Hahahaha you guys crack me up... I'd have a huge warehouse filled with whatever weird automotive fetish struck me that week. Yugo GV with a Harley v-twin swap? Check! 1994 Ranger with 3 cylinder diesel Kubota swap? Check! All kinds a turbo Dodges? Check! Mazda REPU? Check!
Basically a white trash version of Jay Leno, if there is such a thing. But with less denim and more engine swaps
Wow good topic. I'd be curious to hear Tim's take on this.
I don't think my tastes would change. There are cars I like and can't afford... the latter would change. But I bought my E30 not because I wanted a car to drive but because I wanted to play with one. After university, I lived in an apartment, sold my E34 M5 and for a little while, was glad to not have to worry about my daily driver being off the road due to the latest mod project. But after a while, I realized that the process is what I enjoy, adult lego. So I bought a good shape but non-driving E30 (broken clutch) and I didn't really care if I ever got it driving. It's the messing with it that I wanted back in my life again, just as long as it wasn't a daily driver.
Fast forward to 6 years later and I'm doing well, good incomes from both me and my wife, we have 2 new cars yet I still have the E30.
So if I suddenly had unlimited funding, I don't think a whole lot would change for the E30. So far, everything I've dreamt up of doing to it, I've been able to afford (probably mainly because I do all the work... which is the point anyway). I'd buy some nice road cars, maybe an S65 and the latest front engined V12 Ferrari (hopefully by then they won't be ugly anymore, or else buy the 550). But I'd still have the E30. I would probably have a huge garage with every tool I could ever want, hire any professional help I'd need, hopefully work together with them and learn.
Maybe it's different for me because my taste in cars revolves around the process of working on them, not so much driving, so being able to replace my E30 with a hyper car that I could never work on is completely unattractive.
adult Lego:
I don't think it would change my tastes much as it would make the objects of my desire easier to attain. Like owning a Jensen GT and and an Interceptor, oops make that two Interceptors, got to have a hardtop coupe and a roadster. Maybe a nice Series One and a Half E type, oh wait make that two because I need a roadster and a coupe. Then there's the bike engine A Mod car, a real well put together KTM dual sport... damn. Gotta have a bigger garage. 
kevlarcorolla wrote: I'm so sick of polishing turds it isn't funny.
My tastes wouldn't change just the quantity.
I am the most eccentric person I know, and that includes the family of savants that is my best friend's (who retired at 27.)
Mostly no. I would like to add a Morgan Aero 8 to my garage and a couple pre-war cars MG R-Type Midget and Bentley 4 1/2 litre blower.
mguar wrote: In reply to plance1: I can understand all those who sour grapes Barrett Jackson. You're part of the 99% with no realistic chance of joining the 1%
Dude, you're clueless. The 99% label doesn't apply to me but randomly applying it to others on the internet shows that you lack reading and comprehension skills.
ThePhranc wrote: At a point you become Jay Leno and have the cars you want and a crew to keep them in shape so you can take Denise Gage out for jaunts around Hollywood.
I don't know who Denise Cage is but as you can tell from my posts, I'm already funnier then Jay Leno. Seriously, I think Jay Leno does serve a good role model and illustrates what most of us would do, which is maybe have lots of high dollar cars with a mixture of interesting ones that perhaps don't cost as much, relatively speaking.
mguar wrote:ThePhranc wrote: At a point you become Jay Leno and have the cars you want and a crew to keep them in shape so you can take Denise Gage out for jaunts around Hollywood.I suspect that Jay Leno puts up with Denise Gage simply as a way to share his interest in cars with those of us who cannot afford the pleasures of owning the Dusenbergs and etc. that Jay owns.. I don't get the idea that Jay is a snob.. his taste is far too eclectic to be a snob.. He takes pleasure operating a stationary steam engine, an old oil field engine. or showing an affordable way to replicate no longer available parts..
I tried googling denise cage and got nowhere so I have no idea what you are talking about, not sure, maybe I missed it but who would call Jay Leno a snob? He's the exact opposite!
Dennis Gage.
