My wife helped me paint the Locost frame with POR15 shortly after we started dating. She put up with drives into the mountains in my Miata with no sound deadening, heater or roof. We met because she saw my Cadillac and said "I have GOT to meet the guy who owns that".
Now she has a bigger car problem than I do (the E39 M5 was her idea, and she wouldn't settle for a 540i because it's too slow), and she complains I'm not spending enough time in the garage working on her MG.
Keith wrote: Now she has a bigger car problem than I do (the E39 M5 was her idea, and she wouldn't settle for a 540i because it's too slow), and she complains I'm not spending enough time in the garage working on her MG.
Nag, nag, nag........ What some people endure in the name of love.
I've got one "on the edge". She enjoys the physical act of driving, she enjoys riding around in the black Corrado (and said the one autocross ride she's had in it was "better than sex"), and she enjoys the fact that I can keep her old tub of BMW E36 Olds Bravada maintained & running.
She wasn't happy that I brought the Alfa home. At first, I thought it was just because the thing was so rough..but she later told me it was because she thought I could have spent that money on getting the other cars "perfect".
I tried to explain that we very seldom ever get them "perfect", but I don't know if I was successful. And as always..I have no idea if she's telling the truth about how she really feels.
Every time this topic comes up, I can't help but recall a great shot early in McQueen's "Le Mans". There's a girl in a yellow shirt holding her hands over her ears, and the "WHY DID YOU BRING ME HERE!!!" look she gives her boyfriend is the face of 99% of the ladies I've ever brought to the track. At least my girl hasn't given me that face yet...
friedgreencorrado wrote: she enjoys riding around in the black Corrado (and said the one autocross ride she's had in it was "better than sex"),
Not sure if that's a compliment on your driving, or a criticism of something else! 
Ive had a few girlfriends who tried to trade me in, AND KEEP my car...only the first one got away with it (i gave her the paperwork to register it for me and she changed to her name without me knowing.) I miss that T-bird... The one after that attempted the same thing, but I wasnt going to be fooled a second time... instead she got me when we broke up by emptying out half my bank account, and charging up all my credit cards.. it wouldve been MUCH cheaper to give her the Porsche...
Luckily, my taste in woman has improved greatly, and Ive got great lady now who only asks " If we do figure out a way to be able to get that 928, can we at least cut up the frankenporsche and get it out of the back yard before you pick up the 28? -nd "Do you think the 928 engine will fit in the 924? " love that girl!
Several of the guys at work are racers/car guys. About a month ago, we were talking at lunch and realized all of us have had this conversation with wives/girlfriends/etc.
They were all some variation on, "Look, this is something that isn't going to change....ever. I don't smoke, gamble, rarely drink. I don't go to strip clubs (popular with the non-car guys at work for some reason), I'd much rather come home to you. The one thing I do is race cars. I'll always race cars. I'll also drag home new and interesting cars for no other reason than its who I am. You have to be OK with that, its non-negotiable."
We've got a 100% sucess rate amongst the SWMBO's so far, though I'm not sure whether that's because they've agreed or given up. I like to think its agreement, cause of all the vices to have....there's much worse ones than cars.
I still like the way Jay Leno phrased it on Top Gear (from memory, so I might be off a little):
"Would you rather have me come home smelling of cheap gear oil or cheap perfume?"
I think my wife prefers if I stay in the "cheap gear oil" camp.
I've had a similar conversation with mine as well.
For awhile she was having trouble dealing with it, until I pointed out that my salary increase for the new job (this convo was just over a year ago) would easily handle the payment on a new Ducati 848.
She has accepted my car addiction. Since she has a real problem with me getting another Sportbike after my wreck a few years ago.
My wife can be car guy bipolar at times.
-She was raised to think every car you replace another with should be newer than the last. Yet still defended me to her Dad when I traded my '97 Jetta for my '88 Scirocco.
-She thinks Automatics are the superior transmission since it does all the work for you.
-She was raised on American Muscle, and the sound of a cammed V8 can act as foreplay for her.
-She doesn't get my obsession with small displacement, wrong wheel drive, German cars. But she accepts thats what makes me happy.
-She has a bit of Jeremy Clarkson in her brain "More Power!"
-She doesn't understand why I need summer and winter tires when all-seasons "work just as good"
-Perma greased blackened hands, while not preferred, are a fact of sharing my life with her.
-I'm allowed to stuff all the parts I can into my closet. Just nothing laying out in the apartment she keeps clean to OCD levels.
-She likes Motorsports that don't involve turning the wheel sharply, but will give me the hours to watch road racing racing on Speed on the rare occasion that it happens.
-She thinks its hilarious our Son's first real word (aside from Mommy/Daddy) was "Cars"
Luke wrote:friedgreencorrado wrote: she enjoys riding around in the black Corrado (and said the one autocross ride she's had in it was "better than sex"),Not sure if that's a compliment on your driving, or a criticism of something else!
She's a modern girl. I think if it was the other thing, she'd be long gone before now...
Flynlow wrote: We've got a 100% sucess rate amongst the SWMBO's so far, though I'm not sure whether that's because they've agreed or given up. I like to think its agreement, cause of all the vices to have....there's much worse ones than cars.
I'm an older guy...I've had the misfortune (or, if this one leaves me, the good fortune..
) to have had more than one ex admit that she should have just learned to "put up" with the cars, rather than leave me for the morons she found who were druggies/cheaters/violent/etc.
Time wounds all "heels".
(watch TCM more often to see what a "heel" is..today, we just say "shiny happy person", but that doesn't make the pun work )
My wife and I, had our first date (that she planned) at the Nostalgia Drag Races at Wentzville MO. We've been together almost 21 years. The fact that I had a George Thorogood cassette with "back to Wentzville" on it, may have been an omen
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