Sasha Lantukh

From loved… to neglected… to loved again

May 8, 2026

I keep hearing this line: “a car for me is just a tool to get from A to B.” Often said by someone with a flashy car… or someone who can’t afford one. It sounds reasonable. Almost wise.

But the more I sit with it, the more it feels like a false choice.

On one side: the “status” crowd. Over-care, over-spend, chasing image, swapping perfectly good machines for newer ones. On the other: the “practical” crowd. No attachment. No emotion. Just use it, ignore it, move on.

The “A to B” framing becomes an easy excuse not to go beyond the bare minimum. Why think ahead? Why care? So you don’t.

And then the predictable happens. Things that aren’t cared for don’t last. They wear out faster, feel disposable, become disposable.

That might’ve made sense when cars were cheap to replace. But now they’re the opposite. Expensive to buy. Expensive to maintain. Expensive to ignore. Parts, labour, electronics — all adding up.

So you get this strange contradiction: we’ve been trained to treat cars as disposable… at the exact moment they’ve become too expensive to dispose of.

No wonder people are holding onto older cars longer. Keeping them alive. Stretching every year out of them.

The third option is less catchy — which is probably why nobody sells it.

Treat it with respect.

Not a status symbol. Not a throwaway “A to B” appliance. But something you’re temporarily responsible for.

You still see it sometimes — a 20 or 25-year-old car being hand-washed on a driveway by some middle-aged bloke who quietly keeps it alive because he genuinely enjoys it.

And maybe that’s the shift. Not just tolerating the thing… but actively learning to enjoy it.

Because when you look after something properly, it tends to look after you back — not just in lifespan, but in experience.

And the funny loop is this: cars started as things people loved. Then they became mundane burdens. Now they’re swinging back again — rescued, restored, proudly shown off, given stories once more.

So the question is simple:

Why not skip the middle phase?

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