Automotive imposter syndrome

I'm age 70 and have never owned an automatic transmission car!  My first car at age 16 was a 1930 Model A Ford.  Had a three speed crash box which meant every shift was double clutched.  While I was learning about doing a rolling restoration, it was my daily driver to high school.  I got to be lightning fast at those double clutched shifts!  When there are no syncros to slow down the motion of a shifter, they can be moved darn fast.  Even discovered how to shift without using the clutch! 

That whole concept of what does shifting feel like in a particular car is important to me too.  Right now I own a '74 TR6, an '08 BMW 135i and a '19 VW Golf Alltrack.  All three have lightweight flywheels and the VW and BMW have "short shifter" kits installed with rubber bushings replaced with stiffer nylon or poly.  I love driving all three.

For 23 years I did own an '88 VW Vanagon.  Had a VW GTi engine transplant along with a 5 speed manual from a German Vanagon Ambulance.  My daughter learned to drive on the Vanagon.  Years after they were married, my son-in-law told me "When Emily took me for a ride in the Vanagon and I saw her doing perfect rev matched downshifts, I knew I had to marry her!"  :-) 

Pivoting away from the manual transmission side of things, I think 'impostor syndrome' is largely a negative feeling that comes with our having aspirations. How we use that feeling is what holds us back from, or drives us towards, that aspiration... Or more often than not for me, it alternates between holding back and driving towards.

I'm a race impostor:

Our LDR endurance racing team is a disorganized hodgepodge of GRM'ers that came together to share in poorly thought out aspirations of going racing. It took 3 seasons and 2 cars before we even got on track for the first time. We've now run in a mere 3 race days over 2 race weekends. Our car is one of the slowest (and cheapest) on the track, and generally by a pretty large margin. Other racers are rolling in with massive enclosed trailers, sometimes with multiple cars, real time telemetry to the paddock, and gobs of spares and tools, while we're about as low-buck as it comes. I think I'm averaging like 1 racing pass per race, probably none of which were for position. I think others on the team have probably yet to make their first pass. Passes for position have probably all involved pitted cars so far. In a LOT of ways, we're impostors of all the 'real' racers there... But the secret is that the 'real' racers there are all still impostors of the racing aspirations that keep them going too. We aspired to race, and race we have. Every race day has been better than the previous. Now our aspiration is to run more reliably, faster, and more competitively.

I'm a build impostor:

It's approaching 20 years since I made my first failed attempt at building some type of ridiculous home-brewed car that showcases my wildest ideas, and have just recently disposed of my second attempt after 10+ years of languishing. Neither even got very far along physically, despite all of the other time spent researching, planning, analyzing, and designing. I have gained a lot of knowledge about how to do it, but have yet to actually put that knowledge to good use still. However, even the best builders here are impostors too, always reaching to round out their skill set a little more and use it to take their next build to the next level. I'm already planning my 3rd, 4th, and 5th aspirational builds, with number 3 planned to be much a much more manageable smaller scale demonstrator (cyclekart) for a few of the things I want to take full scale (if they work) later.

There are many more, especially going beyond automotive and into adulting, parenting, and husbanding, but that's all I have time for right now...

This concept has been rolling around in my head for a little while.

A few years back, I worked with a guy who didn't have was the faintest idea what to do with carburetors, or the importance of ignition advance.  This was astonishing to me.  How can you not have at least a passing familiarity with carburetors?  How can you think that an air-cooled 911 will run "good enough" with the advance mechanism locked up solid at 16° BTDC?  This guy was in his mid-50s and owned a repair shop!

Looking back, I think it was just a matter of exposure.  He'd only ever own one carbureted vehicle and had never had to touch it.  His professional experience was biased heavily toward simple parts R&R, and his specialty was brake and chassis work, which he was very good at.  He'd install go-faster parts, and did some classic repair and restoration, but it was mostly a case of buying rebuild kits and assembling per the manual.  He wasn't so much a "car guy" as a very competitive racer who made his living with cars.

It was a weird scene.  I was an imposter to him because I didn't own Nomex and wasn't focused on winning.  He was an imposter to me because he couldn't tell an idle jet from a Lear jet.  We just had very different experiences.

The current prevalence of imposter syndrome seems like an inevitable result of the rise of social media.  We now have the ability to compare skills and "status" with the rest of the world in real time.

In reply to Driven5 :

I have had a similar experience with imposter syndrome when it came to track days/weekends.

Rolling into a track behind a double stacker trailer and in front of a brand new F350 towing a color matched enclosed trailer in my little 15 year old BMW certainly made me ask myself what the hell was I doing here.  

I feel like an impostor whenever I look at the beautiful builds other people do. I research and I plan and try really hard and man does my work look BAD. As long as that MF runs next year I don't care how janky it looks.