I'd have the 18 nicest GVR-4s in the UNIVERSE.
When Leno was talking about his wife getting pissed about him using the home oven to heat engine cases to install bearings I knew he was One Of Us.
It wouldn't change my taste, it would allow me to obtain the cars I want and a warehouse to keep them in. It would also allow me to blow the rest of the money road racing. I would have a pretty healthy collection of road racing cars from a H prod Rabbit/Scirocco to a couple of retired prototypes. I would also have a toterhome set up as well as a racing hauler. Its basically taking my half assed attempt at road racing now to a whole other level that is merely an unattainable pipe dream right now. I would knock as many tracks off my list as I could. I care more about using the collection than just saying I have them.
Much like the one guy posted, I would have a crap can parked next to a $300K prototype and would love both of them like children. The taste of cars has always been there, the funds haven't. I have friends that have had a pretty well off life because of their parents accomplishments(not a jealous person here at all) and these people that I know would never consider a Yugo, a Fiesta, or any inexpensive car as something they would want. But I have many more friends that have scraped by with a $300 beater that would love to have that beater parked next to a GT3 RSR. I just think gaining a significant amount of money would make you still appreciate your crap can fantasies more than someone going the other way would be able to accept the new crap can life.
One other thing I said I would do if I ever came into alot of money was I would have a couple/few spec racers like E30s or Miatas that I could bring my friends out to race with so we could knock some of the bucket list tracks out together.
novaderrik wrote: my7 first 2 purchases would be a brand new Z28 and a brand new Z06.. my second purchases would be a pair of Megasquirt setups...
Hopefully to burn the Z28 and have the Z06 shipped to the 'Ring. Those camarslo's are ridiculously ugly, and there are hundreds of cooler ways to spend lottery winnings.
Personally, I'd finish the cars I already own and keep the n-used vehicles modest. I'm not trying to get shot during a carjacking of my 458, and I don't want my wife getting pulled out of a Range Rover at a stoplight at gunpoint. So yeah, modesty would be key.
Although, I have to admit that it would be damn rough going not pulling the trigger on a one of the Ferrari Challenge cars built over the years as well as the GT3 RS.
Good problems to have, I say. 
I might buy one extravagant car, but I think I'd just spend the money on a sweet garage where I could work on my beaters. Oh, and I'd have an unlimited junkyard-ing budget. 
I wouldn't sweat squeezing every last penny of every buy- I'd actually look for the best car... for example: I'd buy the 35k mile E36 M3 for $25k rather than talking the 165k mile example down from $6k to $5800 (and all I'd have to do is replace the headliner, convert from auto to manual, and....).
I'll go for the "tastes wouldn't change but quantity would" camp. I'd still drive my van, but it would probobly be 95% new. I recently wondered what it would take to fit an ecoboost engine in there... or one of those new sequential twin turbos on something... I've also always wanted a 4 rotor in something... I would need that ton of money to keep constantly flowing for the gas fund, though.
one of my friends grew up dirt poor.. he's never been much of a "car guy", but he did like cooler old cars and was able to do basic work on them.. then while he was a garbage man, he got paired up with the woman that would become his second wife. she also grew up dirt poor and likes cool stuff.. anyways, after they got married they started taking in a few adults that need help living in the real world and getting paid decent money for it.. now 8 years later, they own 3 nice big houses, 2 of which are set up as adult foster homes. they make enough money that they can afford to pay cash for some pretty damn nice vehicles - among his cars are an '08 Mustang GT that has had some work done to it, an '09 (i think) Charger Super Bee, '68 Coronet Convertible with a 440 six pak that he traded his 67 Mustang for. . "her" car is an '07 Escalade with 24" wheels (they got it cheap and the wheels were on it..). he even bought my '74 Monte Carlo from me for a winter beater and because i needed money, but he wound up selling it to her brother at a loss. he's an aspiring musician, so he spends a lot of money on guitars and what not and plays in coffee shops and music stores in Central MN- something he was never able to do when he was working 60 hours a week just to get by.
they have a lot of "stuff' and take some really awesome vacations with their kids, but they are still the same people they were when they first met and barely scraped by on their Waste Management paychecks. i'd like to think i'd be like them- the same, only better. i know for a fact that i would still buy junk that needs work because working on cars is the part i like and one of the few things that truly calms me down, but i'd be able to start out with better junk and put better parts into them.
