How to react when you find out a car guy isn't?

JacktheRiffer wrote: I get weird looks whenever i tell people i drive a datsun. Guess they assume i drive a weiner dog to class everyday.

What you driving?

When I need to share the current goings-on with the things in my projects, I start with:

"If I read out tire size specs, would you understand them?"

"If I read out camshaft numbers, would you understand what I'm talking about?"

"I need to share what I'm learning about with my Fuel Injection system (Megasquirt). I'll try to keep it very basic - please nod at the right times, and occasionally say 'oh wow!' or 'really!' or 'that's cool!' If you look too interested, I'll think you understand and I'll keep going, and I'll probably talk for hours."

With John Q Average, I just smile and nod and try to avoid conversation.

Fairly lonely here on nights at work. My supervisor was big into 60s and 70s Pontiacs when they were still cheap, and isn't a loser when it comes to cars, we just mostly talk guns.

One super pothead douchebag speech impediment welfare abuse wife beater wigger spaz spends the day at work lying loudly about the might of his straight piped Grand Prix GTP("dynos at 430 horthpowah, y0!") and FZR600 with bad carbs. And not working. And eating pizza off the urinals. Nearly hit my car in the lot one afternoon trying to J turn his old Bonneville.

One drift kid in my dept on days, not the most knowledgable, but good for showing up with new to him, cheaply obtained, otherwise unfindable in New England J-tin. Understands fully the power of Miata, dailies a 350Z, winter beats a stock '73(!) Toyota pickup.

There are two decent non squid bike guys though, one with a DRZ 400 and the other with a year old Aprilia RSV4 and superbly clean CBR600 F3, neither guy are knobs. Could be worse.

EDIT: I'd forgotten about another guy who worked here a few years back. Daily drove an IS300, had a CRX track rat for HPDE, 944 project car, owned a fleet of nice Model Ts handed down from his grandfather. Hell, he even bought GRM once in a while, we got along well... until he went to prison for an ongoing long term relationship with a 13yo girl. So there's that. Man, I work with scumbags.

Now that I moved I don't know any local people claiming to be car guys. Before, though, I met a guy who claimed to be a car guy, and a boxing guy, and a strip club guy, etc... He was really more of a "himself guy". He even said stuff about driving like "it's ok, I play gran turismo." I play gt5, too, it doesn't mean I'm Mario Andretti. I just talked to another guy in the group who was really into video games. I like games, and this guy wasn't using games to inflate his ego, he just really liked them. Really, really liked them.

Come to think of it, I don't know if I fit the car guy mould either. Only been to a couple autox's, I daily an old econoline (which is oddly the only vehicle I've ever owned that is modified in any way), and I spend more time doing home/yard stuff than car stuff. I just like reading about cars and I think you guys are hilarious, so I don't want to leave. That doesn't mean I wouldn't jump on a local challenge/lemons team if given the opportunity, but I'd be a noob when it came to the racing part.

the people i work with have terrible macho bro-taste in cars and they all drive automatics and don't know E36 M3 so I don't even talk to them about anything car related.

there is one guy that owns a supercharged 2006 gto, don't work on his shift though.

There was one guy who wanted to argue with me as to why I bought a manual car because it's "old technology".

You guy do realize that we are the weird ones right? Miata? Really?

lots of people like roadsters, especially older men who remember british cars being sold in the US. I wouldn't consider that weird. They do sell a lot of auto-commuter miatas to non enthusiats.

All the obsession with diesels and wagons that you see in sites like Jalopnik though? That is weird.

I was in the military and am still a contractor and there are a lot of "how fast have you got it up to" street racing asshat "car guys" that think putting 10k HIDs on a car and driving 140MPH in their corvette on public highways is cool in there. What's annoying is that 3/4 of them are VW (or audi) owners which is sad because before I was in the military i used to like VW quite a bit.

This isn't just car culture though. I used to be a huge video game player and used to play in Counter-Strike tournaments and DOTA later on but I wasn't into the culture so much and people always walked to talk to me in meme for some reason or joke with me in what I call meme humor or talk about indie games or their iphone or things like world of warcraft (assuming I played just because I played games) and when you do they never know anything they were just trying to be trendsters or whatever you call them. There is this girl i used to date that used to read wiki pages on Star Trek and comic books so she could seem into geek culture and fake talk about it so that there was something "different" or "quirky" about her I guess that would fit the car and driver stats guy someone mentioned.

