Quote:
Originally Posted by M_Six
I was in the "joy of driving" category for a good part of my life. Especially when I lived in Germany in the mid-late 80's. Even more recently, when I worked 55 miles away from home, I had a Z4 that I drove hard. But once I got a job less than 3 miles from home, things changed. The roads near us are almost all straight N-S or E-W. Boring as hell and mostly oil and gravel. The Z4 just wasn't as much fun to drive and juggling 3 cars in a 2 car garage sucked. I traded in the Z4 and the X5 for an almost new C300, which was nice enough but not really sporty. After a few years I traded that in for my current GLC300 because I missed having an SUV. Now comfort and convenience is more important to me than performance.
My late brother used to say that everyone has a "happy speed." It's the speed at which you feel comfortable driving. It fits the situation as far as you're concerned. My happy speed used to be in the 80MPH range on highways, especially around here where traffic is light. The speed limit here is 70 on the highways and pretty much 55 everywhere else unless you're in town. These days 70-75 is my happy speed on the highway, so I'm usually in the right lane while cars are zipping by in the left.
My focus on cars now is more technology based. I want something that is versatile, efficient, comfortable, hi-tech, dependable, and at least somewhat decent looking. It needs to be able to get out of its own way, but outright performance is not high on the list.
|
I've followed sort of a similar transition but in reverse.... weirdly on my part.
In my younger days I loved the idea of luxury and comfort. My 2000 maxima had heated leather seats and a silky smooth V6. My IS had extremely comfortable heated and cooled seats, a very smooth shifting transmission.
Now as I'm getting older, mid-late 30s with 2 kids... funny thing is I find myself prioritizing fun to drive instead. I want my next car to be a manual transmission car, and I want it to be fast and handle well.
I think what changed for me was, the amount of disposable income I have. My #1 priority when I was a young kid with little income was not having hefty repair bills. So reliability was one of the big draws of the Lexus.
Now I'm much better off financially, so I'm into leasing cars and don't really worry about reliability, and am "catching up" on all the fun I didn't have.