John Foster

For most of my life, I’ve been infatuated with cars, starting when I was in middle school. I began by sketching some of my favorite models of cars, such as the legendary Lamborghini Veneno, Dodge Challenger R/T, Porsche 911, and dozens more in my art classes. In my computer class when I’d finish my classwork with extra time remaining I’d go to the Porsche website and build my own 911, meticulously hand-picking a plethora of different options for a car that I knew I’d likely never be able to afford.

Soon enough, however, I was able to afford my first car, and at 16 I bought my first one from my dad. It was a 2005 BMW 330i ZHP, unbeknownst to me a true enthusiast’s car. With highly responsive hydraulic steering, M Performance parts slathered all over, and a 235 horsepower Inline-Six, it was more than enough car for a 16-year-old. When my dad sold it to me it only had ~60,000 miles on it and he had always boasted that he never once redlined it. So sure enough on the first day of ownership my friend and I took it out to a backroad near my house and started launching it as hard as we could while recording 0-60 times, dozens of times over. Over the course of two years, I abused the car almost every day, attempting to do donuts in empty car lots and flooring it in places I likely shouldn’t have. While I do respect people who painstakingly maintain and baby their cars and have a lot of appreciation for them, in my opinion, it’s a much greater misdeed to not drive a sports car for its intended purpose than it is to abuse it.

Since then I’ve been lucky enough to acquire two new cars, an Audi S3 and a C63s AMG Coupe, both of which are wonderful in their own ways. The Audi is a perfect daily driver and is an extremely forgiving car to get into with its exceptional All-Wheel-Drive Quattro system. The C63s however is nearly the opposite, which is what makes it so much fun with its loud obnoxious roar and backend that can sometimes too easily come loose. While I do love both of these two cars tremendously, I think the BMW will still always hold a special place in my heart and have much more sentimental value to me than these two ever could. Not because of the performance it offered, or the speed, or even sound, as it lacked in every one of those categories. Instead, it’s simply because of all the fond memories I made in it with my friends.