OK, so this probably looks kind of strange, but I wanted to talk real quick about something I saw this evening.
I was driving out to pick up the wife at her work, which is located in your typical small Japanese town a bit outside of Tsukuba. We're talking super narrow streets barely enough for two cars to pass, no parking lots, old ladies walking down the street blocking traffic, stuff like that.
Anyways, I saw someone driving a car that looks just like the one in the picture above. A late '70s Lincoln Continental Mark V. One of the biggest, most over the top American luxury cars of the past 40 years. They are slow, huge, have only two doors, and aren't particularly fashionable like some of the other American "classics".
I'm not sure who was driving it, or what the story behind it is, but anyone who drives a a 30+ year car that does about 9 miles to the gallon and takes up a full city block gets props from me. Even better, is that it was in the middle of rural Japan on a freezing cold January night.
To think about the sacrifices that person has to make the drive that thing here (high gas prices, shaken inspections, narrow streets, and small parking lots, and of course the lack of parts), then two scenarios come to mind...
A) The person is incredibly rich and has a VERY strange taste in cars
or more likely
B) It's just a normal person who happens to love their car as much as humanly possible.
I just thought it was really cool to see...
Perhaps it is the same in Japan as here in the Netherlands: people show through their cars that if they can afford such a car (just like driving a Hummer in Amsterdam is insane!) they must be successful in life. ;)
What also makes a (small) difference here in Europe is that old cars get tax-exempts and LPG is dirt cheap so most bigger engined cars are converted to run on LPG. Is that the same case in Japan?
Posted by: banpei | January 16, 2009 at 02:09 AM
Damn. That guy must have been the envy of all this motoring neighbors.
Posted by: Johnny Rumble | January 16, 2009 at 05:20 PM
I think the guy driving it has a passion for cars as your title indicates. Those with such passion will drive any car whether it be a huge or small car, gas guzzler or not because of passion.
It just makes me smile when I see people with so much passion for the things they do. Just like us, our passion is with our cars.
Posted by: Marc | January 16, 2009 at 08:49 PM