THE VEHICLE IS THE VEHICLE

I never wanted to drive as a kid.

I loved cars. I just had absolutely no interest in being the person behind the wheel.

Crawling out of a rolled Citroën Xantia at 14 probably had something to do with that. It left a bad taste, and when I eventually learned to drive it was through necessity more than excitement. Living in rural Dorset without a car has a habit of making the decision for you.

Even after passing my test, I remember telling Dad that cars really weren't my thing. I didn't care what I ended up with, so we might as well open the Yellow Pages, find the cheapest thing available and get the whole process of buying my first car over with.

That plan lasted until a Mk2 Golf showed up.

like this…but a lot more ropey

THE ONE THAT STARTED IT

I don't remember there being some great revelation. I certainly didn't drive home suddenly declaring myself a car person. I just know that somewhere along the way, that Golf changed the relationship completely.

One car became another. I started noticing wheels, ride heights, interiors and all the tiny details that nobody outside this world could possibly care about. I learned the strange satisfaction of finding exactly the right part and the even stranger willingness to spend far too much money making an old car marginally different.

Cars became a constant.

Through every other hobby, fad, good year and shit one, they're the thing I've always come back to. My tastes have changed and the cars themselves have changed, but I've never really stopped being interested in them.

The older I've got, though, the more I've realised that the machinery might only be part of the reason why.

THE PEOPLE AROUND THEM

When I think about the periods of car culture I enjoyed most, I don't immediately think about a particular engine, wheel or build.

I think about people.

I think about niche groups of people becoming disproportionately excited about incredibly specific things. Driveway builds that took years. Forums full of knowledge that existed nowhere else. Driving three hours to stand in a field looking at cars you could have stayed home and looked at on the internet.

I think about the person who knows everything there is to know about some completely unremarkable model because they've owned theirs for twenty years. Or the person willing to spend a small fortune keeping a car alive that common sense says they should have got rid of a decade ago.

There's something infectious about being around people who genuinely care about something.

Their enthusiasm makes you more interested. You start asking questions, noticing things you wouldn't otherwise notice and eventually developing your own collection of useless knowledge.

I think a lot of my passion for cars came from the passion of other people.

THE PLACES THEY TAKE YOU

Cars have also been remarkably good at giving me reasons to do things.

I've met some of my closest friends because of them. I've travelled because of them, crossed countries because of them and ended up in places I probably wouldn't otherwise have thought to visit.

Sometimes the destination mattered. Quite often it didn't.

A show in a field could justify an entire weekend away. Buying a part could become a day trip. A drive could be organised simply because somebody found a road that looked good. The car gave everyone an excuse to leave the house, and everything that happened afterwards was the bit you actually remembered.

When I look back at the best of it, I rarely remember the drive in isolation. I remember who was there, where we stopped, what went wrong, where we ate and whatever stupid thing happened that still gets brought up years later.

The cars gave us a reason to be there. I think that's the bit I've been missing lately.

THE SCENE I REMEMBER

Car culture has never really been about having the best car in the room. At least, the version of it I loved wasn't.

There were obviously incredible builds and cars everyone wanted to see, but you didn't need one of them to participate. You needed something you cared about and enough enthusiasm to drive it somewhere.

The internet helped enormously. Forums gave tiny niches somewhere to exist and helped people who would otherwise never have met find one another. But eventually the online part was supposed to turn into something real.

You went to the show. Joined the convoy. Met the person behind the username. Helped someone fit a part. Stood around a car park talking absolute bollocks until far later than you'd intended.

The car was common ground. What happened around it was the culture.

SO, 10MM

I don't think car culture needs saving, and I'm definitely not interested in recreating some perfect version of the past that probably never existed, There are brilliant people doing brilliant things with cars everywhere.

I'd just like more reasons to find them. More reasons to get the car out rather than look at somebody else's on a screen. More places worth going to and interesting people worth meeting when we get there. Sometimes that might mean a good road. Sometimes a workshop, a campsite, a pub, a strange destination or an objectively stupid activity organised with far more care than it deserves.

The specifics can change but The idea is simply to use cars as the excuse.

That's where 10MM starts for me. Not with the fastest, rarest or even technically “the best” cars. It starts with people who give a shit about the one they have and are willing to see where it might take them.

Because after all these years of thinking I was obsessed with cars, I'm beginning to suspect the vehicle was always just the vehicle.

It's what happened because of it that mattered.