Yes, but for me it has nothing to do with the price of the object, and very little with how other people perceive it. True value comes elsewhere.

Take my friend's 1988 Toyota Land Cruiser for example. The wafer-thin doors close with a percussive clang, the interior is mostly exposed steel, it's very noisy, the stereo only works when driving on a perfectly level surface (preferably a sheet of polished glass), power steering is just about the only luxury on board, it's got four pogo sticks for suspension, various bits are rusting to hell, and fuel consumption is atrocious (12l/100km, 15l/100km in the winter; that's 19.6 and 15.7mpg US, or 23.5 and 18.8mpg UK). That fuel consumption translates to dreadful performance figures by today's standards: the 4.0-litre naturally aspirated diesel produced 100 horsepower when new and probably a whole lot less when my friend got his license in 2008, which meant that 0-100km/h (top speed, by the way) took about twenty seconds. By all accounts, it is terrible. And yet...

There is undeniable charm to the old bus, which I attribute to the visceral simplicity of the Land Cruiser's mechanicals and the way that you can't not hear and feel it all working. Every ride is an absolute joy for me, from the moment the big six fires to when it was time to let the old beast sleep again. I've driven it a few times as well. The steering is vague and takes about a million turns lock-to-lock, the winch that sprouts off the extended bumper somewhere out of sight makes parking tricky, and the five-speed gearbox has got curious characteristics: to all intents and purposes, it has a crawler gear, an overdrive, and three regular gears slotted in between. The engine is gutless on paper, but that simple gearbox makes the best of its limited abilities, so it feels relentless and surprisingly eager in the metal, filling the cabin with an organic roar that is music to my ears. I love that car to bits just for the way it feels, and that's not all: in addition to all that, it's the one car that I associate with my youth. There were Fords, Alfas, Nissans and Hondas and all sorts around, and probably all of them took me to a party or picked me up from one more than once, but I only have a soft spot for the Toyota. The parties, the fun, the mishaps, the adventures, the bright summer nights sitting on the tall, flat bonnet sharing a pack of cigarettes and a twelve-pack of beer. Wherever we went, the Land Cruiser was there, and that car embodies everything we had and were back then.

Like Jeremy Clarkson said, it's not what the car is physically capable of doing. It's how it makes you feel that matters.

An interesting thing to add about those old Toyota Land Cruisers...

Here in Australia, they are extremely popular with farmers. I am not a farmer myself, but i do frequently watch an Australian program on TV called 'Landline'.

Wherever they do a story in the 'outback' of Australia, you will see Toyota Land Cruisers, especially in remote areas. Even wealthy farmers use them, which i found quite puzzling?

Then on one show i was watching, this farmer had broken down in his Toyota Land Cruiser in the middle of the outback, he pulled out his toolbox and within an hour he was moving again.

Now have any of you ever tried self repairing 'modern' vehicles these days? They are deliberately designed to prevent back yard repairs, so then what use are they too Australian farmers? This is why they all drive old Toyota Land Cruisers.

Edit: and of course, the legendary reliability of the Toyota Land Cruiser

So I gotta ask the OP: what is this particular object that sparks the discussion?

For us, it's the Toyota MR2 Turbo we bought used in '95.

The problem is that cars these days are assembled from sealed units rather than separate parts, so if a valve or something breaks in the fuel pump, you replace the entire pump. It's much the same thing with bicycles, in fact: if one sprocket is damaged, you replace the whole cassette, and even hub assemblies come in non-servicable cartridges these days.

Speaking of bicycles, let's talk bicycles. Some background here: I only allow myself to own one bike at any given time due to constraints in space and finance, and so whenever and wherever I need to go somewhere, I am stuck with whatever I happen to own at the moment. So when I began studying in university, I had a Finnish city bike that I hated with every cell of my being. I got so fed up with its annoying little foibles that I eventually bought a hybrid (basically a slick-tyred city commuter bike with vaguely mountain bike-esque looks) and gave the old piece of crap away in part-exchange. Though a definite improvement dynamically, I never really felt much about the hybrid - it was just a bike, even if a vastly better one. When it was stolen, I was annoyed because someone had taken my property, because I had to walk everywhere and because I would have to go through the bother of filing an insurance form and find a replacement bike for however much money the insurance company was willing to shell out. Then the cops caught the thieves and returned my bike, and all was well in my world again. It was stolen again a few months later, and again I was upset at all the shit I would have to go through because of it.

Anyway, since winter was bearing down on us fast, I figured that I might as well get a proper, if only a lowish-mid-level 29er mountain bike to replace the hybrid - the logic being that I would rather live with the shortcomings of a fat-tyred heavyweight bastard in the summer than ride another winter on narrow slicks. I picked up my new Kona two weeks after that, and fell in love with it a few days later when the snow came. It's spectacularly good, the massive wheels flywheeling through thick snow, ignoring loose snow altogether and providing nearly unlimited grip on slush. It loses grip in a progressive and predictable fashion, making it possible to navigate certain corners with vigorous pedalling and countersteering, something that I had never ever done on a bike before and was now making a common habit. It was stolen once in the campus area, and I found myself furious again - this time not because of the inconvenience, but because they had taken the Kona, a clear sign that the bike was somehow more special than the ones before it. I inspected the snow around where I had parked it, recognized the tread pattern leading away from the site, and stole my baby back, a process that I probably would not have gone through for either of my old bikes. Since the Kona had been so very good to me, I surprised myself by beginning to perform regular maintenance on it. The drivetrain is still in excellent condition even though I'm not a careful rider by any stretch of imagination.

Spring and summer came, and I honestly cannot see the drawback to having a big MTB as opposed to a hybrid or any lesser city bike. It rolls just as well as the hybrid (thanks to an excellent choice of tyre, I suspect) and feels as nimble around town. I regularly overtake baffled spandex-clad Bianchi riders on it. It's the bike that made me love winter riding. I actively seek out hills to ride up, again something that I never thought I would do. I also love that it's the antithesis of trendy, being about as far a cry from the lightweight hipster fixie as you can get without buying a fatbike, and hence I think that it fits me really rather well both aesthetically as well as a concept. Although it's beaten in pretty much every area by something else in its price range, it is, again, the way it feels that matters, and it feels like the engineers and designers at Kona took a glimpse into my life and said "you know what, let's build that man a bike."

It's actually so special that I'm thinking of keeping it. If I ever buy another bicycle again, even if it is another 29er, it'll be goodbye to the one-bike policy.

I know the feeling. I also love the german Autobahn :D. But the most I like driving mountain roads, with lots of curves. And I love the feeling when the rear wheels of the car almost begin to loose traction as I take that hairpin and begin to drift, but without loosing control. In those moments I feel alive :D.

Thanks for all the replies,
it actually was kinda thing when I had the feeling, while my [url=http://databikes.com/imgs/a/b/i/q/p/honda__vt_750_ed_csa_2011_2_lgw.jpg]"first love" where I had it the feeling the first time was in planned maintenance.

Hmmmm :), yes motorcycles are a fun and scary thing :D. I'd never get one... i'd just kill myself with it :)