Look At Me! Look At Me!

It astounds me just how much attention our little Spider attracts. I can remember fairly vividly being one of those kids that would give himself whiplash to get a better look at a suitably interesting passing car and drooling over anything remotely exotic that I happened to get near enough to. So it is pretty cool being on the other end of it at times, even if it is a little mystifying.

The other day I pulled up at a set of traffic lights and noticed the guy in the new 5 series BMW next to me maneuvering around his daughter in the passenger seat to get a clearer view of the car (my wife wasn't in it at the time - so must've been the car.) That same day traveling along the freeway a 350Z matched speed in the adjacent lane and the driver spent more time looking at the Spider than the road. He could buy pretty close to 4 of them for the price he paid for his Z car... At Leyburn there were classic race cars galore and the moment I pulled up in the in-field there were half a dozen people crawling over it. Then Saturday afternoon we decided to go for a drive to a park on the Brisbane river and grab an ice cream. When we pulled into the car park there was a police car a couple of bays down. As we got out of the car he pulled up behind us and was genuinely interested in all the ins and outs of the car and its history. The parting comment of "Bloody nice car that!" was a nice touch. :)

My point, long winded as it is, is that it was never my intention to be gawked at by all and sundry. I am sure a hot pink Valiant would achieve that end for significantly less outlay. But it is a great feeling to have fellow enthusiasts admire our lovely little sports car. Tim summed it up really well in an email the other day:

The reason I wanted another old car was to have something I could be proud of, something interesting that people want to look at.