I’ve been reading car magazines and recently a few car blogs, and find that I generally cannot stand them much.
The reason is that being excited about cars these days means being really rich (according to these publications). Blogs like The Truth About Cars and Winding Road and most of the print magazines (perhaps, especially, Sports Car Market, where the “our cars” feature is populated with lurid tales of driving a $1,000,000 car down a dirt road, like that makes it “just a car” and it makes the owner “just like us”) seem to make some very basic assumptions: That you can spend $100,000 on a car without thinking (doesn’t everyone have that kind of money?), and that the pinnacle of automotive bliss is driving a specialist-tuned version of an already expensive car–yours for twice the already incredible asking price.
I’m not so much begrudging the rich their expensive machinery, it’s the ho-hum mention of high five and six-figure prices that boggles my mind. “Available for a modest $120,000” one review read recently. Since when is that a modest price for any car? Is their readership so exclusive? Or do they just like to point out how inadequate most of their readers are?
I must be really cranky today.
You’re really cranky.
It has *always* been this way. Car pubs are basically porn after all, so the price tag is flaunted as much as the silicone. ;)
–chuck
Besides… just LOOK at the list over there ->
Add up the numbers.
You could have bought a $120,000 car with all that! :P
Maybe two!
–chuck
Actually, there isn’t that much money in that column, considering they’re mostly wrecks, or have been near it. I should do a post with some math in it and see where it gets me.
Yes, you are indeed “cranky”. It’s a common complaint with old and sick people. Your observations on car mags are right on the mark. The high (go to hell)subscription price of Sports Car Market reflects it’s desired customer base. Being a low-rent player in the collector car arena is still fun, but far from what it used to be.