Hello,

I have important things I need to be doing, but will procrastinate by writing out these thoughts instead.

I bought my first new car in over a decade a few weeks ago. It was the end result of a lot of looking and test driving and making a pros-and-cons list and really assessing what it is I want in a car.

I ended up with a 2020 Buick Encore, which I do not believe is very popular in this subreddit, but it was everything I was looking for. Nice smooth ride, very quiet cabin, roomy but not big, pretty good on gas, late in the model's cycle so (from what I researched at least) a lot of smaller errors have been ironed out (Plus it's technically a German car made in South Korea, so maybe it'll avoid some of the random GM chaos). I've already done some nice long work drives of 3+ hours and I can already tell how appreciative I am of the smoothness and quietness.

I had a realization while car shopping though.

I think I really like cars while not actually liking cars.

I hate car shopping. I am a very indecisive person and I have a hard time making big purchases, so I'd almost rather have a root canal than have to buy another car inside of a decade. I am just not one of those people who always has the shakes for a new ride. I would rather pay for regular timely maintenance of the thing I own than have to buy another one.

I also am not a driver. I mean, I drive my car, but I don't get pleasure from fancy-pants driving. I have no interest in going around a corner quickly. I will never drag race. I don't speed and have never gotten a ticket. I only vaguely understand what people are talking about when they describe the handling of a car in flowery prose. I really like road trips, comfortable highway cruising while listening to good music, pointing the car toward the horizon and voyaging, but performance is just not something I really give a hoot about. I feel like y'all probably picked up on that when I said I bought a fuckin' Buick.

But I like cars. Like, as a business, and as a conversation. I think styling choices are fun to talk about, like wondering why Lexus grilles have gotten so big. I think the story of Buick being saved by the Chinese market is interesting. I think getting in arguments about Cadillac vs. Lincoln interiors is fun. I think the mystery of where all the normal-sized pickups went is something we should really look into, just like, as a society.

Thinking back, back when I was growing up, every single year for well more than a decade, my mom and I always went to the big Central Florida International Auto Show. It was one of our main family traditions, probably because tickets were dirt cheap and we were on the lower side of lower-middle-class.

We would spend hours sitting in every car and chatting about it. Who has the most comfortable seats? Whose sports car has the best styling? Who has the best red paint this year? It would usually end with us getting dinner somewhere and making hypothetical lists about if we had to buy a sedan, coupe, truck, van, etc., which of the ones at the show we'd put at the top of our list.

I think spending a year shopping for a car really dislodged all those fond memories bubbling around up there.

Even now, I find myself still reading automotive news sites and GMAuthority and, well, typing out all this nonsense here on r/cars.

So all that to lead to this question: Is there a name for this? Are there other people here who like cars, but only at a distance?

What, in your opinion, constitutes a car person?