One of the hardest parts about life is that, often, people find themselves with not enough time or resources to fulfill their goals. Maybe you want to learn how to drive fast on a track or maybe you want to learn how to rebuild an engine, but between work, life, and family, there’s just no time. Maybe you want to restore that classic Ford Mustang in your garage, but the cost to do so is currently beyond your means. There are countless automotive dreams out there, and sometimes, life just gets in the way. What’s your biggest automotive goal that you’ve been putting off?
While I did center this around cars, I am opening it up to all forms of transportation. Do you dream of sailing around the world, or motorcycling to some far-flung destination? Do you wish you could drive a semi or pilot a Boeing 787? All transportation goals are welcome here!
I have done so much in such a short time thanks the wonderful folks who run the Autopian. Through this excellent publication, I’ve driven a 700 HP pickup truck, got to play with one of the first Acura NSXs in America, flown on a Goodyear blimp, taken my first international trip, and have stepped foot in so many cool RVs. That doesn’t even mention some of the other great fun I’ve had like driving a diesel-electric locomotive, importing cars, and hooning an electric box truck.
This truly is a dream career, and I have so much more to go. One of my dreams has been to experience as many car cultures around the world as possible. I want to know how car enthusiasts in Africa hang out, I want to take a Smart onto the Nürburgring, and I want to take a ride through Chinese car culture. I’d love to actually visit Japan, instead of just importing cars from the country. I want to drive a massive Torsus bus and get a CDL. I also want to see how big an aircraft a Smart Fortwo can tow.
I have so many things to do, but so little time to actually begin to achieve them, and sometimes not the funding, either. After all, I couldn’t just disappear from these pages for a month to go on adventures!
But I am making one important step towards my dreams. As a kid, I always wanted to fly. Then, from late 2020 through much of 2021, I achieved my dream by racking up hours behind the controls of a Cessna 172.
Eventually, life got in the way, from quitting Jalopnik and losing health coverage to my wife getting cancer. My flying dreams kept getting pushed further off. But things are better now, and one thing that EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2025 taught me is that there’s no better time than the present to chase your dreams. So, as of next weekend, I’ll be back in the cockpit of my favorite Cessna, ‘ol 82H. I’ll have to start nearly at the beginning again, but I’m ready and excited.
How about you? What goals have you been putting off for way longer than you probably should have?
Top image car source: https://www.vau-max.de/
I want to use the toys I have. There is a 1999 Tahoe 2 door 4wd with the heavy duty towing package, ready to pull the 24 foot camper and the 1989 XJ Jeep Cherokee to the mountains. There are three motorcycles, a 1999 Nighthawk 250, a 2013 Suzuki 250 thumper and a 2003 CB 750 4 cylinder, all waiting to be taken off of the battery minders and ridden. There is the smoker that just got used this afternoon, breaking a nearly 2 year stretch of neglect. I was trained to work hard and gather “wealth” (meaning stuff) yet had no instructions on how or when to use my “wealth”. I want to use the snazzy gadgets I bought and bolted onto my vehicle, not just dream about “next weekend”.
I really want to get a NA1/NA2 Acura NSX or a decent air cooled 911. If only I could teleport back to 15 years ago and lecture the old me on why I should have pulled the trigger when prices were sane.
I want to finish my AP5 Valiant ute project, which of all the cars I’ve modified will be the only car I am likely to ever rebuild fully from the ground up, which is something I want to achieve at least once in my life. I’ve owned it since 2005 (holy crap, where did 2 decades go?) and have got as far as stripping it down to a rolling shell and building seat brackets for the BMW buckets that are going in. But since I bought it, when living in a tiny rented house with a huge garage, I’ve bought a house with a garage so small I’ve turned it into a little workshop a car won’t fit in, and have spent ages gradually enclosing a carport, making it properly weatherproof and ready so I could pull the tarpaulin off the ute, which I finally managed a year or so back.
