Sadly I can relate all too well. I've owned my Mustang since 1995 and probably have a quarter million dollars into it by now if you include shipping fees ! I also have 20k hours into it, but those were supposed to be fun right ? I'm certainly proud of the skills I taught myself and maybe those will come in handy in the future.
But I've also burnt out hard. The car has never run or looked better, but living in a high traffic suburban environment it is still too rough, too hot, too impractical - the clutch bothers my deteriorating knee, bla bla bla. On a sunny day with low traffic, driving it around I feel like King Of the World, but after an hour even that starts getting old. And tracking it requires so much time and resources not to mention entropy and attrition of all my hard work (not to mention danger) that its not happening much anymore. I often feel pretty disappointed with myself because its never quite lived up to my expectations despite or probably because I was always reaching for the brass ring. I poured 100% of myself into this thing for 20 years and feel like I failed to reach my goals.
I'm very very discreet on the street but as I've gotten older I worry more and more about getting pinched by the cops, or something breaking and causing an accident and hurting/killing myself or someone else whether on the street or track (since it would never be a driving mistake LOL).
But the worst thing is after a life of loving hot cars, I find I have very little passion for them in general anymore. My heart no longer races when I see a Ferrari or Porsche or bitchin' Camaro. I just want to turn up the A/C and the 5000 watt stereo in my '92 Cadillac and be calm and anonymous. Whatever money comes from a sale will just buy me a newer truck.
It hurts, like breaking up with a long time lover as I caress my eyes over ever single inch of the car that I've worked and re-worked.
So its going to my body guy next week (been in the plans for months) and when it comes back I'm going to try and sell it. I suppose if I'm lucky it won't sell and I'll have it forever, but if so it will spend most of the time under the covers because it seems like everytime I take it out it ends up costing me money.
Sorry, not the encouragement you might be looking for but as people say, once it becomes a burden instead of fun its time to move on. As you can tell its a very emotional struggle for me as well.
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