Been wondering this for a while now, thankfully my daughter is getting into her cars nowadays but my son is a lost cause. I’ve tried, he loves the F1 & can appreciate a great car or bike but that’s where it ends, he & most of his mates have no interest in ownership in the way I craved bikes & cars as soon as I could l get them. So... yesterday we met our daughter’s “new” fella. To be honest after I found out that his dad has a 1970 V8 Cleveland 351 GT40 track replica, which he keeps in a lock up for 8 months of the year while he’s out in Dubai, I stopped listening to other stuff! The lad knew nothing about it, isn’t even sure what other cars his dad has, although he knows one of them is a Range Rover & drives a 207 himself (albeit with a private plate!). Why aren’t they excited by this stuff? How can they not be? I really don’t get it. Plenty of time to be old
Bit like a friend of mine who knows a bloke with a few flashy red colour bikes and a couple of red sporty looking cars. He has no interest in them and I'm itching to find out what they are and have a look.
I think the under current of interest is there. But when you’re young, you’re usually skint so can’t get too excited about cars. I loved 911 turbos. But wasn’t until I was 50 odd that I could afford one. Had to make do with fast bikes….
If kids are skint nowadays it's because they blew all their money on a new phone only 6 months after they bought the last one
I was always skint as a kid. Worked after school and at weekends too. And there were no phones to spunk your dosh on….
Yeah but it’s not just about being skint, I was skint in my teens and early 20s but it didn’t stop me spending whatever money I did have on bikes and cars. Some of them frankly ridiculous (there is no possible reason to own an X1/9 other than it’s kind of cool when you’re 20 years old). I just don’t see the desire there anymore which is a real shame imo.
Any car worth having is ruinously expensive to insure if you’re young and getting a big bike licence is a massive and costly arse-ache. Plus, these days you can’t drive/ride without the nagging fear of getting zapped by an entrapment camera for some minor infraction and then when you stop, you can’t leave your car/bike anywhere without some parking pirate in a polyester jacket slapping a ticket on your windscreen or, more likely, ANPR’ing your plate. Having said that, I do see a lot of young guys in decent German cars, usually trying to barge in at the front of merging traffic queues or in my mirror tailgating me through average speed check zones. Those cars do seem to attract a certain “type”. They’re probably bought on PCP type deals and they can afford to service the monthly payment and insurance because they’re still living with their mum and dad.
Some of us are just born petrol heads , and the unlucky ones are not ..... In my teens I had older mates who had BSA A10 , GoldStar etc , and all I ever wanted was something similar ..... no interest in cars whatsoever . Wasn't until my mid twenties that I met a girl with a Renault 5 ( and she hated it ) but loved my bike . Her dream car was the Lotus Elan , with a TVR as a possible alternative , and she really was a very capable driver ( a little heavy on the pedals maybe , but she had steel cojones ). She went all sensible and settled for a Golf GTI , but driving that opened my eyes to cars that could be exciting , but didn't have to cost silly money
My boy loves cars he has watched all the Top Gears since is younger years. I love cars his dad likes cars we had nice ones when we were married. He likes ducatis too He is saving up for an M sport BMW Runs around in a Honda He likes my Cooper s I have whizzed them around in my cars through the years especially the Cooper s My girl loved by SS when she was younger Don’t think she is interested anymore Wanted a corsa as her first car but didn’t want to part with her money Got herself a 1.4 micra hated it wouldn’t drive it wasn’t cool enough moaned like hell but tolerates it now Both kids have bought their cars. They appreciate why. Looking forward to their future purchases
I love cars, bikes and all things fast. but nobody wants me anywhere near their daughters. Can’t win can ya
Funny you mention the humble Micra ..... I absolutely love them , and I recommend them to friends , who then ignore me , or tell me it's a pensioner's car . One couple in particular ( both with recent test passes and no mechanical knowledge ) , have destroyed 6 cheap cars since then , and three of them were broken cambelts , which the Micra does not have ! Mine is a 16-valve one litre Micra which I have maintained for many years , as a family car , at really low cost , and I love driving it . That engine has a tasty sweet spot in the upper mid-range revs , and with a bit of short-shifting , it can easily blow off most of the local wide-o wannabees . And the cherry on the cake is that it has a light and very stiff body .... ... picking up a back end slide ? ..... it's a doddle , you can do it while fiddling with the pitiful sound system ... Four-wheel drifting on roundabouts ? ..... easy-peasy , so long as there is no other traffic around ..... ( and no Dibble , of course ) . Can't do much about the " styling " though ..... ..... Oh Well ...... they can't all be winners .
Back in 1972, mid engine, revvy Italian motor, penned by a Ferrari designer & styled by Bertone, with great handling. The only thing wrong with an X1/9 was most people couldn't/ didn't drive them hard enough.
My girls 1.4 micra is very nippy I quite enjoy driving it. will check out wheel drifting She was upset recently when my neighbours nephew hit her bumper bearing in mind she didn’t like the micra at one time and she is called Mila And she is red
They’re a great car, cheap as chips bought my daughter a Micra during in lockdown as there were no driving lessons going. So for £700 to buy and £330 to insure it’s been bang on, it’s had it’s faults which is a bonus for me. It has an in built speed limiter via a fault on the Canbus, switch the lights on and it won’t drive above 60. Parts are readily available looks chite but then no ones ever gonna be stealing it. Other than looks what’s not to like.
@Ducbird How did my thread that started out about a GT40 become a conversation piece about a Nissan Micra?
