"Quarter Life Crisis" featured in GQ Magazine

I guess it’s inevitable after five faithful years in an exclusive relationship with the same woman. Or maybe it’s inevitable because I have recently become a man in his 30s and am thus in the vice-like grip of a quarter-life crisis. But just lately I’ve begun to have impure thoughts. I’m chasing after an older model – and the dirtier, the better. I want a racy temptress that has been around the block a few times and knows how to give a man a hell of a ride.

I’m not proud of it but I’ve developed an unhealthy habit of staying up late at night when the missus has fallen asleep, hunched over my laptop, furtively searching all the best pawn sites. I know that I have to click on “clear history” at the end of a session to cover my guilty tracks. My mobile is now full of mysterious phone numbers from chance pick-ups that never quite work out. I’ve sent a few bold texts, I’ve even called up a few for a chat. So far I haven’t had the guts to follow through with my fantasies, but it’s eating away at me and I know I’m going to give in soon. Yes, I’ll admit it: I desperately want a classic car.

Why this sudden lust for rust? Up until quite recently, I was never fussed. Couldn’t understand the mentality of revheads who talk the torque of ludicrous three-letter acronyms (TLAs) and Top Trumps stats about comparative cylinder configurations and engine sizes and 0-60 times. I mean, WTF? Who really GAS? Then a couple of years ago, I started writing the odd woefully under-informed car review for a style magazine and I saw the full beam. All of a sudden, I was driving round Audis and Mercs and Beemers every other weekend. Then on one unfortunate occasion, I loaned an unruly Caterham Seven that shot off like a champagne cork into a clumsily placed wall – and that was the end of that: the car, the wall, the gig. But too late: those first hits were free and I was duly hooked.

I need to ’fess up at this point: I have been driving for 13 years without ever actually owning a car. I have somehow got through life being insured on other people’s: my mum’s estate (which was fine), my girlfriend’s Ford KA (which was not) and Caterham’s Seven (which was a bloody good job). But now I have reached a new nadir: the missus and I currently drive around one of those tiny Smart cars with advertising all over them because a) they are nearly free to rent, b) they are a doddle to park in the city and c) my girlfriend has no shame. But I do. I fight her for the passenger seat so that at least I can keep my head down and shield my crimson face. People actually stop stock-still in the street, point and laugh when they see us coming. I dread pulling up at the lights next to some hoon in his souped-up neon ute. They look at me with a mixture of incredulity, derision and pity before grunting off in a cloud of testosterone. Like a man who is lumbered with Sharon from Kath & Kim when he has slept with Lara Bingle, I know I could do better.

And that is why I have the perma-horn for a trophy car. I don’t care how efficient it is, how easy it is to park, how practical the boot space is. I want something that turns heads for the right reasons: because it looks amazing.

I could, I suppose, buy an anonymously anodyne second-hand Toyota or perhaps even splash out on a late 90s Mazda convertible. But I’m a terrible label snob, which is almost a prerequisite of accepting employment at this magazine, and I’m unlikely ever to be satisfied with a middle-of-the-road marque. Like all well-adjusted men with a high GQ, I like timeless classics. I see a vintage Merc, an old school Fiat Spider or – my personal favourite – a Citroen DS in the street and I come over all Pepé Le Pew, salivating with the lasciviousness of a priapic skunk. A friend of mine keeps posting Facebook pictures of his livid yellow Jaguar E-type with its ludicrous frontage on display and big almond eyes flashing at me and it’s turning me livid green with envy. Got. To. Have. One.

Up until recently, this was nothing but an exhaust pipe dream, but for the first time in my life, it is a fantasy I could now afford to realise. I’ve saved up $17K in the last six months. A quick check of www.autotrader.com.au tells me that’s enough to get me a 1963 pillar box red MG, or a black 1975 Alfa Romeo coupe, or a 1972 champagne gold convertible Mercedes 350 SL. There’s just one small problem: I’ve actually been saving that money for an engagement ring.

My beloved doesn’t yet know about the money burning holes in my bank account and my conscience. And both my secret and my balls are safe for now as she never reads GQ – too busy with her stash of Bride magazine that she’s always leaving strewn about the house for some reason.

Soft-top Merc or soft-cock ring? (Sorry, that came out wrong – I don’t mean a cock-ring.) I cannot afford both. It’s like having a little devil revving in one ear and an angel chiming wedding bells in the other. On the one hand I could have a great lump that belches and farts, takes a while to get going in the morning, and will undoubtedly cost me a fortune in running repairs. On the other hand, I could get the car.