playa or poser

Broke people.

I guess that would be the opposite of "playas?"

Do you race a jag? Pics please.

In reply to mguar:

In that case, can you just post pictures of all of them? I like your taste, sir.

mguar wrote: In reply to Giant Purple Snorklewacker: Which Jag would you like pictures of? the "D" type, the XK-E V12 roadster? The XJ-S V12? I also used to SCCA race an XK 150 roadster in DP but that was sold decades ago and I have very few picture of it and nothing on the computer.. Or my next project, a MGuar?

Sounds like someone needs to get posting pics of the whole stable and start a build thread for an MGuar

There is only one (to my knowledge ) person on here sporting serious Jag hardware. I love the old D & E vintage race cars but I really don't know much about them.

Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder - I think Mitsu dealers need proof that you're a female secretary (or is it admin assistant now?) before they'll sell you one.

Hate to say it, but the Corvette also has a very split client base. Some are hard core racers. Others need to whip out their AARP card as proof of ownership.

Lexus SUV - if you're hair isn't long and blond, you're not on the cell phone while in the mall parking lot and wearing lots of makeup, people will call the cops assuming you stole it and murdered the trophy wife.

I find issues with the whole "playa" and "poser" thing.

I own the cars I do because I want to own and I enjoy driving them. None of them have been on a track, and you really cannot drive them hard on the street without breaking some serious laws or taking the rist of hurting people.

in that case.. I guess I am a poser

As much as pousers are the bane of, well, everything.

if they did not exist, many of the coolest cars would never be made.

Most of the best driving BMW's exist purely for the posures market.

There's just not enough real players to make good money.

I got into cars in the 80's, so to me Jaguar was a bloated, crappy British car that looked kinda cool, but was unreliable and heavy. Great leather, great wood trim and chrome, but nothing you'd ever want to race. Then the XJ220 came out and was ugly and V-6 powered and that sealed it for me. I checked back in a few years later, and they were re-branding the Ford Contour as a Jag (X-Type) so I remained unimpressed.

It's only when you go back into history and see how amazing Jags were among their competition in the 50's and 60's that you get a deeper appreciation for them.

Today, I am still not a fan of the looks of the XKR, but they are definitely back on track in terms of power and handling, and their concept cars show that they might look good in the years to come as well. Who would have thought I would ever lust after a Cadillac (CTS-V). Perhaps Jag may make the list someday as well.

I drive a Honda S2000 on the street, but race a Mazda RX7 in SCCA EP. I also have a Ford F250. International Toterhome, Mercury Zephyr Z7 "Ranchero" and a Hyundai Sante Fe. I love the S2000, but don't get crazy on the street. IMO there are street cars and track cars with the dual purpose cars being autocrossed.

mad_machine wrote: I find issues with the whole "playa" and "poser" thing.

I did too but think I get what Mguar's trying to say. However, the Jags in my neighborhood are driven by blue haired ladies who pay someone to maintain them. They are throwing money at your marque of choice, that's a good thing.

Would I buy a car after it's been a racer as opposed to a cream puff? Tough call. Sure the race car is up on its maintenence and probably upgraded; but it's spanked and skuffed at the track.

Grandma's car is maintained by a professional and driven to church every other Sunday, but occasionally her nephew takes it for a stroll, fills it up with teenagers and beats the crap out of it.

Poseurs? Been to a PCA event? I am frowned upon because I have "one of those" but I use my car alot, I do the maintenence and I have a good time with it. That's what it's all about. You want to stereotype or throw rocks because they don't fit your particular niche, perhaps a VW forum is more you style.

...or I'm way off base and really don't understand what Mguar is trying to say.

Dan

Hey Frenchy, it's you! When you started talking about D types and MGTDs I thought it sounded familiar, so I clicked on your profile to see where you were.

I haven't seen any posts from you since I abandoned the Fine Homebuilding board, hope things are going well.

Stuart

I drive a 240sx, so I would have to say mostly driven by drift posers.

Playa or Poser???

I'll enjoy my vehicles how I see fit.

Not sure what you mean - just have an image of a d-bag with a baseball cap on sideways saying "yo ima playa"... I'm guessing what you're getting at is either the appreciation and knowledge of what a vehicle is capable of/lack thereof or versus experiencing what that vehicle is capable of.... How many racers are there - maybe 50,000 out of 150,000,000 drivers - so something like 3/100s of one percent of the driving population would be playas.

I drive a 2002 WRX, and since hey are cheap enough for me to buy, now they are cheap enough for the once Honda "ricer" crowd to buy them as well, so poorly down cheap mods are rampant, and people putting all their money into power with doing anything else to the car. As for me, it has plenty of power so I'm looking towards shifting/suspension modifications first.

Mustangs are a really mixed bag. The majority of them never see use in anger, but that's really because of the ungodly number they sold. There are a huge number of hard core racers running them in every type of competition imaginable, and I'd bet less than one quarter of the GTs remain truly stock. Still, if you compare straight numbers of posers to racers, the posers still win.

