‘Lil Stinker, my restored ‘75 Kawasaki S1 “triple,” won an award
at the big Ruritan car (and bike and tractor) show held the other
day. That’s the good news — for me. The bad news — for the old
car (and bike) hobby — is something I’ve noticed at other vintage
vehicle shows. That means both the vintage people who own
the vehicles and the mostly vintage people who come to see
them.
I did an informal demographic survey, speaking to as many of the
vehicle owners as I could. Most of them were older than I am — and
I am in my mid '40s. Several were 60-plus. Some older than that.
Not one was appreciably younger than me. There was one guy
with a nice early '70s Chevy Monte Carlo. He and I talked about our
high school days — back in the early '80s. Another guy with a nice
‘93 Mustang GT — almost 20 years old, already! — was parked next
to my ‘76 Trans-Am (which I also brought to the show). He looked
50-ish. The guys with the '50s stuff — a Ford Fairlane, two very
nice ‘57 Bel Airs (one a convertible), a Studebaker Lark — all of
them graybeards. Or hairs.
Same with the bikes. There were maybe a dozen or so — which is
a good turnout for a mostly car show. There was Frank,
with his red BMW. Frank is old enough to be my father. A '40s
Harley with a sidecar was parked nearby. Its owner was also '40s
vintage. Etc.
There were a few young kids — but not one teenager,
there on his own. A lot has changed since I was a
teenager.
In my mind, I dial the clock back to about 1983. I went to a lot
of vintage car shows and cruise nights. So did most of my friends.
In fact, we all went together. Friday and Saturday nights were “car
nights.” We’d hang out at McDonalds, along with a large crowd of
other teenagers, or at the local shopping mall parking lot, and
check out the cars. No, scratch that. We’d check out each
other’s cars. Because we — the teenagers of the '80s — owned
(and worked on) old cars. Muscle cars, ratty cars — all kinds of
cars. The type was incidental. What mattered was that we were into
cars. Unlike now, back then, the majority of the car owners — and
spectators — at cruise nights and car shows were young.
Very little in the way of Just For Men was in evidence.
Same with the mags — you know, glossy monthlies like Hot
Rod and Car Craft. It is very interesting — very
revelatory — to thumb through the old issues and compare them with
the current issues. I have a stack of Hot Rod magazines
from my high school days. The pictures all show young guys — and
the occasional young girl — under the hood or standing by the side
of their pride and joy. The current magazines show these same
people — now in their 40s, like me. I cannot recall a single photo
spread detailing a resto or build-up in a recent issue of either
Hot Rod or Car Craft or any other such
publication that shows a picture of a guy (or girl) in his early
20s. Or even 30s.
Granted, this is all anecdotally based theorizing. But it’s
based on a lot of anecdotes. I’ve been active in the car hobby
since I was 16 or so. I’ve been a professional car scribbler for
more than 20 years. I’ve been to — and go to — many car shows.
And based on what I’ve seen lately — meaning, over the course of
the past ten years or so — the vintage car (and bike) hobby is
becoming, well, vintage.
The young, by and large, do not seem to be following in the
footsteps of their fathers and grandfathers.
Here’s another personal anecdote in re the above:
I know a guy, about 15 years older than me, who — also like me
— is really into vintage cars. He owns a ‘70 Pontiac Firebird
Formula 400 — a Ram Air III car, one of 13 made with the
three-speed manual and literally no other options at all. It was
built for drag racing. My friend also has a super rare
Hurst-modified Grand Prix SSJ (did I mention he’s a Pontiac
freak?), white with gold accents, including the 14-inch Hurst mags
that came with the package. Plus a nice driver ‘79 Trans-Am
(403/automatic). He has three sons — one in his mid '20s the other
just about to head off to college, the other in junior high. None
of these boys has a vintage car — or works on cars — or
(apparently) cares about cars at all, beyond their
usefulness as appliances.
This seems to be the common meme among the coming-up crowd.
So, the question presents itself — why?
I lay the blame for the dying off of the old car hobby squarely
at the feet of Uncle Sam. The government is killing the
old car hobby. Here’s how — and why:
* Fed Funny Money -- Inflation has made
everything more expensive, because every dollar is worth less than
the year before (maybe soon to be entirely worthless).
It’s much harder to accumulate the savings necessary to purchase a
“toy” car than it was when I was a young guy.
* The Smog Police — Over the past 20 years,
most states have adopted (because they were heavily pressured by
Washington) some form of what’s called Inspection & Maintenance
(I/M) rigmarole which requires that all cars built after a certain
year (either fixed, or “rolling”) pass an annual or semi-annual
smog check. This isn’t too much of an issue for the really old
stuff — cars built before the late '70s — because the standards
are lower and the cars themselves much easier to tweak/fix to get
them through the test. But for newer, computer-controlled stuff —
early-mid 1980s and newer, which would probably otherwise be the
cars popular with today’s teens and young twentysomethings —
getting by Smog Check can be much, much tougher. And much, much
more expensive — which for teens and twentysomethings can become
an insuperable obstacle.
The cars themselves are also much more expensive — both to buy
and to keep up — to a great extent because of all the emissions
(and “safety”) gear. Kids today can’t afford to buy the
pre-government muscle cars of the '60s and '70s. But the newer,
government-mandated cars of the '80s and '90s have computers, fuel
injection, dozens of sensors, complex wiring — which makes them
much less affordable to fix up.
An example: I recently rebuilt the three carburetors in the S1.
Even after sitting for 20-plus years, all it took was some solvent,
a toothbrush and elbow grease to clean up the castings to as-new
condition. Got a rebuild kit (floats, pilot and main jets, gaskets,
needle and seat) for about $70. That’s it. Contrast that with the
cost of replacing an EFI unit — or even just a few critical
sensors — each of which can cost more than I spent rebuilding the
entire fuel delivery system (which consists of just the carbs) on
the S1.
Exhaust: Back in the day a set of headers cost about $75 (even
today, they’re not much more than that for a pre-smog car) and the
rest was just pipes (cheap) and mufflers (affordable). Today,
you’ve got at least two converters in a V-8 application — and
unless you use the low-flow POS generic ones, you are looking at
$200-plus for each of them. Plus O2 sensors. So, easily $500-plus
for just the converters and O2 sensors (and that’s a lowball
figure).
Who can afford this? I sure couldn’t at 20!
* Mandatory insurance — Back in the early
'80s, you didn’t have to buy insurance. If you owned your
old fix-it-up special outright (as most of us did), you could tell
the insurance mafia to bugger off. Not anymore. Today, insurance is
mandatory — which has made insurance even more expensive. For
teens and twentysomethings especially. They get Group Guilted into
paying exorbitant rates — even if a given individual
teen/twentysomething’s driving record is spotless. It doesn’t
matter. What does matter is that the insurance mafia can
charge exorbitant rates based on Group Guilt — backed by
government force. Fail to pay up — and you risk severe sanctions.
Even though you’ve never caused anyone any harm. The bottom line is
that insurance costs on performance cars especially are
unaffordable for teens and twentysomethings. So, they don’t buy the
kinds of cars that teens and twentysomethings did when I was in
that demographic.
In the final analysis, all the red tape — the hassle and the
expense — is a turnoff. So, the kids find other things to do —
like online gaming or whatever else they can still do relatively
free of government interposition and obnoxious cost.
So, the older crowd continues to carry the torch. We’ll do it
for as long as we can. But how much longer can that be?
