I had never been a car brand loyalist, I have owned a few cars over the years with different setups from V8s, 4 bangers, rotaries, you name it, and enjoyed parts of each of them. I did however love my V8 cars more than anything else. I purchased a 2014 Mustang GT 5.0 brand new back in 2013 and I loved the car at the time. It had a powerful V8 from the factory and Mustangs always had amazing parts availability due to their popularity and the price of aftermarket parts reflected this which I loved as I could never keep a car stock for more than a month. The problem was that I purchased that car on the way back from my 1st deployment in the middle east, which made it tax free. I thought have a tax free car purchase was awesome, I had it registered in NC and I'm sure if I stayed there I never would have owed the government any taxes on it. That was until I got out of the military and moved to New York where they insisted in telling me that I would not be able to register my car until I pay the sales tax (which was about 8.5%) on the NEW value of the car. I was heartbroken, there was no way I would pay over $3000 to register a 3 year old car that had already depreciated a decent amount. I had so much money and time invested into the car, it was pushing out about 550hp on a shot of nitrous and had too many bolt ons to count.
I sold the car and purchased a cheap Honda Civic telling myself to keep it for a year and save money for another car I will enjoy. I was looking into so many different cars, most notably a used E92 M3 caught my eye, but the maintenance costs scared me away. Then I looked into a few newer cars that I could lease out and I knew the new Camaro was a great car so I drove the the dealership and gave it a test drive. I had never owned a car with an automatic transmission and the first Camaro I drove had the A8. I was pessimistic about it until I go the car out and used the paddles and realized just how blisteringly fast the shifts are and how much control I had over the car's performance with that transmission. The motor of course blew me away too, I would compare the performance of the stock 6.2 liter to the 5.0 WITH the nitrous, the torque was always there and the 8 gears really helped put it to great use. I went home and told myself I will wait a few months and save some more money to possibly buy one. That week all I could think about was the car, I was watching videos all day long, lurking this forum, so a week later I leased it out and I could not be happier. I now intend to purchase my car toward the end of the lease as I love this car. Every time I drive it a smile appears on my face.