People just want to seem like they are into something so they don't seem boring.

he proceeds to tell me how these cars make like 400 horsepower. I just smiled and nodded.

He's just young, young people seem to have the need to lie all the time about E36 M3 they know i'm starting to notice.

Rufledt wrote: Come to think of it, I don't know if I fit the car guy mould either. Only been to a couple autox's, I daily an old econoline (which is oddly the only vehicle I've ever owned that is modified in any way), and I spend more time doing home/yard stuff than car stuff. I just like reading about cars and I think you guys are hilarious, so I don't want to leave. That doesn't mean I wouldn't jump on a local challenge/lemons team if given the opportunity, but I'd be a noob when it came to the racing part.

There are many different tiers of 'car guys'...You don't have to be the most knowledgeable or most experienced by any means, to be one of the 'good' ones. Hell, you don't have to even like the same niche of car culture as each other. But you just hit on the theme that separates the wheat from the chaff, in my opinion...Your interest is sincere, and you know the limitations of your own knowledge and experience. That alone places you in pretty limited company, well above the common 'car guys' being talked about dismissively in this thread.

My litmus test when I meet a new 'car guy' is to just let them talk for a while first so I can see how much BS they fling. If my BS meter goes off, I simply tune them out. But if they're genuine, it doesn't actually even matter what level they're at. Regardless of whether they're higher, lower, or about the same as me, we'll typically have enough common ground for hours worth of great conversation.

I have been humbled too many times with my lack of experience and knowledge to call myself a car guy, I just say I am into cars.

I have met the interwebz spouters and then been dismissed by guys that grind their own cams. A lot of time folks are just trying to make conversation. But if you start with reasons why you slightly modified whatever is faster than everything I smile and leave.

Back in the 90s I had a guy pop the hood on his Z24 Cavalier, point to the engine cover and tell me it was a supercharger. But I also wired an entire 924 with nothing but $.50 rocker switches and speaker wire, so I'm not much better.

I do get annoyed with folks that think driving fast in an inherent trait, rather than practiced and polished skill. I get a lot of "I'll totally beat you at (insert track day/AutoX/HPDE) because back when I was younger we raced on the streets"

But being a "car guy/gal" is a sliding scale dependent on where you are and the piont of the other person.

We all get lumped together by non car folks in order to just make us stop talking to them. So they can go back to Fantasy Football, which I loathe

Keith Tanner wrote: Seem to be a lot of real car guys at work here. It's possibly above the national per-capita average.

David S. Wallens wrote: We have a few here, too. Supposedly there's a guy in our art department who is just gaga for MR2s. I gotta meet him.

z31maniac wrote: My old boss raced an NC Miata in some IT class, Software Engineer next to me races an E36 M3 and is working on a 5.0 swap, another buddy at work has a MazdaSpeed Miata he auto-x's and a LeMons car, and I'm working on a Miata for NASA TT. So, the gearheads at my work are actually gearheads.

Hi, My Name is Christian and I will be seeking employment soon. I find your perspective interesting and would like to subscribe to your newsletter. I have a BGS in Philisopy. a Masters of HR, and 22 years experince in an unrealted series of fields. So, which one of ya is hiring? I come with my own health insurance.

More like I'm on the flip side of this where I'm looked at as some sort of Howard Hughes or Rainman character.

"Miatas, definitely miatas, or maybe an e36 m3 but definitely miatas"

At least when I was a mechanic I could talk cars to most of the guys and they'd understand me. I talk cars in the world of IT and people stare at me like I'm on meth. I think I'm in my last year of IT.

I always belittle them with my superior knowledge. Not only about cars, but about women and life in general. When their inferior minds believe they have some ground to stand on and decide to argue, I fight for days with them.

Hoop wrote: I usually just don't tell people that I'm a car guy. Saves me time and frustration.

I usually do the same - except we tend to find each other. Since I am the new guy at work one of my coworker's (manual trans Saturn guy) looked at my car at lunch and said later - hey, you're driving a 5-speed Accord?

