Rick Seitz: Why Are Car People Misunderstood?

I firmly believe that the automotive enthusiast is the most misunderstood creature on the planet. Think about it for a moment. Have you ever met someone, and after speaking to them for any length of time, you seem to be having a pleasant conversation, only until after they ask you what your hobbies are or what you do for a living, then they suddenly become disinterested in you?

Namely, I’m referring to the female sex and in the situation of igniting a conversation at a bar or a coffee shop. When you tell women you hardly know that your hobby and/or career is based around cars, they sometimes look at you like you have a social disorder.

Granted, there are females out there who are interested in cars just as much as any of the male gearheads I know, myself included. They race, they build, and they have the vocabulary down pat. But they are few and far in between, and they don’t stay single too long for obvious reasons. Thus, trying to explain the difference of being a hot rodder and being a guy who changes oil at the local Jiffy Lube for ten bucks an hour to most girls, is like trying to explain the difference between cotton and polyester to a toddler.

Some people just don’t get it. This isn’t limited to just women, either. There are guys who react oddly when they ask you who won the game that day, and you have no idea what game they’re referring to. Or when one of your non-car buddies that you haven’t seen in a while calls wanting to hang out, but you tell them you can’t make it because you’re out of town at some sort of automotive gathering. It usually doesn’t go over well.

This is because most people that look at a car can only see it for what it is. They see 3500-4000lbs of metal, glass, plastic, and rubber, and that’s all they see. People like us firmly believe that cars are living entities and are considered to be a form of self-expression, and sometimes maybe even a friend or a part of the family.

Further confusion ensues when some of us have more than one car that would be considered “special” or an “enthusiast’s car,” and casual onlookers see this as nothing more than someone demonstrating a form of being materialistic or egotistical.

It’s a shame, as friendships and even relationships can fail because of this. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve heard stories of women giving their husbands or boyfriends ultimatums of either selling the car or they were leaving them. It’s absolute insanity.

I think the only way to cure this problem is to get your friends and family involved. Try taking them to the events; such as local car shows, swap meets and to the race track, and it’s not like it’s expensive to partake in most of the local activities.

The weekly local car shows that are held in drive-in restaurants, department store parking lots and the like are almost always free to the public and even entrants to join in. Swap meets charge about $10 for adults and kids 12-and-under are usually free. The same goes for Test and Tune night at the local track, although admission to actually race whatever bucket you’ve decided to bring with you that night will usually run you around $20. Still, $20 to race all night in anything from an 8-second Nova, to a 17-second Venture van is nothing short of a cheap thrill. But don’t forget to bring a friend or two!

Lord knows I’ve tried to get the people around me involved. I grew up in a family of gearheads, so that was simple enough. But trying to turn friends into car guys can be a little bit harder than it sounds. Out of all three of my non-car guy friends who attempted to get involved, all three have failed.

One bought a riced-out Sunfire (of all things) during the height of the Fast and the Furious craze, and he quickly moved on after realizing how lame it was. Another friend bought two different IROC Camaros, but sold both of them due to financial  reasons before anything even materialized of either.

The third friend was the most successful of the three, having bought an SRT4 Neon brand new, applied a few basic bolt-ons to it, resulting in something like 278hp and over 300 lbs. of torque through the wheels. He never had the opportunity to run it at the track, but it was pretty quick for what it was. He sold it because his wife wanted him to buy something more “grown up” and she was sick of having “weirdos” approach them asking about the car. He has since replaced it with a mid-range Saab 9-3.

But not every story has to end like that. A few years ago, while I was an assembly line worker at the Lordstown, Ohio GM plant, I managed to get placed across from someone who would become a good friend of mine. Somehow we got on the subject of cars, (I think I had a car mag or two with me) and he relayed to me that he had an ’85 Monte Carlo SS at home that his dad gave him while he was in high school.

He went on to tell me how his dad bought it new, and how he used to take him to school in it. But at the time he hadn’t driven it in over three years because he was into going to car shows, and his dad had moved to Florida and none of his friends were into cars.

Happily, that’s all changed now, as he has since become a regular at the local shows, and has even dabbled in drag racing a bit. In fact, he’s the one that I mentioned was getting ready to do the LS swap a couple of months ago. All it took was friendly conversation with someone who appreciated cars, and I think that’s what the car hobby is all about; having fun and forming new friendships.