Quote:
Originally Posted by GabesSlowM4
Funny how some of you say, "you've made it or you're in the big leagues when you move up into a Porsche" This is how I felt when I moved up from My s550 Mustang GT to the BMW M4! I guess it's true what they always say! Someone is always gonna be more handsome, better shape, and have more money! Although i'll argue on the handsome part  |
That's how I felt when I bought my 1994 Honda Civic 30 years ago. I finally had a car with no rust, no dents, less than 100k miles, no stains on the seats from some previous owner, and it would actually start every morning. The fact that a bank would loan me $10k for it blew my mind. I've felt like I finally "made it" several times since then, and it still blows my mind sometimes when I look at my M3 in my garage. Actually owning a garage is a big thing, too.
Even with just an M3 (or M4) in the garage, we've all managed an automotive dream that most folk in the world won't ever be able to achieve. And a Cayman or 911 is the wrong car for a lot of folks' use case, even if they can get ahold of one without selling one of their children (note, my kids are cats...I wouldn't get much). In my group of friends, none of them can afford a new M car. A couple of them make about what I do, but they have kids that they pay for, and in one case a spouse that can't work. We just aren't rich folk, despite also not being poor folk.
I still think about it, though. I've driven enough Porsches that I know what I'd get out of buying one, and I know what I'd lose. It's funny that my Porsche dreams were more reachable when I had my M2 and still owed money on it compared to now when I own my M3 outright. Some of that is inflation, but most of it is what Porsche and the overall car market has done to late model used 911s and 718s. I could trade the M3 in on a $130k low-end 911 and make the payments on the remainder of the price, but the lack of options would push the "what I'd lose" part of the equation way past the acceptable level.