Slow down you crazy child

In 2017 I experienced one of the most exciting moments of my life. Having recently had some financial success in my prior business, I was advised by my financial advisor (what a dude) to reward myself with something tangible to mark the occasion. I decided that tangible thing should come in the form of a shiny nearly-new 2016 Jaguar F Type R. One of the loudest, most gorgeous cars on sale. Much like when I bought my Audi TTS, I couldn’t sleep in the days leading up to it.

I was so excited that I flew my Dad out from England just to pick it up with me in Montreal, where I traded it for my 2013 Subaru BRZ. 

It was immediately brilliant. Upon telling my BRZ friends, one of them said to me “Dude, that is going to open so many doors for you.”

I remember being confused. The car only had two doors and neither opened automatically. Did he mean societal doors would open for me?

All these years later, I now know why I was confused. Because it did neither of those things.

I gave it a go back then though, curious to investigate what he meant. So I went to a sports/supercar meet locally that I won’t name, but it was one that only allowed cars of a certain caliber. The F Type R was deemed worthy. My friend in his Audi TTRS was told he couldn’t come though, because his “came from the brand that sold regular things like an A3 or a Q3. The Jag has prestige.” I was told. Door open for me, not for he. Let’s go.

Everyone was a twat. Ferrari belt buckles, Louis Vitton handbags being held by children with cropped haircuts and tucked in polos. The kind of families that buy a person to kill in The Purge.

I quickly realized I hadn’t opened a door of opportunity, I’d opened a door to society’s gaping asshole.

I joined them for a cruise up and around Muskoka (Toronto’s cottage country) and although there were some lovely cars and some geographic eye candy, I felt gross just for going.

From then on, I made sure my F Type ownership was about making memories that were my own and with my friends. My next trip was through Michigan with my BRZ friends and it was brilliant. The car never let me down, always sounded incredible and my god I couldn’t stop staring at it. I attended my first drag strip event in it, where I handily beat fellow YouTuber EddieX’s BMW i8 in a race.

My girlfriend at the time played second fiddle to how much I loved that car. She’s now my wife and the mother of my child, and I sometimes wonder if I kept the wrong one.

It got so absurd that for the first 12 months of ownership if we went for dinner, our reservation had to include a table that could see the car. Such was my paranoia and pride. I look upon that time, and that car, very fondly.

And then 6 months, later I bought an MX-5. 

It was the first time I had gone “backwards.” I spent the same amount of money on the brand new Mazda that I had lost in depreciation on the Jaguar.

Until then, every car I had bought was seemingly an upgrade, or at least equal to, the last. As I thought all car ownership was supposed to be. Ever since my first independent drive in my Vauxhall Corsa when I was 17, all I’d ever said to myself was “oh my, I need to upgrade this experience.”

For almost a decade, whichever car I had in the driveway, a different car filled my desktop wallpaper. What’s next? How does it get better? What about a Cayman? This is good but…

As privileged humans, we anchor. Our reference point becomes the norm. ‘This is good but I’m used to it’ feels like our downfall. I watch my 9 month old daughter reach for things that aren’t toys specifically because she knows she isn’t allowed them. It’s not even just humans, my late beagle Daisy only ever wanted things that were just past the end of the leash. Whatever the condition is, it probably has some evolutionary contribution to our ability to strive further, and harder. But I think when it comes to cars, like many parts of our make up, that can start to be maladaptive.

The trade to my MX-5 brought me more joy, less paranoia and more driving purity than I’d ever expected. And considering I wasn’t made of money, it gave my wallet a welcome bit of extra weight. 

Toronto became my Mario Kart track, rather than my revving zone. Lightness and Humility became my left and right hand, rather than Posturing and Power.

I loved the F-Type, don’t get me wrong, but the MX-5 felt like such a breath of fresh air philosophically and practically. It felt like that feeling you get when your room is finally clean after a few rough mental health weeks, or when you realize after a glass of the freshest ice water, that your thirst couldn’t only be quenched by a strawberry milkshake.

Strawberry milkshakes are godly, though.

I was much younger in 2017. Showcasing my hard work in the form of sheetmetal had a lot more value to me then than it does now. It still has plenty of value to people of all ages. I don’t want to take that away, but it is the one thing that we don’t account for very often in Throttle House reviews, because we almost can’t. “Feel like a motherfuckin’ G” factor is a tough one to quantify and is really only a part of the equation you, the viewer, can fill in for yourself.

Thomas and I often find ourselves conflicted when releasing a highly positive video. And not because we have any affect on the market (apart from I’ll concede maybe a B8 RS5 or a Toyota Century), but because through the mastery of our editors and the beauty of 4K Cinemascope Technicolour Duramax, we can create a desire for a vehicle that can become infectious. Strong enough, even, that it might inspire some of the audience to make poor financial decisions.

So in that sense, I feel an obligation to dispel the notion that you should always want a better car, or a newer car, or a faster car. Now that I’ve driven many hundreds of cars, and owned a fair few, I know now that finding the right one, rather than the better one, is more important.

For the last 7 years, that for me has been a Miata. Not only was it a more joyful, easy, affordable experience than the Jag, and one that came free with a far nicer car community that put out their hand to wave rather than to give you the bird, but in many ways it woke me up to what my particular flavour of car passion was. Call it a change in priorities, or a lack of new lightweight manual enthusiast options, but I’ve not felt that anchored feeling since.

It doesn’t make me enjoy watching or learning about new cars any less, and truth be told, my desire to upgrade will never be completely quelled. And I have since added some funky things to the stable like the Century. 

But for now and for the next while, I’ll keep the MX-5 to remind me that even though the temptress that is the Upgrade Train powers on, if you stay on it, you’ll never know where to call home.