@safeershah & samhassn
I just wasted 15 minutes writting a looong answer to above two messages only to findout that I had not logged in and the whole thing vanished.....so here I go again.
It is always a sad situation where you find someone with great passion for cars but their dreams remain unfulfilled due to circumstances beyond their control. A hobby cannot and should not prevail over primary responsibilities such as looking after a family, children's education etc. My Lincoln and Mustang took a long time to restore....when I bought them I knew it would take me a long time as i didnt have the resources to put money on these cars in one go...so worked on them at my pace, was critisized left right and centre but I said to hell with u all....one guy came over to see my Mustang when I had bought it and offered me twice the amount what I had paid for it, obviously I told him no....he got nasty and said you can't restore cars, you only spoil them....you will take too long, you will lose the parts and then you will not have the money to put it together and then you 'll sell cheap - I was polite to him and told him that I had bought the Mustang for my son and I 'll surely get it ready by the time he is 16....Maashallah my son turned 16 last month and he's been driving it for some time now...(ref: 14th Aug Rally)....Samad is another person who is a great enthusiast but halaat ka mara hua.....I know ppl amongst us have condemned him for letting the Lincolns and the truck rot....but these ppl have no idea what kept him preoccupied - something that was more precious than all the Lincolns in the whole world put together. Today he doesnt have a car or a bike to show off and has classics rotting away in his yard but in my books he is an A rate enthusiast. On the other hand, there are those and there areplenty of them who have the time, means to restore and enjoy their classics but they don't and the cars are left unattended for years....I consider them hoarders / upstarts / social climbers who want ppl to see them as men of taste & class something they are certainly not.
A genuine enthusiast is passionate about the car/s he owns. When they drive their cars, they feel as if they are in a time capsule.They re-live the time and excitement of the time their cars were made....they make effort to know the history behind their car's design etc. The get comfortable with the idiosyncracies of their cars and get used to them rather than trying to improvise ....every classic has a character of it's own....they are like paintings with 1000's of hidden stories. When I drove one of my most recent buys, a VW Beetle I could not help but go back in time and think of all the hours, elbow grease that went into perfecting this unusual car of its time...a masterstroke from Ferdinand Porsche that met with Hitler's immediate approval and brought cheap yet comfortable motoring to Germany and later to the world. The painted dashboard almost riding on my chest, the sloping bonnet and the sweet clatter from it's aircooled engine was an amazing feeling....I could feel Porsche sitting right next to me and I wanted to tell him, "mate, you have made a fantastic car"....even those who don't own a car but have the passion and look forward to owning a classic one day are enthusiasts....they are better than those sitting with exotic machinery which are only heard of in drawing room conversations....
comments please.....constructive criticism welcome