Then I saw a GRM calendar hanging up and I asked him - you reading GRM? Yep, he says; got the 10-year subscription......

Mental wrote: I have been humbled too many times with my lack of experience and knowledge to call myself a car guy, I just say I am into cars.

This. Most of you guys could run circles around me when it comes to mechanics and actually turning wrenches. But I really enjoy everything about cars. Frankly, I don't care if anyone thinks I'm a car guy, not a car guy, whatever. Drives me nuts when I'm talking to people about cars and they feel the need to whip their johnson out and try to put it on the table. Whatever, I don't care. I know what I know...or at least think I do and enjoy the E36 M3 out of my hobby.

My BIL is one of those guys. He tries to engage me in car talk whenever I see him and starts throwing out a bunch of garbage that has little/no basis in reality. I just sit there and say "Uh huh" "Wow, interesting".

sethmeister4 wrote: I'm a mechanic, and one of the real young guys has a Mazdaspeed Miata and a Mazdaspeed6. I'm sure his parents paid for them, and he's trying to sell the MSM. I've told him before how I'd love to find a Miata in wholesale that I could drive around for a while, so we kind of have a Miata thing in common. He's one of those guys that spews random car stuff out and most of it's wrong or stuff he read on the interwebz. So after a Miata discussion the other week (I was working on one), he shows me a pic on his phone on break. It's a field of Spec Miatas on track (even says Spec Miata in the corner of the photo), and he proceeds to tell me how these cars make like 400 horsepower. I just smiled and nodded.

Maybe he was just looking up to and trying to relate to you? Could have been an opportunity to gently correct him and have a real discussion about racing.

Seem to be a lot of real car guys at work here. It's possibly above the national per-capita average.

We have a few here, too. Supposedly there's a guy in our art department who is just gaga for MR2s. I gotta meet him

Yea, we have a few car guys around here, too. Although, a lot seem to think that the group way up in the upper parts are not. But I'm pretty sure that the guy with his name on the logo is a car guy.

Car shows are pretty interesting.

Man, did someone piss on your collective Wheaties? So what if some car guys don't know everything there is to know about your alphabet soup obscure 70's jap car. It takes all sorts.

I guess I'm lucky, I live on a street with a couple of real car guys, one young kid who races a Formula Continental and rallycrosses a Starion.

I work at Ford so I know people with everything from 80’s Porsche 930 currently undergoing an EFI transplant, to IT racers to drag racers to autocross to…. Everything you can imagine. But I can enjoy the company of non car people just as much. Also when I come across someone who likes a different form of racing we can have fun together teasing each other about redneck NASCAR Vs. Elitist EuroFag F1. It takes all sorts.

One big advantage of the self-pronounced know it all car guy your all missing, is that by being such a self-promoter people will gravitate to him/her to ask advice on tires, what car to buy, what gas to use, is helium worth it for inflating tires and other no win questions

I bought some parts from a guy one time. He had a bunch of very cool cars. A year or so after I finished the body work and paint on my project and asked if he wanted to see what his parts became. I drove back down, he test drove my car and then he started showing me some of the projects he was working on. He was in the process of building a flow bench. He asked me if I knew what it was and my mind locked up, I said "uh...cnc machine?" He just looked at me like I was stoopid .

There are few car guys here at work. One is a member here. Another guy has a 700hp Challenger drag car plus a '71 Challenger convertible with a 426 Hemi and few other Mopars, a guy with a 750hp Supra, my boss raced an MG Midget a while back and has a Mazdaspeed Miata, my boss's boss has an old Mercedes 190SL, another one has a very clean '99 Civic Si.

Honestly, I have never run into too many people who called themselves car guys and then when they opened their mouth made me want to face palm. Most of them were in high school.

alfadriver wrote:

Seem to be a lot of real car guys at work here. It's possibly above the national per-capita average.

We have a few here, too. Supposedly there's a guy in our art department who is just gaga for MR2s. I gotta meet him

Yea, we have a few car guys around here, too. Although, a lot seem to think that the group way up in the upper parts are not. But I'm pretty sure that the guy with his name on the logo is a car guy. Car shows are pretty interesting.

