[vreihen16]

When I was in my 20's through early 40's, my car choices were based around SCCA classing and what would be competitive. In my middle 30's, I bought a beater Jeep CJ-7 as a daily driver, because my cars were not drivable on the streets in bad weather with the crazy competition alignments and stuff. The Jeep and cars were polar opposites to drive, but each had a unique character. Plus, scraping snow/ice/frost off of a CJ-7's tiny windshield was a piece of cake. Having two distinct options made each of them special when you have a choice of which to drive on any given day.

When I hit the age of midlife crisis, I started looking at cars as long-term investments. Now in my 50's, my street-driven competition car will turn 20 years old in a few months, and my diesel pickup that was my daily driver (and race car trailer tow vehicle) up until last spring is 13 years old. Both are long-since paid off. The payments on the car were partially augmented by motorsports deals, and believe it or not I can still sell the pickup today for more than I paid for it as an investment back in 2008. Yup, I put 100K miles and 11 years of driving on it, and it didn't cost me a dime in depreciation!

Up until last spring, I did not see a single new car on the market that I actually wanted to buy. Absolutely nothing appealed to me. Then, a European "halo" car caught my attention. It has a carbon-fiber tub, rear-motor, RWD, weighs 2700 pounds, and is more "chuckable" into corners than my old Mk1 and Mk2 VW GTI's. No-speed transmission, no clutch pedal, no steering feel through the electric power steering setup, no side bolsters or bucket seats, and skinny tires with a surprising amount of lateral grip for their 155mm width. In other words, the most boring car in the world...that makes me feel like a kid driving my old VW Rabbit again. Found a pristine example in the wrong place at the wrong time, and bought it for a price so far under KBB that I couldn't walk away. It will likely be the last car that I ever buy at this point, since I only buy vehicles for the long term now.

Anyway, my $0.02 is that the OP has purchased his mid-life-crisis-mobile, and nothing else in terms of cars will ever be the same again. Seems to be a natural part of getting older, at least in my experience. Seal the thing up in a hermetic bubble, and only take it out on sunny weekend days as a treat. Pick up a beater vehicle as a daily driver, so that your time with the sports car is even more special.....