By Malcolm Hogan Fri, Sep 5, 2014
The Florida-Times Union
In a few of my recent drives of luxury and sports cars, I came to the realization that car enthusiasts are somewhat of a rarity in today’s culture — well at least in the traditional sense.
A recent trip to Starbucks in Chevy’s Corvette Stingray brought out a group of onlookers asking what model Ferrari I was driving. After my surprised face and quick-answer “no,” they proceeded to ask me if my laptop was the latest MacBook Pro and why did I purchase it over the Microsoft Surface.
I was taken for a ride, transported to an unfamiliar territory — the Twilight Zone or something.
Once, while stopping to get gas in a thirsty and in all other ways over-the-top $176K Porsche Cayenne Turbo S, several guys all in fairly new Hyundai Genesis Coupes, obviously in a group headed to a local car show or event, glanced at my Porsche, but then proceeded to grab their cell phones and start texting. It seems they could really care less — no thumbs-up; no selfies with the Porsche; and no googling eyes.
Strange, right?
I have the fortunate job of getting a brand new vehicle each week for reviewing purposes, and you have probably read many of my test drive reviews of those vehicles in this Drive section and on AutomotiveAddicts.com. You may think my job is all rainbows and sunshine. However, there are those occasional times where I must perform painstaking research or meet a quickly-approaching deadline for a story.
Between those transitional periods of having fun showing off my new Corvette Stingray, to conjuring up a story about the new eight-speed automatic transmission the Stingray is going to get next year, I find myself wondering how many people are real car enthusiasts and if they really care about the “details.”
Related Forum Discussion: Are Car Enthusiasts a Dying Breed?