Don't forget Raj is a seriouse gear head and has plenty of racing experience as well. You walk in his office and he's got pics of him racing and one of his old helmets right there.

Car shows, yup seen everything from genuine GT40's and Countach's to drag cars to LSx swapped E30's and Geo Trackers to track day cars to Miata's to to to hell as I posted last week there was even George Follmers CanAm Shadow!

Adrian_Thompson wrote:

alfadriver wrote:

Seem to be a lot of real car guys at work here. It's possibly above the national per-capita average.

We have a few here, too. Supposedly there's a guy in our art department who is just gaga for MR2s. I gotta meet him

Yea, we have a few car guys around here, too. Although, a lot seem to think that the group way up in the upper parts are not. But I'm pretty sure that the guy with his name on the logo is a car guy. Car shows are pretty interesting.

Don't forget Raj is a seriouse gear head and has plenty of racing experience as well. You walk in his office and he's got pics of him racing and one of his old helmets right there. Car shows, yup seen everything from genuine GT40's and Countach's to drag cars to LSx swapped E30's and Geo Trackers to track day cars to Miata's to to to hell as I posted last week there was even George Follmers CanAm Shadow!

I was going to mention that the depth of car people here is on a totally different plane than eveyrone else. Down the hall from me, I can find a person who is incredibly versed in seeing the surface of a catalyst. Upstairs are people who know more about seat foam than you will think is possible. I had my GTV's (see picture on left) front seats redone by an interior designer. Man, they are NICE.

You missed the stock GP (aka jeep), the pretty sweet CNG conversion F150, increidbly restored VWs (including a Giha I've only seen here), Alfas, Mustangs galore, T-birds of many flavors, vettes, etc... While most new cars have the onwers name on the badge, the collectors cars cover everything.

Then, again, I've been to a car show of an agency that most here think is very anti car- some amazing wheels there, too. As well as a few who contemplated Challenges (and one who did attend).

this is a wierd area for cars, I suppose.

z31maniac wrote: Reminds me of an older woman I worked with at State Farm who thought her '88 Autotragic 'Vette was super fast and there was no way my little "crotch rocket" was faster ('04 R6) Finally one day I rode it to work and told her to follow me up the onramp on the way to lunch............she quit talking about it.

Heh. I used to have a '86 Corvette with a slushbox and a '05 Suzuki GS500F, which has less than half the horsepower of your bike. And the GS500F was still faster than the Corvette. I still miss that car, though - it had the Z51 suspension option, and handled great out of the box. It was a bit more car than my limited driving skills could handle on an autocross course, too.

My favorite "car guy" is what I call the motor-trend enthusiast. He can recite all of the numbers on the latest European offerings, thinks your car sucks, and won't take his late model impala to any kind of race because "it wouldn't do well."

True story:

My employer is involved with COTA. I played a fairly significant part in this, but I'm not the primary contact. However, I was the only person involved that has even an inkling of what F1 is about, much less road racing.

Because of this involvement, my employer purchased a number of seat licenses. Despite my admonition that the better place to see the race would be in Turn 1 or one of the other grandstands, they bought in the main grandstands on the front straight. None of these folks had ever seen a race of any kind before, not even Nastycar.

When the F1 race came around, I got bumped out of the company's seats for the high muckity-mucks that wanted to bring their girlfriends. My "consolation prize" was the purchase of a great seat on Turn 1. Profit.

Turns out that few of the folks in the season seats enjoyed the race. The girlfriends thought it was way too loud (volume enhanced by the grandstand "canyon" there) and the muckity-mucks didn't know enough about what was going on to enjoy it. One complained about the fact there was only one pass for the lead when Hamilton passed Vettel (though they had no idea who was who).

Good news is that we're stuck with the seat licenses and I'll probably be able to attend as many as I want to. More profit.

I hate when the "car guy" ends up taking me out to the parking lot to look at his E550 or something. Yeah, I get that it's not a Camry, and unlike your average luxury car owner he probably did a E36 M3load of research and is very proud of his (very fast) baby, but we clearly have nothing to talk about. I drive a minivan with 3-pedals.

You mean like the conversation I just had with a coworker who insisted I own "a Morgan Mini..."