The year is 1997, a thirty-two-year-old Richard makes his way into his local Chevrolet dealership. He’s determined and ready to make his first big car purchase. His father owned a Corvette, his grandfather owned a corvette, and now that brand new C5 Corvette is waiting for him. Cars are almost never a good investment, that’s what they say, but Richard knows this is different. This one’s special.
The C5 is unlike anything he, or likely anyone else, had ever seen. But even in the dream-like world of memories I paint, there are problems. The interior is about 5 years out of date, the seats support the driver like an ex-husband dodging alimony, and the tan pleather and maroon body he’s picked out may sound forward-thinking, but this is no resale ready Ferrari. The tan looked off from the factory, and in a few years, it’ll lean even more into the category of shit brown than it already does.
Some things get better with age, but not all things. While Richard’s marriage had started happily, lately he found himself more and more discontent with the state of his life. And much like his wife, his love of this C5 Corvette will not last. But cars aren’t like women, he’d chuckle to himself and his golfing buddies, he can trade up down the line.
But Richard was wrong.
The value he saw in his C5 Corvette didn’t last. In fact, when he returned to the dealer years later for his hopeful upgrade to a C6, he found himself starring down the barrel of another loan with a lot more zeroes than he expected.
“This is ridiculous, I don’t need this anyway, it’s basically the same car.”
His anger would echo throughout the aging C5 owner community. After all, why would their investments depreciate? Their houses haven’t! I mean a little off the top is okay, but not this much! But none of that mattered because Richard knew that depreciation stops at some point, and appreciation there begins. Why wouldn’t it! This is a certified classic car! His 150,000 miles meant nothing, this was showroom quality! A 1 of 70 for that year with this option package dreamboat!
He knew what he had.
What Richard never learned in life was that you don’t always win. In fact, generally, you lose. It only made sense coming from a generation of men taught that real estate was the perfect investment. A generation who forced the markets up with zoning laws and other arbitrary clauses to pad their own lives out and fuck all of those who came after. Try as they might to deny it, one thing is clear. The aging boomer mentality rings throughout the C5 community; this car is an investment.
Today, Richard is in his 50’s. He still golfs with his buddies, he still complains about his wife. He still drives his C5 Corvette to and from his office every summer’s day, now the dash reads closer to 200,000 miles. But Richard knows he has a classic car. And when Richard posts his classifieds he lets everyone know it.
I know what I have.
The war cry of a senile old bag, unable to accept that he lives in a world where he loses. He won’t ever get half of what he paid new. Because in a world where the Aston he couldn’t afford can depreciate like a stone but his American-built Barbie toy hodls to the moon, we all lose. As Richard continues to justify repairs and chases issues with his aging C5, there is a glimmer of hope. No one seems to be buying. After all, C5’s aren’t worth what Richard and his silver-haired brothers seem to think.
And thankfully, for once, the world seems right.
Good luck if you actually want a C5, these propecia pilled retards can’t take a hint.