Driving a Toy
There’s smarter ways to blow $40,000
I love cars. One of my earliest memories is playing with a cop car that somehow had doors that opened up to reveal missile launchers (or it might have been a cop shooting out) and a helicopter that deployed from the trunk. It was badass.
Fast forward to just a few years later and I’m a six-year-old playing with a gigantic toy car collection that span from small race cars to die-cast replicas of every Ferrari ever made (these were not meant to be toys). I was properly obsessed and that passion never left me.
So of course, my mom was not surprised when I bought a bright yellow Mustang V6 in 2016. It was a sporty car but a sensible choice as I bought it used and it was inherently just a faster sedan. She was slightly more surprised when a year later I decided to upgrade to what was, in her eyes, literally the same car but in white (and twice the cost).
While buying two cars in the span of a year is a dumpster fire of it’s own, I want to focus on some of the things I wish I would have known before buying my second car.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BGh42NJqQ09/?taken-by=adventuresinspacecamp
You just bought a car you don’t know how to drive
When I bought [white] Laika, I decided I didn’t want to compromise on anything this time. However, that quickly changed when the car I was looking for, a Shelby GT350, was not a car most dealerships regularly carry. After more compromising, I ended up buying a somewhat more reasonable bad decision; a 2017 Mustang GT with 435 horsepower (125 more than [yellow] Laika!). I wanted a manual but the only manual that was available had a ridiculous $15,000 markup… or so I thought. It turns out that the car I had just bought was missing the leather seats I thought I was getting but did come with the manual gearbox. Yay.
When asked if I could drive stick, I nervously smiled and shrieked “nope, let’s do this.”
Although you are forgiven for thinking I’m just an impulsive idiot (I am), this is a common story for people that decide to buy sports cars. For many, their first sports car is also their first time learning how to drive a car that requires your full attention. There is no worse sound than that of a car stalling out because you mistimed a clutch press or forgot to put the car in neutral at a red light.
I like to think that buying an American “muscle car” means that the car is tougher and tolerating of my lack of skill, but the truth is that I had to grind through my gearbox and god knows I tortured Laika for the first few months relearning how to drive. You get better, but it takes time to master properly driving a high-performance car with confidence and having enough seat time to know its individual quirks and how to compensate for them.
A modern Mustang is an easy car to learn and relatively forgiving. However, you still need to start slow and make small mistakes because if you don’t respect the learning process you will be paying heavily for each mistake. Damage to a transmission could range from a quick $1,000 clutch fix to a money shift that blows up the engine and transmission rendering your new, expensive toy utterly useless.
Sports cars are money pits, and every error that you make will literally cost you. Even if you drive like a boss, regular maintenance costs are hefty. Which brings me to point numero dos.
Fuck tires
How often do you change your tires? Every three to four years? Try every six to 12 months. But that’s cool, because tires now-a-days are relatively affordable and you can get a good set for around $400 at your local Walmart. Nope! Remember, you drive a Coke can that does 170mph on your way to Starbucks and it requires specialty tires that can handle that speed.
On average, some of these Ultra High Performance tires will cost around $230 each and if you go for quality the price only gets higher. Depending on where you live you will also need to replace your tires according to the season because a summer tire will become useless under 40 degree temperature. If you drive responsibly (you won’t) you may be able to get those tires to last longer. I have driven my tires to failure at 26k miles.
Now, hear me out: this is just my experience but I have actually gotten very lucky — my tires have lasted very long for the type of driving I do, my car doesn’t require me to fill up on premium gas (unless I want to get full horsepower), and for the most part I haven’t been in a hot speed pursuit. Well, actually…
Get a lawyer
The first time I was ever stopped for speeding I was doing 10 miles over the speed limit. As a matter of fact, my worst ticket before Laika was 20mph over the speed limit and I got chewed out by the state trooper for hours. Last year I was pulled over doing well over the speed limit. Well over. Needless to say, it took the cops a couple minutes to catch up to me and by the time they did they felt it necessary to block my car in to prevent me from fleeing and point some guns at me (for extra safety). Luckily, I drive what my friends in law enforcement call a “clean sports car”. It has enough edge to look the part but inconspicuous enough to not get me shot when I do something incredibly stupid in it.
Instead of arresting me, I got a ticket for going waaaaaaaay over the speed limit, a mandatory court date, and an invite to go race the almost-arresting officer at a local drag strip the next weekend.
When you drive a sports car, having a lead foot no longer means getting pulled over for driving 10mph over the speed limit — it means doing well over twice the speed limit in the city and interstates might as well become a Nascar track if you aren’t careful. You’re going to need a good lawyer, because speeding in a sports car often means risking a little bit of jail time.
I’ve always loved cars and after a couple years of owning an expensive toy, I don’t believe that will change. When that V8 engine growls to life and rumbles the entire car as it warms up all my problems momentarily melt away and I become a kid again. Happy because I’m doing exactly what I’ve always wanted to do; drive one of my toys.