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"\n\nHello, GQ readers. Please allow me to introduce myself. I'm a man of wealth and taste.\n\nOK, so I lied. I'm a man who owns 27 cars, which is why any wealth I might have had has long since disappeared up their 27 tailpipes, along with any prospect I might have had of attaining the American dream of owning a home or affording my children a better life. While some may conclude I've let my family down in a big way, it is, I believe, only fair to point out that should my young'uns ever need Lotus founder Colin Chapman's very own 1969 Ford Lotus-Cortina, I've got them covered.\n\nAs for taste, you tell me. I live in and around New York City and drive a motley assortment of ancients that includes three Lancias, a Triumph Dolomite Sprint and a 1970 Rover sedan presently running on seven cylinders.\n\nYou'll have gathered from the above that I am not an actual member of the leisure classes, notwithstanding the fact that my pace can be very leisurely when I'm behind the wheel of my 1959 Morris Minor pickup or my 1966 MG 1100. In order to pay the bills, I am compelled to work around the clock as an attorney and manager of obscure alternative rock acts by day and an automotive journalist by night. I also spend an inordinate amount of time staring at the pavement, hoping to find large bills, spare change, or better yet, the keys to a 1965 Ford Falcon Ranchero.\n\nYes, I believe in miracles, you sexy thing. I do not, however, believe in angels on earth or life after death. Though if I happen to be wrong on this last point, and once departed find myself the otherworldly custodian of a freshly restored Triumph Herald Courier van, I wouldn't object. In fact, I may even be willing to revisit my views on organized religion.\n\nBecause I have long been in favor of clean air and safe cars I used to more or less single-handedly comprise the lunatic fringe of North American automotive journalism. But, thanks to a new breed of young, green gearheads, I'm no longer alone. Well, actually, I'm still kind of alone, because there's not much safe or clean about a Morris Minor\u2014which reminds me, I'm also a hypocrite. I wrote an anti-SUV op-ed piece for the New York Times way back in 1994, thereby minting myself a whole new set of enemies from Dearborn to Solihull. But I've also owned a few Land Rovers in my time, until I sold them and bought a 1968 International Harvester Travelall with a 5.0-liter V8. Now I could explain how I rationalize this, but then you all might start driving Land Rovers and Travelalls, and what good would that be?\n\nWhich brings me to perhaps the saddest area of my life, aside from encroaching middle age and my continued inability to persuade my family that that I'll never look at another old car\u2014once I acquire the 1936 Riley Kestrel 15/6 six-light saloon of my dreams. I can't own all the cars I want, and you can't either. In fact, since you are a sane, responsible individual, you can't come close to owning as many cars as I have... and do. And let's not even count the hundreds of cars I've been given custody of by well-meaning carmakers who want me to write about their products.\n\nYou, I'd like to think, may be about to become an adherent of the slow-car movement, like me. Or, you may choose to live vicariously through me. I'll invite you to follow me down the primrose (a classic '60s hue, by the way, that looked as great on GTOs and Buick Skylarks as it did on MGB GTs) path. Come with me as I troll down a special kind of memory lane, the one where the memories are the kind I never had, just imagined I might have wanted to have, leading me to buy\u2014more likely, borrow to buy\u2014the car that will take me back in time.\n\nThe advantages of such an arrangement are myriad. Every time I break down, you won't have to just to know what it feels like to own an old car. Each hour I spend at the DMV, explaining why the VIN I've given them truly belongs to a grey-market Land Rover and not a Caterpillar loader will be an hour you won't waste. Every trill of joy uttered when someone like Michelin lays some complimentary items on me\u2014like the awesome sets of tires they hooked me up with for my Travelall or the perfect reproduction set of radials they found for my BMW 2002tii\u2014is yours to share. My battles, keeping a fleet of old cars running, safe, and legal while keeping out of the poorhouse can be yours, at no cost. Believe me, it beats being me.\n\nFor so it goes. Having wealth and taste is one thing. Hanging on to them is another."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/jamie-kitman-a-man-and-his-cars-life-of-a-car-enthusiast>