Hagerty Customer Shares Personal Love Story

With more than 7,000 enthusiasts revealing how much they love their classic, many outstanding “other significant other” stories poured in. We thought you’d enjoy reading one of them from an enthusiast who told us that his “love story” began with a classic his spouse didn’t want and now many birthdays and anniversaries later they have five “other significant others!”

I bought my ’66 Bonneville in 1999 much to my “significant others'” objection. Since then I started a car club, wrote two club theme songs and traveled to more than 170 other events during the past four years. The survey asked for a score of 1-5 and I added “Dinner and my ‘significant other’ but you needed to add an “S” because they both go all the time! The truth is that after retiring in 1986, my marriage went downhill significantly…until I discovered that we both loved cruisin’ in this car. It’s a top down, thumbs-up beautiful Bonneville that stops for vittles and many other places on a cruise.

Now, here’s the part you won’t believe: In 2001, I bought my wife a ’65 Thunderbird for our anniversary. It needed a lot of work, so for her birthday I bought her a 30/30 garage complete with an air compressor, welder and paint tools. In 2002 I got her an ’85 Jaguar for our anniversary and for her birthday, a car lift. In 2003 it was a ’64 Grand Prix HT, and for Christmas I got her a completely restored red and white Fury III convertible. Do I love my “significant other” or what? Maybe it’s an obsession of some kind or an addiction, but I’m grateful that cruisin’ saved our marriage, now going on our 47th year, won us some 176 trophies, 24 great new friends and only cost me a mere $56,000.

I don’t think she’s going to go for another car for her birthday this year, though! Last year she bought me diamond earrings…and insisted I get my ears pierced. Well at least that’s what I think she meant by having another hole in my head. Things don’t last forever these days, but we still have a lot of laughs over this kind of the “other significant other” hobby.

– Kent T., Florida