[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

And that sort of thing bemuses me about leasing. Effectively, you are renting, not buying, so you pay the same sort of charges but don't actually own the asset when the lease expires.

I confess. I don't understand why anyone leases, (excluding companies/tax reasons therefor) but...horses, courses, and all that.

A late friend of mine recounted getting an Amex card decades back. He went out and bought a Mercedes with it. He already had the money saved, so he simply paid the charge in full when the statement arrived. He got a fawning letter from Amex telling him they were upgrading his account.

Yeah...I remember when that was the end-all, be-all. I recall the Gold card, the black card, the platinum card, the Optima, the...it never ends. I mean..snob appeal around a credit card. Mother of heaven.

(n.b.: full disclosure: at one point I was contracted to Amex, back in the "day," when they were REALLY rolling in it. When the daily float off of Traveler's Cheques was 8 Billion--yes, billion with a "b"--dollars. I mean. yowza.)

Depending on the car, it can be more than snob appeal. Really high priced cars tend to have special things you pay for, like speed. Consider the Bugatti Veyron, whose first model would cost you over a million dollars. But it had a 1,200 horsepower engine and could do 0-60 in an eyeblink.

A friend who was a hot car fan drooled over the Veyron, and was startled when I told him VW owned the marque and it was a VW product. He'd managed to miss that, and granted, it's not what you expect from VW. He owns a lovingly restored 1967 427 Corvette. When he got it to the point where he could drive it, he discovered he had to reacquire his hot car driving reflexes, because he popped a wheelie stomping on the accelerator.

The Veyron is indeed special. So are many others. And, yeah...speed. Lovely. And Rollers, of course--made by hand. Yes, there are some cars--few--that have specialty aspects that make the price tag go up. But the cars that most average folks--even those with bigger incomes--can afford? Nah.

(Along those lines, Ford had a race car called the Ford GT back in the 70's. To be legal under USAC rules, it had to technically be a "production" car, so British Ford Special Products division made 50 for sale to the public. A GT in full race tuning could do over 200mph. How much over was uncertain, because it might take off and fly at that speed, and Ford lost a couple of test drivers finding that out. So someone thought about drivers trying to open it up on unlimited speed highways, and the version sold to the public was detuned to give it a maximum speed of only 160mph...)

I remember the GT. Ah, the good old days, when you could make them as fast as you wanted, pretty much depending only on your budget. :-) I'm still a sentimental sucker for that paint job.

And if you do your homework and buy a good model in the first place.

Maintain them properly, and they will.

Yes--both go without saying. If you buy the modern-day equivalent of the Pinto or the Gremlin...well, I wouldn't expect those to last very long. I keep seeing those mooshed cars--the new small Fiats--zooming around up here in the desert, and I wonder how long those suckers will last. Of course, by and large, that car, and the MiniCooper, tend to appeal to young people who mayn't have the same love of NOT buying new cars as some of we old farts.

I have a magpie mind, read incessantly, remember what I read, and am interested in pretty much everything. My SO commissioned a mutual friend to create a calligraphic button for me with the legend "Ohhh! Shiny facts!" after watching me spend a couple of hours chasing down Google rat holes.

So I wind up with all manner of curious mental flotsam and jetsam, and most of it comes in handy at some point. I don't pretend to know everything, but I do tend to know more about things being discussed than those I'm talking to.
______
Dennis

I'll bet that you are in high demand for cocktail parties, particularly in your location...an environment always ripe with the Illumi-NOT-eh and that sort of social event. Not to mention, the Dread Trivia King of Kings County, I should think?

:-)

Hitch