{"id":252,"date":"2008-04-15T23:36:09","date_gmt":"2008-04-16T06:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregbaker.ca\/blog\/?p=252"},"modified":"2008-04-17T07:23:45","modified_gmt":"2008-04-17T14:23:45","slug":"vroooom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gregbaker.ca\/blog\/2008\/04\/15\/vroooom\/","title":{"rendered":"Vroooom!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have been watching a lot of Top Gear<\/a> recently. Top Gear is a British car show: I have been describing it as three middle-aged idiots playing with cars. Their motto is “ambitious, but rubbish”, which pretty fairly describes the challenges they are given.<\/p>\n

My favourite challenge, by a wide margin, is when the three of them try to prove that British Leyland made decent cars<\/a>. That video is about a half hour long, but well worth watching. If don’t howl with laughter during the rough-road test, you just aren’t trying. I love it when one of them almost falls down laughing at another. It happens a lot.<\/p>\n

They also spend a lot of time driving outrageously expensive supercars that I could go a lifetime without seeing, let alone driving. Basically, car porn. All of this has made me remember that I actually like driving: I just haven’t ever owned a fun car to drive. Clearly, I need a sports car. Stay with me here…<\/p>\n

Now, a nice Ferrari<\/a> or Lamborghini<\/a> runs somewhere upwards of $200k, but a Porsche 911<\/a> or Lotus Elise<\/a> is more in the $100k range. A Porsche Cayman<\/a> is a damn nice car too and lists new<\/em> for only about $60k.<\/p>\n

That’s certainly downright affordable, but I’m not proposing that I buy a brand new Porsche. As with all cars, these things depreciate a lot in the first few years of ownership (which is approximately the time interval between becoming a doctor\/lawyer and having a child, forcing you to sell your sports car and get an atrocious SUV). A used 911 that’s in solidly good condition<\/a> can be had about $50k.<\/p>\n

After the first few years, depreciation on such a car should be relative to how much it is driven, not its age: if it’s driven occasionally, well-maintained, and kept in a garage, it should resell for a good price. Fuel economy in one of these cars isn’t actually bad either: they’re so light that the big engine doesn’t have to work terribly hard.<\/p>\n

That brings me to the real plan: get a gently-used cheap car (a Yaris, Civic, etc.) and use that for everyday driving. Get a used 911 for occasional fun-driving. Come on… how can you not want that<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Imagine the joy of it: pack an overnight bag, throw it in the 911, and go to the Okanagan (the hard way, through Manning Park<\/a>) for the weekend. Marvel at the tool beside you that paid only $10k less than you for his ugly, boring SUV.<\/p>\n

Of course, we’d have to have a garage to put it in. So, buy a house first. Also, our current car has been making a different noise for the last few weeks. That probably has to be replaced first too. Kat should probably have a job to make it all affordable. Kids are out too, but that was the plan anyway. So, some time in the next decade, this plan may be implementable.<\/p>\n

What was most surprising was that Oli and Tina had been watching Top Gear as well, and Oli had the exact same thoughts<\/em> at the exact same time. He wants the Elise<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Strangely, when I mentioned this plan to Kat, she didn’t really seem to think it was a bad idea. I think it’s a trap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been watching a lot of Top Gear recently. Top Gear is a British car show: I have been describing it as three middle-aged idiots playing with cars. Their motto is “ambitious, but rubbish”, which pretty fairly describes the challenges they are given. My favourite challenge, by a wide margin, is when the three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-links"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gregbaker.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gregbaker.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gregbaker.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gregbaker.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gregbaker.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/gregbaker.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gregbaker.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gregbaker.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gregbaker.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}