Essay Sample on Car Enthusiast
It’s a cold and windy day, the wind crashes up against the door of the barn which i’m secluded in. Isolated from the outside world, working on the car that will soon be mine, a beautiful ivory green metallic 1964 “and a half “ Mustang. I work day and night getting it ready for the day I turn 16, because there’s nothing more exiting than bringing what you built out onto the streets. When I turned 7 my uncle introduced me to classic cars, teaching me their history and how to work on them. It was that day I became obsessed with cars and how they worked, introducing me to a whole new subculture of car enthusiasts. As a kid I was always curious, trying to figure out how things worked. As I grew up I became very involved and well known in the car scene going to all the car shows and meets. After I turned 16 the game completely changed, as a car enthusiast I was free to go to all the scrapyards, group drives, Car shows, legal and illegal Races I could desire.
When it comes to car enthusiast there are many different types, from the ones who just like cars to those who love cars and will go the extra mile to modify their vehicles, from looks to performance. Within the car community there are several groups dedicated to a specific brand or specific model car. For me it was the “Vintage Mustang” Facebook forum, it was there I obtained most of my knowledge about classics and how to work on them, including my own.
Other larger group classifications amongst the community include JDM (Japanese domestic vehicle) cars, American Muscle, Euro Imports, supercars and even hyper-cars. One of my good friends Alex, has a Mitsubishi EVO which is a JDM car. Alex and I mess with each other about our cars, exchanging remarks like “where’s your shit box”. Despite having all theses different groups of cars and people, we all fall under the car enthusiast subculture. This is because it’s not about what car you drive or how fast it is, its our passion for cars that brings us together.
There are a lot of events that happen in the car community, the fist event I went to after turning 16 was a car meet, where I met my good friend Alex who introduced me to the car scene. Car meets differ from car shows because they are not as organized, and are like pop up events that tend to get shut down. This is because the cops don’t like it when people “Burn Rubber” but that doesn’t mean these car meets aren’t a blast, locals from around the area coming together to show off their latest builds and buys. However When it comes to car shows, they tend to go by a set of rules along with being way more organized and planed out bringing in a wider range of people. This allows for some of the coolest cars which you may never knew existed; some of theses vehicles can range in price from one hundred thousand dollars to Hyper Cars worth well over 10 million. Being a car enthusiast maybe fun but its also very expensive depending on what kind of cars you like, and if or how you modify them. Personally for me working on a classic was not as expensive as some of these newer cars, that have all these different electronic modules. However that doesn’t mean it was cheap, as I did numerous modifications including Engine swaps, Brake upgrades, axel replacements, along with some interior upgrade all adding up to a whole lotta money that I don’t want to talk about. While working on cars as a hobby maybe expensive my brother Clay told me “Don’t let money sway your interest, theres more than one way to get shit done”. It was after he said that, he explained to me that if I truly love a hobby then I can’t let the cost turn me away from it, and there are alternatives like scrapyards.
Before he said that I only bought remanufactured parts online and it was pretty expensive, but I never really thought about scrap yards as I didn’t think their where many classic mustangs ditched in scrapyards. After doing some research I realized I was very wrong, I was able to find some scattered among the scrap yards, however I was never really able to find the parts needed as they had all been scavenged for parts. After that I started looking for original parts online which typically are more expensive due to the fact that they are OEM, but to my surprise some of them where cheeper because they needed a little work. This discovery taught me more than just how to get cheeper parts, it gave me the idea to sell my own parts allowing me to afford the parts needed for my car allowing me to get the 65’ Mustang running again.
At the end of the day hobbies are expensive, and cars are no exception, but if you love a hobby enough you will find ways to support it. However there is more to the car enthusiast subculture than just worrying about the cost of parts. Its about people from all different backgrounds and taste in cars getting together to express their passion for cars through their builds and knowledge of cars. So when it comes to me and my subculture, Im a car enthusiast and nothing can change that.
