Cars, a "lifestyle choice"

Car people. Gear heads. Grease monkeys. Automotive aficionados.

The collector car hobby, in its many forms, and the people who are part of it have been called by many names and titles over the years. It’s been described as both a passion and a sickness all in the same breath, but how does one explain it to a “non-car person”?

It came to me listening to the radio when a commercial came on for the Barrett-Jackson auction. They described it as a “lifestyle event”.  It got me thinking about all the people in the hobby I’ve meet at car shows, cruise nights, the internet and the various events I’ve attended over the years, and the work and effort they put into their cars. Whether they have just one project or many, whether they purchased their cars fully restored or they own the shop doing the restorations, this is a lifestyle. They choose to do this.

To me it was something I did in my spare time, tinkering around with cars over the years, but cars have always been part of my life. No matter where I was on the planet, no matter what my job was, no matter what car I drove, I was always doing something to make that car look better or perform better. 

It’s a large part of who I am and I’m guessing it’s a large part of many of you reading this. I could not stop being interested in cars any more than I could stop breathing. I have many different interests, as many of you do, but owning a muscle car, rebuilding it, modifying it, looking at other possible projects and planning a fictitious build in my head is what I choose to do.

It’s my lifestyle.

If you restore, if you resto-mod, if you drag race, if you circle track race, if you do antique, if you do muscle car, if you do exotics, if you do steam engine, if you do low rider, if you do tuner, if you do rat rod, if you do…anything with a car, if you do it because you can’t not do it, then it’s a lifestyle choice.

I’ll see many of you at the upcoming “Lifestyle event”, The Chrysler Nationals in Carlisle, PA. where I'll revel in all that is my automotive world as part of my ongoing lifestyle.