Guilty Pleasure!

One thing that I love in life, and I mean love is going to a nice foreign or exotic car show. Heck I even love going to the "new car" car show, just don't ask me to go to a classic American car show. For some reason a row of Chevelles, Vettes, Camero's, Mustangs, and other muscle cars does not do it for me, but the exotics and foreign stuff just gets my little diabetic heart pounding. Now I am not saying I won't stop down for a look-see at a classic American car show, I just wont go out of my way to attend one or put it on my calendar as an item "to do" for any day. I guess it is because I live in the land of America and I see these cars up and down the highways and city streets all the time and have seen them all my life but something from a foreign land or with two commas in the price tag is just simply amazing to me.

Here is one of my favorite cars above, the Lotus Elise. This has my favorite recipe for a cool car, very small, light, just weird looking enough to have that exotic look to it, and a simple engine. The Lotus uses modified Toyota engines so in theory (or at least in my head) you could take this to your local Toyota dealer and get parts for your engine.

If you don't remember the movie "Pretty Woman" this the car (not the actual car) from the movie.  The Lotus Esprit, and I love how low and lean this car looks plus it has this wild rear glass kind of thing happening to it that adds to the mystique of the car.  Then there is the simple Ford Probe look to it that makes it look like I could drive this car to the grocery store and to work without standing out in a crowd.  This car was my gateway drug into "wedge" cars and why now my favorite car is the Detomaso Pantera the epitome of the "wedge" car.

Never was much of a Rolls Royce dreamer but I always loved their timeless grill and hood ornaments.

Here is an old Jaguar Mark II front end that inspired the past "S" model.  Timeless again, but still I was never a huge Jaguar fan, probably because of that disaster of a car looking XJS they created in the 80's that just looked odd in so many ways.

I don't exactly get this car, it is a Mclaren MP4-12c "super car" (that means it cost alot and has huge maintenance bills).  Personally I dislike it when car companies just use a bunch of random letters and numbers for the cars name.  Give me something simple and elegant, like you tried to come up with a name not just gibberish.  These cars are starting to pop up around Dallas but the front end looks like some sort of anime character.  I don't want too much of a personality or cartoon character in the look of a car.

Never was a huge Buick Riviera fan but the movie "Road House" makes you really like them.  They have the cool shutter headlights with a sleek looking body.  They look really nice but remember they weigh like a ton and go slow so all cool look with little go.

Maserati is one of my fascination car companies.  I like how they keep the trident and water theme in their cars and the little hair lip in the grill.  Look just above the trident and you can see what I mean.  I hear that Maserati's are the number one car company that have the worst resale value.  wonder how much I can pick this one up for?

If you ever asked me "Diabetic Camper, or Dave what is the one and only Ferrari you would ever own?"  I would tell you the 308 or the extremely similar 328 which is the later version just with small updates.  Why you ask?  First lets remember my fascination with the "wedge" car.  Then I am a sucker for a targa top, for some reason I am not a convertible person but a moon roof or targa top fits me perfect.  Last this is the car from Magnum PI like the greatest public investigator on TV and he got all the pretty ladies.  They show old episodes on a channel in Dallas called "COZI" tv and I stop down and watch them all the time.  Classic car from a classic TV show.

I guess alot of the reason that this is my guilty pleasure is that almost all of these car shows I go to by myself.  There is just some sort of added pressure if someone is with you and they want to look at real cool cars and I am drooling over a random old MG, Triumph, or Delorean.  I guess I am a closet car show stalker or something but at least I can admit it and that is the first step to getting over my problem.  When I get home from these shows I surf craigslist and see what some of these cars would actually cost me and my mind drifts to la-la land like I don't have diabetes and have a head full of hair with open weekends to hang out with cool people.  Just a dream.