I’ve hit the sweet spot on cars I love to drive (Gretchen the M3 is a growling RWD beast and Rolf the X5 handles better than most sedans, has XDrive for winter and lives up to its ‘luxury’ description) Since both are sticks and I maintain them I plan to keep them for the long haul. If I could add a few bays to the garage and spare a few hundred thousand to boot without the wife questioning my intentions I’d definitely pick up a pre-25th Anniversary Countach and a Z1 or Z8 - those I would probably kill to keep! I’ve got no love for our Prius though - sad huh…the most responsible car we have and I see it as nothing more than a big coffee maker.
The MVA in Maryland is very strict but you can slide a few things, Gretchen passes all the requirements only because they can’t hook up the OBDII to read her outdated Bosch DME, otherwise they’d haul me off to the slammer. Inspections here are required every 2 years but because of her lowered height and age they only do a tailpipe-at-idle test, newer cars get hooked up directly to their DME and revved to 2500RPM in park to monitor particulates. The inspections also cover roadworthy condition (body, components, etc) and have to be up to snuff to get their registrations renewed. No bungee cords holding trunks shut in Maryland! Like California, after Gretchen is 25 years old, Maryland doesn’t care anymore so I’ll finally be able to pull the head, have it machined for a Shrick racing cam, ditch the cats and do a free flow headers-to-tip exhaust!
Living a half hour outside Baltimore (1.5hrs N of DC, 45mins S of Philly, 2.5 hrs S of NYC) has been the perfect spot for driving - we have farmland with rolling hills and sweeping backroads, a nearby State Park with amazing twisties, I95 with light enough traffic for triple digit speeds (and with 23 years in this area I know the cops, what they drive and where they roam), local autoX’s at Cal Ripken’s stadium 5 miles East and a drag strip 10 miles northeast. I don’t think I’d want to deal with NYC/Chicago/LA traffic and I’ve been lucky not to have to experience morning or afternoon rush hours since 2007.
Long live the US highway system and our gas guzzling hobbies.