriented, everything has to be done... just so. They are very picky. They can be restorers that like to handle every detail, or customizers or builders that want to design the total  look of their projects. A lot of these guys enjoy the build more than the driving. Oftentimes once the car is finished it just sits around until they sell it to start a new project.

Most of the guys that I know that have nice cars hardly ever drive them. The cars just sit around and are shined up and occasionally taken to local events. I just don't get that.

If I have a car, I want to drive it. I especially like to drive my "special cars" on road trips. 

I drove my '66 Riviera up to Oregon for a Rivera Owners Association convention.

I dove my Jaguar XJ6 and Lincoln Navigator to Oregon for our Summer vacations.

Last Summer I drove my '06 Mustang up to the Seattle Washington area for one of my Wife's activities. 

I just wrote about driving my '46 Plymouth on a little afternoon trip.

The ownership of the object provides a certain amount of satisfaction. I even enjoy working on it sometimes. But the real pleasure comes from driving it. 

Because of that fact, the actual vehicle takes on a secondary importance to the trip.

And because of that fact, I'm always looking for the next thing.

photo source: the web
Because you'll never find it if you don't look for it!

I'll spend countless hours scrolling through Craigslist to see if anything offered for sale jumps out and grabs my interest. 

I have been involved with cars and motorcycles for a very long time, well over fifty years. And during that time I've owned a lot of different machines. Because I bought cheap, old, used vehicles I did not own them for long, usually only two to three years. And I bought whatever I wanted. It didn't have to "make sense" or to be practical. I learned to wrench on my machines and that allowed me to own some "interesting" things.

Sometimes, you just have to bide your time.

At this point in my life I have little interest in buying a brand new vehicle. When circumstances warrant it, I will buy something practical and useful for actual transportation. I went through almost twenty years of minivan driving after all! But I always kept buying something that I found interesting as a hobby vehicle.

At this point in my life I don't ever see myself buying some type of "forever" vehicle. I just think about buying something that holds my interest for a while. So it really doesn't matter what it is that I buy. 

Are there cars that I have thought about owning over the years?

I've shared my curiosity about Corvettes. But so far it's only been limited to curiosity.

I discussed my interest in Harley Davidsons, and then went out and bought one.

But just like Peter Egan wrote, there are so many choices of vehicles available that I can, and do find interesting. I don't have a rigid bucket list of cars and motorcycles that I want to own in the final years of my driving lifetime. My circumstances and interests have changed over the years, and in my own humble way I can say that I've "been there, done that!" about a wide range of vehicles.

In reality, I should just be satisfied with what I've currently got, and in many ways I am, but where's the fun in that?

Maybe there is something that I coulda, shoulda, woulda gotten when I had the chance, years ago.

The clock hasn't stopped ticking just yet, so there may still be some time left.