New Audis are faddy (Was: allroad hitting ...)

[Fisher, Scott]

Ti Kan writes:

> You have a mental complex :-)...  As long as *you* know 
> why you love/drive a certain marque/model of car, it 
> really doesn't matter why others do.

What he said.  The other automotive love of my life is Alfa Romeo, of which
I also own two.  One is what I (and many) consider the most beautiful
volume-produced car ever made, the Sixties-era 105 Giulia coupe (more widely
known as the GTV, though mine was originally a different equipment level --
same body shell, different name, and not coincidentally the work of the same
stylist who penned the 4000 and CGT, Giorgetto Giugiaro).  The other is the
convertible Spider, a car which, when new, was purchased primarily by
hot-looking women looking for an equally hot-looking car.  It yearns not me,
as Henry V says, that I drive a chick car.  Maybe that's because am about as
likely to be mistaken for hot-looking as I am to be mistaken for a woman, so
I can feel comfortable driving the car because I like driving the car; I
actually know women who have no interest in driving certain cars because
they don't want to think of themselves as driving "girls' cars."  Okay,
whatever.  

In fact, one advantage to ownership by fad-followers has been -- and the
A4/A6 craze appears to be following suit (though in a more gender-neutral
way) -- that the Alfa Spider was expensive enough that it appealed only to
hot-looking women with a fair bit of money, who could therefore afford to
keep the cars up properly (unlike the "cheap and cheerful" M.G. sports cars,
many of which came to ruin by being cheap enough that people could purchase
them but not maintain them, but that's another story).  That's not to say
that many Spiders haven't been run into the ground by careless or
impecunious owners, but mine at least (and though I bought it through an
intermediary, the previous longtime owner was an attractive blonde, I
understand) was maintained scrupulously.  Result: my almost 27-year-old
Italian sports car is the most reliable car I've owned in years, looks
great, and is almost as much fun to drive as my wife's big comfy white
four-door sedan-with-automatic soccer-mom-mobile.  But that's another story
too. :-)

Let's hope that the people who are shelling out $30k-$50k for new Audis so
they can have the hip new ride will also have enuogh money to keep them
maintained well.  That way the rest of us will be able to pick up some
really good bargains in a few years when the cars come off lease.  I'd
rather buy a 4-year-old S4, for example, from someone clueless about the
marque history but who drove it moderately and maintained it and never
abused it, even if they didn't "get it" about what the car can do.  

The one and pretty much only time it *does* matter why others drive the same
kind of car as you, of course, is when you go to marque club meets.  Some of
my best times and best friendships have centered around marque clubs, from
Austin-Healey to Alfa Romeo to Audi.  This is one reason I put on club
tours, because they tend to select people who love/drive certain marques for
the same reasons I do -- which is to blaze around twisty mountain roads
pretending to be Tazio Nuvolari, of course.  Oh, and in the late 1930s when
the once-unbeatable Alfa Romeo Grand Prix team was lagging behind the
Germans in power output, Nuvolari drove for Auto Union.  So fantasy-wise I'm
covered, whatever car I take -- chick car or soccer-mom-mobile.

Best,

--Scott Fisher
  1967 Giulia GT 1300 Junior M     1983 Coupe GT
  1974 Spider Veloce          1993 100CS quattro