I've been watching this thread for a while and think it's time to chime in.
A few years ago, I was where the OP appears to be now. Slightly bored with his current ride, and disillusioned at all the new cars on the market which had no soul. I had just come off an Alfa 156 V6 not long ago, and was then driving a Fiat Coupe 20V Turbo Plus. So, since I had had a particularly good sales year, I decided that I was going to get a classic car. One with soul.
I knew I wanted a classic Alfa Romeo, something from the 70s. Stepnoses were far too rare and expensive, so I got myself a 1972 GT Junior 1600 in decent running condition. Like any self respecting 'car enthusiast', I took it upon myself to restore the car to her original glory. I was going to give this car a new lease of life. Nothing but the best parts, all original of course. Complete engine rebuild and a new interior were in the plans.
I might as well have just rolled my money into joints and smoked it. If you've never owned a classic car, nothing will prepare you for the hassles of keeping a classic car running. Parts are impossible to find. And when they are available, sellers price them like angel feathers. Finding a mechanic who's even willing to work on your dual 45mm Weber carbs is one thing. When you find him, he's likely to think of himself as a rock star, and he will work on your project when he damn well feels like working on it. Any time frame you might have had to get the car restored immediately goes out the window.
Then there's the driving. You see nicely restored classics at car meets all the time. Half the time, the owners don't know if the car will even survive the drive to the meet. The other half don't know if they will survive the drive back. Lol. So that rules out a classic being your one and only car. Most of the classic owners I know who have successfully restored their cars wind up parking their cars more often than driving them; maybe popping the car cover off once in a while to take a look at his kid's college fund parked in his garage. So, most of the time, a classic car becomes just bragging rights - I had the time and money to pour into this project, and that makes me a bigger 'car enthusiast' than the next Joe.
So, after a few years of my GT Junior being parked at the workshop in a half completed state, I decided to hang up my 'car enthusiast' creds and sold the Alfa. You have to be seriously committed to start a classic car project; some say you should be 'committed' if you want to get into classic cars. Lol
So don't think that everything old is gold. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt. I'm enjoying my [relatively] modern M3 with aircon, Waze and Spotify streaming, giving a thumbs up to the old chap in his classic 2002, thinking "you have more courage than me".
