Cars We Drive!

[idfnl]



Nope, it's just the least creative city in the US.

It's embarrassing, actually.

 

[GreenFrog]



Nope, it's just the least creative city in the US.

One does not need to be creative in order to recognize the Ultimate Driving Machine that is the M3.

 

[Rumpelstiltskin]

Nope, it's just the least creative city in the US.

To be honest most of those cars have Maryland or Virginia tags

 

[Rumpelstiltskin]

So i was on that incredible time wasting website called facebook and ran across this beautiful car. Notes from the owner


Quote:

 

[GreenFrog]

Amazing what a good detail will do to make a car look 10x better.

Anyway, just picked up my car and the mechanics molested my alcantara steering wheel with their dirty mechanic hands . It feels all dirty and sticky as **** now. Goddammit!

 

[gomestar]



I dunno.. I would think that the income distribution of Tokyo would resemble that of NYC and you don't see many exotic cars in NYC. Obviously, it's a huge PITA to have a car in NYC, which explains probably 90% of the reason why you don't see so many, but if having a car in NYC wasn't such a *****, I bet you still wouldn't see as many cars of the caliber that you see in Tokyo.

not as giant of a car culture here. I suppose there could be, but the PITA parts would kill anything. And the pot holes could kill a car's suspension.

The real money people don't drive Ferraris. They drive S550's (yes, just kidding, they don't drive S550's. They aren't the ones driving)

 

[Rumpelstiltskin]

My former mechanic (RIP Peter) loved the E28s and had 2 of them as well as a 2002. I don't think he would care too much for the current turbocharged cars. I sure don't.

 

[impolyt_one]

I learned to drive in a black 528e just like that. I am not feeling that one though, the Style 5's look better on a 6 series, whereas I find 17"s on an E28 a little gauche. I love the E12 5 series, and it seems a little underrated.

 

[GreenFrog]



not as giant of a car culture here. I suppose there could be, but the PITA parts would kill anything. And the pot holes could kill a car's suspension.

The real money people don't drive Ferraris. They drive S550's (yes, just kidding, they don't drive S550's. They aren't the ones driving)

I thought the reaaalll money people were driven around in those merc toasters-on-wheels.

edit: pic

 

[gomestar]

too nouveau riche.

 

[Rumpelstiltskin]

I learned to drive in a black 528e just like that. I am not feeling that one though, the Style 5's look better on a 6 series, whereas I find 17"s on an E28 a little gauche. I love the E12 5 series, and it seems a little underrated.

I always found the lines of those a little too sharp...just doesn't do it for me. I'd make a E28 like a 535i my everyday driver (with an upgraded stereo that is)

 

[impolyt_one]



not as giant of a car culture here. I suppose there could be, but the PITA parts would kill anything. And the pot holes could kill a car's suspension.

The real money people don't drive Ferraris. They drive S550's (yes, just kidding, they don't drive S550's. They aren't the ones driving)

The massive personal car culture in Japan came about in the 70's and 80's - the first phase was when the post-war generation began landing salaried corporate type jobs and were living a little less austere than the older people, and so they sold the small sport compacts and hatchbacks (Toyota Celica, Fairlady Z, Isuzu 122, etc, etc, etc, the classics) to those types domestically. Custom car culture even started at this point, lots of mods even back then. They were cheap in America but probably dirt cheap in Japan at the time. In the 80's when money started appearing out of nowhere and more cars were imported (they probably had massive tariffs to protect domestic industry back then, and still do, but not as much) people started buying foreign makes for status, and so many have been doing so for a solid 30 years or more. They have had all the special cars like AMG Hammers and RUF CTR's since those days.
There are mainly like four types of cars you see on the road in Tokyo, and it's completely easy to see which is which, as the Japanese : a) utility vehicles as work cars (usually white stripped box cars rolling on steelies) b) black executive cars (LS460/600, Century, Crown Athlete/Majesta, Nissan Cima, MB S-class, 7 series, A8, etc) c) legitimate family cars (anything from a Nissan Cube up to an AMG E63 wagon) which are often silver or some unoffensive color in between white (company car) and black (company car) and d) pleasure/sports cars that basically have no utility, so like, Porsches and Ferraris. There are the crazy rich outliers in Phantoms and Mulsannes, but the vast majority of cars fit the profile.
Tokyo has amazing infrastructure and the roads are all glass-smooth, and parking is actually not so hard to find. It's just expensive. The streets aren't that wide most of the time, but Japan is pretty conducive to having a nice car culture compared to other world cities.

Korea is just the same but 20 years late, except they didn't have a strong sport compact culture for the young guys who started getting better educations and jobs in the '90's, and got out of that debt crisis in '97. They had the Hyundai Tiburon and then Kia had bought the Lotus Elan 100 tooling and sold a Kia Elan, but it was a little expensive for that range. When I first came to Seoul 13 years ago, hardly anyone had an imported car, and if they did, it was a 728iL or an S320L, bought by the company, and then random rich kids with 328i's and small entry-level luxury cars. Nowadays everybody in Seoul is getting a German car, widespread bank and automaker financial loans are helping that. Back in the E46 era Koreans dreamed of 'BMW emmuh suhrees' but now they're all about Carrera S's.

 

[impolyt_one]



I always found the lines of those a little too sharp...just doesn't do it for me.  I'd make a E28 like a 535i my everyday driver (with an upgraded stereo that is)

That picture makes the E34 look so perfect. And the F10 like a Camry.

 

[GreenFrog]

lulz @ the striking difference between the e39 and e60

 

[stevent]

Debating whether to get an e31 or an Honda nsx next. Had an e31 that I almost fully restored until it got totaled