But I'd bet that's probably true for any large sales volume car. If you had a 50-50 split, you wouldn't have sold many cars total I'd bet. Ford GTs might approach that. Maybe.

The MINI Cooper.....well, I don't really even need to address that, now do I?

ultraclyde wrote: The MINI Cooper.....well, I don't really even need to address that, now do I?

Yes you do!

My take is most women buy them 'cause they're "cute" and most are regular Coopers. Guys buy them for the performance. My guess would be 80% female/20 male for Coopers & reverse that ratio for the S version.

Most any sporty street car is bought by "posers" simply because the proportion of drivers who compete is so miniscule. Even more miniscule for the exotics I bet.

I'm a 28 year old with a Corvette. I wonder if they make special AARP cards for people, such as myself, that are old before their time.

mguar wrote:

MG Bryan wrote: In reply to mguar: In that case, can you just post pictures of all of them? I like your taste, sir.

I can do some things well. Computers and I well let's say I'm not even in the poser class. My Grandmother was born in 1888. She never drove a car.. Sometime in the 1920's Grandpa gave her a driving lesson and when she pulled the car into the garage she said whoooa. Well the brakes didn't listen to her and ... I know there are some pictures of my cars on my computer but no matter what I yell at this thing they won't appear.. Darn if I can get them on sites like this..

If you do find the pictures and can attach them to an email, I'd be happy to post them for you.

mguar wrote:

Dashpot wrote:

ultraclyde wrote: The MINI Cooper.....well, I don't really even need to address that, now do I?

Yes you do! My take is most women buy them 'cause they're "cute" and most are regular Coopers. Guys buy them for the performance. My guess would be 80% female/20 male for Coopers & reverse that ratio for the S version. Most any sporty street car is bought by "posers" simply because the proportion of drivers who compete is so miniscule. Even more miniscule for the exotics I bet.

I'm not sure about the exotics.. You'd be surprised at the numbers of Ferrari drivers who show up at a Ferrari track day event.. OK maybe they aren't pushing the car to the cars limits but you'd be surprised at how fast some are driven.. Those of us who show up with less than Ferrari's can often pass a lot of Ferrari's I've never attended a PCA or BMW Track day event but I imagine the same thing exists.. By the way I suspect you're right about Mini Coopers.

Okay, I will address it then! You are actually right AND wrong anout the Coopers. Most any given year (that I've seen figures for), 60% of all Coopers sold are the S variant, with some years being higher, which I found surprising. The Just-a-Coopers are actually more rare.

But you're wrong about the male-female ratio being different for the S model. It's 80% women too.

Strangely, in this area the same is anecdotally true for GT Mustangs as well. Just from my observation, if you see a late model V8 Mustang, it's about 2 to 1 that it's female driven. Percentage wise, you are more likely to see a guy driving a V6. Now, if you just take the modified cars - those whith obvious work done - they're more like 80% male driven. Again, just in my local observations of S197 and later cars.

Back to the MINI for a moment. With the track and performannce rep the S has, I was very surprised to find that the vast majority of the MINI community never wrenches on their own car. Even the guys with aftermarket pulleys, suspension, blah blah don't really know a wrench from a hole in the ground. I ran in to this time and time again while looking for hard core, DIY wrench info on a couple of the BIG MINI sites. Thousands and thousands of active members and not ONE how to or look-what-I-did on changing a clutch? Really? Lots of throwout bearing failures, sure, and lots of people paying the dealer to fix it. Kind of sad.

I drive a Forester. Most of the people who drive my model of car are people looking for a way to haul around their two kayaks and golden retriever.

I, on the other hand, am looking for some new shocks and springs since I've blown mine out doing rallycross.

I have a 99 Civic Si. I'm a 39 year old white male. It was once the turf of Asians in their early 20's (when I bought it in '99) and it is now the the turf of Latinos in the 'hood.

There was once a time when the Honda "scene" was all about racing--be it drag, auto-x or HPDE (not racing, but whatever). Now it's about how low you can get it (the stance scene).

Basically, I've never "fit" this car, but I like it--even if I barely drive it these days.

So, suppose I buy a car and don't use it the way you think I should. That makes me a "poser"?

Sorry, I really haven't read the rest of the thread in detail. The tone of the first post sounded like somebody trying way too hard to be a "playa". (Good Lord I hate these "hoodie" expressions and slang...)

I have a good friend that loves his fast cars. He doesn't race them. He doesn't even really drive them around to be seen in them all that much. He just likes them for what they are and what they are capable of. What "slot" does he fit into? I'll be sure to let him know what you think...

rotard wrote: I'm a 28 year old with a Corvette. I wonder if they make special AARP cards for people, such as myself, that are old before their time.

I think it's a marketing failure on GM's part. Most people just don't know what they're getting for their money. I think part of that is they don't want to promote it very much because it brings their corporate CAFE number down.

Me? I DD a big ol' black SUV. It's older but it's paid for, that way I have disposable toy money. Don't really care about the poseurs, ballas and playas, they don't register on my radar.