Carini: When Modern Cars Made Me Eat My Words

This article first appeared in Hagerty Drivers Club magazine. Click here to subscribe and join the club.

When I started driving, I admired all kinds of cars, although I was most attracted to the ones that offered serious performance, like the Corvette, the Camaro Z/28, or the Shelby GT350, not to mention the Ferraris that were sent to my father’s shop for repair. In fact, the ’65 GT350 really opened my eyes to high-performance cars. I still think it is one of the best cars ever.

As a teen, I was lucky to have an inexpensive VW Beetle or Mini that ran most of the time. New cars were not an option, and if used cars were good enough for my dad, they were good enough for me.

Even when I could afford a new car in the late ’80s and into the ’90s, I didn’t think the cars being built were particularly good, and they certainly didn’t perform very well. After the early 2000s, that all changed as cars got better and better in what can only be called a renaissance for high-performance cars. We went from less than 200 horsepower in a Corvette to a mind-blowing 670 horsepower in a new Corvette Z06.

All of a sudden, there were quite a few powerful cars, many of which came from the Big Three automakers. There were Hemi-powered Dodge Challengers, base Corvettes with more than 400 horsepower, and Mustangs with all kinds of power. In fact, I went nuts for a 2020 Ford Shelby Mustang GT500, with its aggressive styling and 760 horsepower from a supercharged 5.2-liter V-8.

I couldn’t stop there, grabbing up a GT350R in 2021. They were just a small part of my new-car buying spree. I was also attracted to the Hellcat and the Demon, cars with tremendous power on tap. They offered more performance than the hottest ZL1 Camaro or Hemi Cuda from back in the day. Unlike ’60s and ’70s muscle, they go around corners and stop quickly. The icing on the cake is that they come with a new-car warranty, and they usually start on the first turn of the key. Finally, there were new cars that I truly wanted to buy.

This may sound strange coming from a guy who has worked in the old-car world for 50 years, but I really like a lot of modern performance cars. Although the core of my collection consists of old cars, these days it always includes modern cars. I may like a marque enough to have a couple of examples: My tastes range from a Citroën 2CV to my one-off Moal Speedway hot rod, and on to a Bentley 3-Litre, and a Demon.

Whether I’m buying a 100-year-old Stutz barn find or a new Corvette straight out of the showroom, I’m buying cars I like. With the old cars, the motivation could be looks, performance, or historical significance, although high performance is typically the motivator when I buy something new.

Thanks to my television show Chasing Classic Cars and my magazine columns, the New England Motor Press Association sends me press cars to sample. That means that I get weeklong test drives of the latest cars. I also get to decide which ones I can’t live with and those that I can’t live without.

Having sold the GT500 and the Demon, these days, I am totally content with my 2020 GT350R, 2024 Audi RS6 Avant, and 2024 Corvette Z06. The Corvette is a modern-day supercar. I could have three or four of them for the price of a new Ferrari. Then there is the RS6 Avant. I’ve long found fast station wagons—like my Cadillac CTS-V wagon—to be very cool. My goal with the new Audi is to load it up with four adults and their luggage and be timed at 200 mph on a racetrack. That will be one for the record books.

As for the GT350R, I chose to keep that one because it has a flat-plane crank, revs to a mind-bending 8250 rpm, and pumps out 526 horsepower. Ever since I saw the Sunoco commercials with Mark Donohue shifting a Z/28 at revs that would destroy most V-8s, I’ve always had a thing for high-revving American engines.

If anyone asks me why I own these new cars, the simple answer is that they’re fast and I like going fast. Just don’t ask me to choose between my ’65 GT350 and my 2020 GT350R. You might be surprised by my answer, but then again, I once found myself having to choose between a Dino 246 and a European honeymoon. After 40 years of marriage, I think we made the right decision.

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