What is a true enthusiast?

[irrational_i]

I have been thinking about this. Mostly because I move in a group of people with lots of biased opinions.

Of course I would take myself as an example. I am 31. I have never raced or been taken to races by anyone. I used my own research and love of cars to build up my knowledge.

I basically put it down to this. A true enthusiast would not exclude any marque to potential greatness. Same goes for age of car. An enthusiast should be able to recognise the brilliance of a car on several levels. An enthusiast will notice odd things in a flash. Do you tend to notice rarities even on the other side of a highway in the furthest lane in traffic? Can you recognise a car from its roofline, or rear lightcluster etc.

hmmm. Ran out of things to say. As an example: Obviously we love the Mclaren F1. It is not pretentious in any way and has proven this over and over. It looks great, has a great interior (Even if the 3 seat idea is not new) and drives perfectly according to almost all journalists. Then you get the 1950's Alfa 1300 Sprint Speciale. It looks weird and flowy but it has a drag coefficient of 0.3 and a top speed approaching 200kph. From a 50 year old 1300!!!? The BMW Isetta is really odd-looking but it basically saved the company and nowadays styling is returning to the city/bubble car. Its hard to list all the cars I find great. But suffice to say they are from all shapes and sizes. (Although I have to admit some ongoing bias against russian designs...) :)

I am happy to see so many people on this forum who are REAL enthusiasts in my opinion. Even if we can't own the cars, we still feel special about them.