Junk Pride

I first heard about the Junky Car Club about a year ago listening to a podcast interview with founder Mike Foster. Being someone who never really went down the gotta-be-into-sports-and-flash-cars-cause-I'm-a-guy-and-that's-what-we-do route, and having been the proud owner of a number of junky old cars myself, the word kinship immediately sprang to mind. Only the difference here is that loads of the junksters who are part of this odd movement actually ARE into cars, and that's the whole point!

The club was established in the spring of 2006 when Mike decided to sell his fully loaded Infiniti G35 sports car to drive a junky 1993 Toyota Camry. The decision was an act of rebellion against consumerism and came out of a desire to give more to worthy causes. Mike made the switch, and then began to enlist his friends and associates to join him in this experiment of driving with less and giving more. Excited and enthusiastic about driving junky cars, these guys aren't embarassed, ashamed or self-concious about their beaters...instead they practice JUNK PRIDE.

While consumeristic culture promotes the new and the shiny, the Junky Car Club exalts the ugly and the dented, and they've made a conscoius choice not to care less about the brands and the latest models, letting their lives and self-worth be defined by what they do, and not what they drive.

Next time I get myself a car, it might well be a junkster...

www.junkycarclub.com