Fortunately I have accumulated a lot of the harder to find parts I need over the years, plus being a custom build if I can’t source a correct original part, I’ll just make something else fit.
I’m glad i didn’t give up on the idea years ago and sell it, because I just couldn’t find or afford another one these days.
This might be a little mundane, but my biggest automotive goal that’s been put on hold is to get a garage…
I’ve lived in an apartment in the city for 10 years, and before that I was in the barracks in the Army for 6 years; I haven’t had a space to do any work on a car for so long.
I once held 10 ASE certifications, but I haven’t been able to change my own oil in over 15 years, and it hurts.
I had an ’88 SAAB 9000T that I loved. Not exactly rocket (jet) science, but I did replace the rear half of the exhaust system in my driveway.
The only thing on my to-do list is getting the front rotors turned or replaced on my ’17 Accord.
Pretty boring compared to some other loftier goals in the comments.
Honestly, it’s been switching my GTO back to the stock wheels. The rims exist, I have the bits, but just haven’t gotten the tires mounted and the aftermarket wheels the prior owner put on swapped out. It’s just money on tires that don’t currently need replacing.
Own any sort of car. Like a real one, not a scale model.
At this point i just want all my cars to run reliably…and get into some offroading since i just picked up a YJ Wrangler.
Own (and autocross) an aircooled Beetle, especially with a hopped-up engine and better suspension, but still looking stock. Blame the Herbie movies as a foundational part of my childhood.
Drive a DeLorean. (See above.) Own a DeLorean (especially with an upgraded engine) if I win the lottery.
Be part of the crew on a steam locomotive. Really, operate any locomotive but steam holds a special place in my heart.
Get a pilot’s license.
Just…get better at motorcycling in general? This isn’t quantifiable, but just improve at all facets. Learn good habits, conquer my fear of leaning, understand how to react in emergencies, learn and become comfortable with performing maintenance. Find a nice used copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Comfortably outgrow – and then rehome – my TU250X and move on to a “forever” bike like a Triumph Bonneville, Moto Guzzi v7 Classic, Kawasaki W-series, or the like.
Wide tire bikes like the Surly Pugsley steer very like a motorcycle.
What a great name for a bike. It sounds like a Great Depression-era boxer.
“Surly Pugsley steers like a motorcycle, but the boy’s got the moxie to be the champeen!”
Right now? Replacing the transmission on the Focus ST, which has the 2nd gear synchro out and as such, I just go right from first to third. It’s fine to daily drive, but I find it’s affecting my muscle memory, and end up doing so in other, less-able manual cars, which can’t be a good thing. 1->3 is fine when you’ve got 250+ horsepower in a small car, but when you’ve got maybe 25hp, not such a good move.
Long-term? I’d like to do an actual East-to-West coast drive. There’s huge swaths of the US I’ve just never done anything but fly over, and I think that’s a shame.
Drive into Canada. I’ve never left the country and it’s right there! Why have I waited so long?
During the restoration of my Datsun 280Z, I aquired a free L28 from a friend. I set out to turn it into a 3.1L stroker.
It got rebored, the crankshaft, rods and pistons are in and … it’s been sitting for over a year. I’ll get to put it back together some day but I just can’t imagine pulling the engine out of my running S30 that I’m enjoying so much.
My automotive dream is to be behind the wheel of that orange NSU TT… again, though not in the situation depicted! Mine was orange, too. Three-quarters of a ton of fun, it was. Sold as the better Beetle, most wound up with numbers on their doors. Mine had a blackout hood and an Abarth four-pipe muffler, just like the German hillclimb racers on YouTube. It sounded so good that I neglected to install a radio for a year or two.
Restoring my ’64 F100 coach-built crewcab. Been thinking about it for a decade or more. Still drive it though. A recent Autopian article includes it: https://www.theautopian.com/crew-cabs-campers-a-far-traveling-phev-and-one-shamancycle-members-rides/