I would say not at first. The only thing that would change right away is quantity. Since my tastes aren't extravegant I would get the cars I want. After all, really what good would a Ferrari be as a daily driver, it's not like you can drive the car the way it was meant to be on the roads. Stick with modest cars. After all it's more fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow. A J-H, MGA, 2002, along those lines. My most extravegant would be a A-H 100-6/3000 or an E-type Jag. But I could see that in the future I would start thinking that I can afford that Ferrari and it doesn't really matter that I couldn't take full advantage of the cars capability, why not. Then down that slippery slope.
If I had the kind of money discussed here I'd probably be more likely to get things fixed that I'm too lazy / busy / etc to do myself. I'm talking about things like a daily driver that currently lacks heat on a reliable basis and needs struts and a number of other little things that I say I'm going to do and don't want to pay a shop to do for me.
I do, however, take some decent vacations, so I guess that says something about where my priorities are.
If I had a basically unlimited supply of money, I'd be lying if I said my tastes wouldn't change at all. Though I'm not sure "change" is the right term so much as it would be "expand". I'd have a bunch of low end cars AND a bunch of exotics.
plance1 wrote:ThePhranc wrote: At a point you become Jay Leno and have the cars you want and a crew to keep them in shape so you can take Denise Gage out for jaunts around Hollywood.I don't know who Denise Cage is but as you can tell from my posts, I'm already funnier then Jay Leno. Seriously, I think Jay Leno does serve a good role model and illustrates what most of us would do, which is maybe have lots of high dollar cars with a mixture of interesting ones that perhaps don't cost as much, relatively speaking.
Add an extra "n" in his name. I typoed. Hes the guy with the killer handle bar mustache that hosts 'My Classic Car' on SPEED
The 62 is just one car.. There were tons of cool cars at Barrett-Jackson to suit every taste. One of my absolute favorites.....
http://www.barrett-jackson.com/application/onlinesubmission/lotdetails.aspx?ln=625.1&aid=443&pop=0
and this was NUTS!!
http://www.barrett-jackson.com/application/onlinesubmission/lotdetails.aspx?ln=945&aid=443&pop=0
Oh baby...
http://www.barrett-jackson.com/application/onlinesubmission/lotdetails.aspx?ln=945.1&aid=443&pop=0
Right ass for the seat...
I don't know if it would change my tastes so much as allow me to get the cars I've always wanted (993 GT2/GT3, Renault R5 Turbo) and then allow me to do nutty stuff with the low end projects. Fabricating chassis out of carbon fiber, not caring that the anti-lag system blows up my turbo every 2,000 miles, putting Offenhauser engines in my mid engined Pontiac LeMans - that sort of thing.
Keith wrote: If you've got a net worth that's an order of magnitude larger than you have now, then you can afford to ball up a car that's worth an order of magnitude more than you could now.
I disagree, since I'd feel a lot worse about balling up a Z06 than something else, even if I could afford to "buy one so I could push it off of a cliff just because it amuses me".
We had this discussion at work after a discussion about HVAC, of all things. Scenario: Knurled becomes hyper-rich Knurled. Co-worker says I'd start buying cars that have heat. I counter with driving what I drive because, believe it or not, I do find it to be the awesomest car on the planet, and I'm quite pleased that I apparently bought at the bottom of the depreciation curve.
If I had more money, I'd just have more of the same. And a sweet fab shop to play in. Oh my yes, my fab shop will be AWESOME. And the milling machine will have beer tap handles on the levers, just because rich idiots are allowed their eccentricities.
I've always said to myself that if I became rich, I would not change my habits when it comes to cars.
My favorite part is the hunt. Finding a car on the cheap, especially a rare one, is so much fun. I would end up building a HUGE shop and filling it with cheap, rare, and cool stuff. 
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