Why Do We Only Bond With Specific Cars?

As our parents and/or other halves often take time to remind us, people like us do spend a lot of time looking at buying or swapping cars. It’s a bit of an addiction for some of us – or at least it can seem that way to those on the outside.

From year to year (or even month to month) we’ll chop and change our rides because they don’t excite us anymore, they keep breaking or just because of the constant lure of something better. On the other hand, sometimes we come across a car that we just can’t part with. What’s that all about?

Often we buy cars for our current circumstances, forgetting the bigger picture. Towing a lot? Great excuse for a pickup or a V6 diesel estate. Parking in cities all the time but want something fun? A hot hatch it is, then. Getting into trackdays? You simply need that cheap E46 M3 you’ve just spotted less than 10 miles from home.

If you play chess one move at a time, you’re going to lose. That same principle is why buying a car for what we need right now is often the wrong thing to do. How often is ‘what you need right now’ also what you need two years from now? Through your late teens and 20s, that’s pretty much never. Your lifestyle changes. Your income changes. Your priorities change. Inevitably, your cars change.

Secretly we quite like this financially ruinous merry-go-round. It’s all the excuse we need to swap cars as often as we want to. The enjoyment is partly down to the endorphins released by buying something we tell ourselves we really want; that rush of something new (to us) and the honeymoon period that comes after.

There’s something deeper than that, though; a bug that only bites sometimes. Some cars’ novelty begins to wear off after a week, or a month. Their faults and compromises start to show, and while we tell ourselves that we still love them, we already know exactly why we’ll end up selling them. Shh, don’t tell anyone else aboutthe issue for now, until you’ve found a replacement.

In the space of a few years I went from a Renault Sport Clio 182, to a Peugeot 206 GTI HDI, to a MkI Mazda Eunos Roadster, to a base-spec Citroen Berlingo, to a Mazda 6 Sport diesel, to a Skoda Fabia vRS and then, after a gap, a Honda S2000.

Looking back, the best all-round solution would have been to keep the 206. It was a really, really good car and would have got me through that entire period. We’re not always the most sensible people when it comes to these choices, are we?

But. Occasionally you’ll land on a car and after a week, or a month, you still can’t wait to take each drive in it. You keep finding excuses to go out. “Ahh, the Mrs needs some more paprika.” “Hmmm, I’m only on three-quarters of a tank so I’ll drive to that Shell station three towns over.” “I, err, thought I heard a clonk on the front suspension so I’m just going to go and have a drive to check…” These are cars we fall in love with.

Maybe it’s a particular noise the car makes. The way it feels. Maybe it’s how many things it’s good at. Something unique to you and the way you’re coded just creeps up, whispers “you’re mine, now” into your ear, and wham: you’re in a long-term relationship.

I know I’m not alone in saying that I haven’t bonded with most of the cars I’ve owned. Hands up, I admit it: I’ve bought more than a few cars that made precious little sense at the time, let alone after six months. But there were a few, like the 206, that I really did like a lot and should have kept longer.

I’ve had my Octavia vRS for three weeks, now. I can see it from my office window, and every time I look at it, part of my mind involuntarily finds an excuse to drive it. Right now it’s that I need some new number plate fixings, and you can bet I’ll hit the road as soon as this article is written. It’s been too long since I had that tiny everyday thrill in my life, and I have a sneaky feeling it’s going to last.

Which cars have you bonded with and kept long-term? Which ones gave you short-term thrills but ended up getting annoying? Which cars do you wish you’d kept for longer? Let us know below!