Not only does this put people in danger, but it makes responsible owners who simply want to enjoy their cars more susceptible to targeted ticketing. Here's what some owners are saying about it:

The car gets an insane amount of attention from the wrong type of people: street racers and ricers.

The "getting the wrong attention" part I agree with. Ricers are like bugs that disturb my piece on the roads.

I get all sorts of weirdos but my wife driving the car REALLY gets them. Pics, videos, had a guy on a street bike follow her home the other day (of course this happens when I'm out of town).

Funniest sorry I've got is some guy pulling up next to me and doing old Caesar "thumb down" motion while staring me down.

Mine only seems to get attention from 15 to 30 year old males. The darned thing is a sausage magnet. Drives me nuts. The ones I hate are those that feel entitled to take photos of it. The other day I was at a local cycle shop and a young man stopped what he was doing, walked past my wife and I, took a pic with his phone, walked past us again and resumed his task. Never said a word to us.

Due to the fantastic performance of the car it is very boring to drive on public roads. You step on the gas on the highway and you are going 100 before you know it. You have to consciously keep it boring in order to stay safe and avoid law enforcement. In my STi I could wind out first, second, third, and part of fourth gear and still be 'safe'.

Due to the above mentioned issues, it is kind of hard to justify spending such a large amount of money on a car you can't really enjoy all the time. Sure I love tracking it and autocrossing it, but that is only like 5-10% of the time I spend in the car.

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If you ever have the chance to drive a Nissan GT-R, do it. It's a spectacular performer and looks every bit as exotic as anything three times its price. But if you aspire to own one, hold off for a while before the market adjusts to a more normal depreciation curve and make sure you budget for major driveline work. It was a phenomenal value six years ago, and hopefully in time, it'll return to its unbeatable bargain in the marketplace. However, if you don't want to follow my advice, try to find a better deal on a GT-R and prove me wrong - but be warned, the odds are against you.


Tavarish is the founder of APiDA Online and writes about buying and selling cool cars on the internet. He owns the world's cheapest Mercedes S-Class, a graffiti-bombed Lexus, and he's the only Jalopnik author that has never driven a Miata. He also has a real name that he didn't feel was journalist-y enough so he used a pen name and this was the best he could do.

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