I was listening to The Smoking Tire Podcast and the topic came up about dissatisfaction with a car once you've finished building it up. Most people are in love with the journey of modding a car into their vision but once it's completed they instantly get bored with it. What they then do is sell the finished project and start a new one, a never-ending cycle where the joy comes from the process, not the results.
Or perhaps the euphoria from the results is amazingly fleeting.
As I've written before, I don't modify my cars because A. I can't afford to and B. if I wanted to make my car better I'd rather buy a better car instead. That said I think the sort of fleeting happiness with a car does apply to my situation: I've yet to keep a car for longer than three years. It's not the most significant reason, but I'd be lying if I say a reason why I sold the WRX STI and the ND MX-5 after it wasn't due to being bored.
So then what constitutes as my "journey": the part where all the fun lies? The saving up process may be excruciating but it's also rather enjoyable: each cross-off on the calendar and each paycheck into the bank account is a hit of dopamine as I get ever nearer to actually making the purchase. Researching on a car is immensely satisfying, too: reading up on all the details and peculiarities of a particular car is one of the best parts of the entire experience.
I've been holding off on doing that for the 911 I plan to buy because it's still nearly a year from fruition, though you can bet I'm massively looking forward to achieving encyclopedic knowledge on the 991.1 GT3.
Of course nothing can match the utter high when the car is bought and I'm bombing it down a mountain road, listening to the symphonic wail of the engine. I guess things gets a bit wanting after that as my eyes would wander off to what's mew and different.
And the GT3 is to be my 'Forever Car'?! It's certainly possible I too will get bored with an 911 within a few years of buying one and then sell it for another car. We shall see if old patterns and habits can die; I seriously would like to break the streak; it would take something incredibly special (and absurdly expensive) indeed to be objectively better than a GT 911.
Don't go chasing.