One thing that never fails to irritate me is how horrible some people are to other enthusiasts. Too many people think that being an elitist makes you a superior enthusiast. Case in point: I was reading a thread on RX8Club (a forum I rarely visit) titled “Calling all 5ZIGEN owners.” Apparently some party (or parties) were talking about how time-attack style wheels are played out and they were pretty much flaming the offending parties that were sporting said played out wheels. An extremely good point was brought up by one member:
“i think everyone needs to stop worrying about wheels being “played out.” who really gives a damn? we all obviously have the same taste in cars, and given that, i don’t think it’s unreasonable that our taste in wheels might overlap occasionally. maybe it’s just me, granted, i don’t live in the heart of some ridiculous import scene where that type of retarded thing counts for so much. it doesn’t help that the 8 is a hard car to pick out wheels for.
cliff notes: it’s kind of stupid to argue about originality on a message board built around all of us owning the exact same thing.”
Image courtesy of http://www.shsu.edu/~soc_www/
I haven’t heard a truer statement in a while. It just irritates me when people act so elitist on such a silly topic… or on any topic for that matter. Why does it matter that someones sporting wheels that weigh 30lbs. or a set of wheels that cost as much total as one of yours? Everyone has their own taste. There are more than 304,000,000 people in the United States alone, I would guess that maybe 1% of that number covers all of the car enthusiasts in the country, and maybe 40% of those are import enthusiasts… there are definitely not more than a million wheel options. I would venture a guess that for a given car there are probably only two-to-three hundred different applicable wheel options total, and most cars will have a lot of overlap. A lot of people sport (proudly, I might add) many “played out” wheels, including FN01R-C’s.
My RX8. Photograph by me.
I happen to own a set of these wheels. I am a huge fan of them. They’re simple, come in great sizes and finishes, and they’re relatively inexpensive. What’s wrong with being a fan of something that has hundreds thousands of fans? A lot of people like Harley-Davidson motorcycles, does that make it played out? A lot of people like Nike shoes, does that make them played out? Maybe, but that’s not a bad thing. Popularity tends to denote quality and owner-satisfaction. My wheels are high-quality (as I perceive them as well as from practical applications of their quality (read: potholes)) and I am very satisfied with my purchase.
I realize that most cars have a “style” or a general template for what every one of those specific cars should look like (i.e. VW Golf = mega stretch hella flush wheels/tires, Lexus GS/LS = VIP/Bippu/Bosuzoku…), but everyone has their own individual taste. The point I always try to stress is that it’s your car, do what you want. I like hella flush wheels and stretch-fit tires, a very uncommon theme among RX8 owners, but I still rock it. You like (insert theme here) so you rock it. The elitist mentality that many enthusiasts have is exactly what car clubs/groups/organizations/forums aren’t about.
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The Enthusiast 
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