Life is hard for the average male exotic car owner. Not only does he have to deal with higher repair costs, steep depreciation curves, and abysmal fuel economy, but according to Doug DeMuro, it turns out women don’t respond at all to his costly investment. Luckily, I found a Lamborghini owner who disagrees. Here’s his story.

A few months back, I got to interview YouTube personality, obsessed car enthusiast and all-around good human being Rob Dahm about how much his 2001 Lamborghini Diablo actually cost to maintain. I also asked him a few questions about how living with the car day to day affected his relationships with the opposite sex, and whether he agreed with Doug DeMuro’s interesting take on the matter.

Rob: Absolutely, for a couple of reasons. There’s no other way to say it: I’m very fortunate that my parents were good looking people, and I’m not an imposing character. I don’t stare, and I’m always smiling. You can be a creep in a Lamborghini and you can be a creep in an Escort, that part doesn’t change. But with this, I have girls cat-calling. Yeah, there’s definitely more guys and teenage boys and whatnot, but those are car enthusiasts and it’s part of the fun.

I don’t take this car to clubs because everybody is aware you’re there. Everybody. They’re either staring at you or trying hard not to stare, or not look, like “he’s an asshole, I’m going to look away because I’m going to assume.” But this car is like the ultimate icebreaker for starting conversations. And because I’m not full of myself — that’s how you get your shit keyed — I treat everybody equally, just like I’d want to be treated, and I think it’s a combination of those two elements that make this car attractive to people.
Now, a Ferrari 360 is a beautiful car, but it’s not like a Diablo. This car is obnoxiously designed, it’s very eye-catching. The color is loud, the style is loud, the doors go up, you can’t not notice this. I do get people asking as I drive by “is that a Ferrari?” but they always know it’s something crazy, where the 360 is more subtle and more comfortable and all those fun things but this is — not a step above, but it’s a completely uncompromising car that seems to attract everybody’s attention.

Tavarish: I remember hearing this line somewhere, maybe it was in Top Gear, but it was something like “Ferraris are for dropping seconds on a lap, Lamborghinis are for dropping G-strings.”
Rob: Haha! Well, this is why I don’t go to clubs, because — and this is not a bullshit story — I had an absolutely gorgeous, beautiful girl come up to me when I pulled out in front of the club with my girlfriend at the time. She came over to me, trashed, and said “Is this your car?” I said “yeah”, and she goes “I’ll go home with you.” And I thought that was a figure of speech, and of course I’m laughing, and I’m telling this girl who’s trashed “I thought that was a euphemism or a metaphor,” and she said “Whaaat? Is this your car or not?” I made some joke about “as long as you want to sit on my girlfriend’s lap” and played it off, but when you talk about those certain types of women, she was definitely one of them. Great for eye candy, but I like people with substance. But trust me, I wasn’t offended, and I appreciated it.

Tavarish: As far as everybody’s response as an aggregate, are their first responses to the car when they see you driving it negative or positive?
Rob: Neutral. It depends on the area, because I live in a town where people are exceedingly conservative, and it really put me in a bad spot when I bought the car mentally, because here I am, I bought my dream, and people turned their backs on me. Like “Oh, you’re spending that much on yourself? You could spend that money on charity!” — which none of them bother to do, especially that kind of money. So I had a lot of negative response immediately and now it’s cool because I have YouTube, but before people knew me, it’s generally more icy, more reserved, with a “who the hell does he think he is” mentality, with the assumption that I’m a douchebag, which could be true, but nowadays, people come up to me and say “Are you Rob Dahm?” and “I watch your YouTube channel!”I’d say about 75 percent of the people that come up to me now know of me ahead of time, so that’s even cooler.

By Jalopnik