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...And because cars are an extension of a person's identity; you can tell a lot about a person by the car they drive and how they care for it.

I disagree with that position entirely. So your point is that you can quantify someone totally as merely the sum of their posession(s)? I used to operate a '69 Mercury Cougar. The outside looked like hell, and the interior needed a lot of work, but as an Engineer I modified the bloody thing behind the dash and under the hood to where it was a real terror on the road -or off of it! What was on the outside was totally irrelevant -it is what is INSIDE that truly counts!

For the record, it blew the doors off of factroy-new vehicles without even trying (not that I ever enguaged in any illegal racing or similar stunts, mind), and even stomping on the accellerator doing 65 it would still chirp the tyres and sink you deep into the seat with the g-forces.

What is on the exterior is worthless for the most part, and I can tell you many stories of overpriced Gutless Wonders that I have come across as time has passed.

So your point is that you can quantify someone totally as merely the sum of their posession(s)?

No, although you can glean a lot from it. You can clearly understand my point, and you proved it. Your choice to own and take the care to modify a vintage '69 Cougar says something about you as a person. The way you're going on about it's performance does too. It's not a car everyone would chose. Why are there muscle car lovers? Street rod lovers? Off-roaders? Monster trucks? I'm sure you see where I'm going...vehicle choices and interests are as much an extension of a person as their choices in clothes, sports, music, reading, recreation. Otherwise the car companies are sending billions of dollars down the toilet with their market research, color and style research, advertising campaigns, etc. They make a science of appealing to their target markets.
Of course I do realize that sometimes people are driving a car that they aren't very jazzed about for one reason or another. But as soon as you ask them about their car, they usually tell you what they wish they were driving. Like me...I wish my Subaru Outback Sport was a '69 GTO. Likely that will never happen, but the next Subaru will at least be a WRX. Like you, I have a thing for performance.

you can say that again.. My 83 Cutlass has to have the windows rolled down to open the doors from the outside, need a paintjob and new interior.. but there are very Cutlasses built from 81-87 that can touch it. Got about $2000 in the engine alone (73 455 Rocket), built up an overdrive transmission with a shift kit, and got heavy duty handling modifications. In all I probably got about $5000 in it and it still needs painting, but I guarantee that nothing out there short of a ZO6 Vette or any bona fide sports car (read not a ricer) with NOS can touch it..

So your point is that you can quantify someone totally as merely the sum of their posession(s)? I used to operate a '69 Mercury Cougar. The outside looked like hell, and the interior needed a lot of work, but as an Engineer I modified the bloody thing behind the dash and under the hood to where it was a real terror on the road -or off of it!

I had an early-70's Mercury Comet, outside banged up, NICE V8 under the hood, and from before anti-pollution gear robbed you of performance. The thing I liked most was the ability to park it on a New York street and have it still be there when I returned