: :

: You are on the money about watches being easier to
: collection/maintain but it very, very nice to take a classic car
: out for a drive. I love the feedback of the car and the smell.
: It always draws a smile from me and everybody I pass.

: With watches it's almost like you have to explain to people why
: they are interesting and sometimes they think you are a snob.

Hi Neil
of course, you are right about the feeling when taking a classic car out for a ride. It even was a lot more fun a couple of decades ago like in 1972 when guys like Marc Nicolosi, the founder of Retromobile in Paris, took his Bugatti 35B out on the road, down to the Nurburgring, raced it at the AVD historic grand prix and drove it back home again. And he changed the head gasket under the open sky in the old drivers lot between races... Today I feel that the fun with a small cheap old car is higher than with one of the ones in my old pictures. Nobody envies you when you ride around in an old VW Bug, an Isetta or a FIat 500. You have to worry about every scratch, never leave your eyes off of it when you park it or have to phone hotels ahead of time to make sure you get a safe place to leave it over night. In the late 70s and early 80s I parked my 300SL GW right outside on the street for weeks and nothing would happen. Then one day in 1983 some nut "signed" off my 10-yr-old 911 with a key all along the passenger side and that was the end of the fun shared with passers-by.
Today, just the insurance premium for one of the high-end classic cars will buy you a very nice old watch every single year...
I enjoy them on my wrist and tell no one about them unless I'm asked. And I can set up a "watches and coffee" meeting with like-minded friends easier, faster and less complicated than a "cars and coffee" where hardly anybody shows up should the weather turn out bad.
Cheers from Old Europe
Richard G