All that stupid shit you do between when you're 16 and 20 something to your car before you learn the ways of MMM - you know, when your car is a statement, instead of merely a lazy mans way to get from here to there. In hindsight, my statement was "look what a dumb fuck I am for wasting all this money on a POS car". Of course, the typical knuckle headed kid would view the statement as something else entirely, but that's what helps to define the stupidity of youth.
I did much of it - new rims, new tires, rebuilt the engine with performance parts, 4 barrel carb, yadda, yadda, yadda. Stupid shit, all of it*. I can't stand to think where I would be were I to have been smart enough back then (note, mid 80's to early 90's time frame) to have sunk the money** into, oh, I don't know, Microsoft.....(and then, of course, be smart enough to have bailed in January 2000 and gone all in on treasuries).
** - Lucky for me my stupidity was only moderate - on the order of a couple grand. However with the time value of money, it would be a shit pot more than that today.
* - I just saw a current version of this same phenomenon the other day. Some kid driving a POS Toyota sedan, with a mis-matched door. It had the fancy wheels n tires, lowered suspension, added on tall spoiler and these absolutely hideous chrome (stainless?) accent pieces all over it - chrome flames on the quarter panel, chrome gas filler door and multiple other chrome pieces. I bet the owner is proud and his friends are impressed.