Car Show, little OT

A great deal of truth in the article.

I will agree with some of it, but some of it is stretching. The 30 and 40 year olds of today do have the money, they don't have the interest. Interest is the most important thing. What you are seeing is evolution. My mother is

95, and started life when there was no such thing as commercial airlines, let alone going to the moon. Over the years there has been dramatic changes in her life, as with mine. I grew up at the time where trains were going from steam to diesel. In the 80's I manufactured model trains, and the hobby back then was looking for youth, yes the 80's. Us oldtime modelers bought models of steam engines, now, todays modeler talks about the early days of diesel. In each case, trains and cars, today's 30 year old has no conception of what came before him. Think of the technology gap. A typical 30 year old would consider a 1987 car as ancient, thinking about a 50 or 60 year old car is not within his realm. The typical 30 year old of today has no idea how a car works. It is all computers, plastic and all the cars look similar.

Price of gas has nothing to do with the collector car hobby. Price of a starter car is another story. You cannot enter this hobby on the cheap. Those of us who got into it in the 70's and 80's, especially with Studebakers got a great deal. Compare the prices of the 80's for a Studebaker part to todays' prices. They are not within the normal rate of inflation or the value of the dollar falling.

The SDC has started an "Under 21" program with the hopes of bringing in youth. It is a positive step, but more has to be done. Our cars are becoming rare, and values are climbing. While we don't talk about it openly, we have to face the reality that when we depart, our cars, mostly, will not be handed down, they will be sold to the highest bidder. That one fact is what hurts the hobby.

Ask yourself, could you afford to enter this hobby today?

Bill

>

I think economics have very little to do with it. It comes down to personal time management and hectic family schedules for 30-45 year olds.

Many my age would rather take their family with them in their classic vehicle on a private spin for a couple hours and have the rest of the day, than sit in a lawn chair all day in the hot sun and argue over pits in the chrome or authenticity. We have enough of that type of crap during the week at work, and we don't want to deal with it on the weekend. If we get a weekend, that is.

My girl's soccer and orchestra schedule, along with work commitments already on the calendar, mean that I won't show any of my cars at the International Meet in South Bend this year, even though I'm 20 miles away. It's on a Thursday, anyway, and I already am committed And I really don't feel any disappointment in the fact I won't be at the show. I bought my cars for me, and I've been losing interest in participating in shows, especially for the past five years.

I respect the fact our older counterparts in the hobby worked hard for many years to reach retirement. But we 30-40 year olds can't run a car club or a car show, and hold a full time job along with our spouse's job, and raise a family with active school age kids all at the same time. I'd love to see empathy from my retired friends. But many of them must be too busy in retirement to run these activities too. The problem with car clubs is that only a few get stuck doing way too much, retired or not. And they get burned out. The show isn't being cancelled because of lack of attendance. It's lack of leadership.

Fifteen years ago when my son was 12 or 13 we got a call from the dad of one of his friends who was volunteering as an engineer in the cab of a steam locomotive running an excursion from Scranton to Syracuse and back. He told us to get our kids and his kids and meet him at the Binghamton (Conklin) yard at 2:30. We drove out and at 2:45, a locomotive, "big black and smoking, steam screaming at the wheels" pulled in and stopped. The three kids jumped on one of the coaches, got to see the Tunkhannock Viaduct from the top, and when they got to Steam Town they rode in the cab as dad drove out on the turntable and put the engine away. A couple weeks ago those same kids left their new wives for the weekend and drove 200 miles to the big train show in Springfield. He was shocked into old trains and he will never get over it. Although he had trains like a lot of other kids, it was someone taking an interest and getting him involved that got him hooked. And once hooked he can get his fix with his own model railroad, or a show. I don't know how the train hobby is doing overall, but my guess is my son will be taking his grandchildren to Springfield. Bill

"Bill Glass" wrote in message news:IRoEh.49$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe12.lga...

Forty years ago, when I got into the hobby, I could ask the local kids if they wanted a ride in my old car and they would ask their Mom or Dad, who would say yes. There were no safety items in my car nor in theirs and neighbors were trusted.

Nowadays, they would be afraid that I would molest their poor crushed body after my car crashed into a tree due to some design fault..

Regarding cost of cars: In 1968, I bought a rust-free four-year-old V8 Challanger, good looking and rust free for $100. Including inflation, can anyone do that well today?.

Karl

Good observations all around, and yet there is still this:

"It ought to be possible to establish a coordinated global program to accomplish the strategic goal of completely eliminating the internal combustion engine over, say, a twenty-five year period." The man who wrote that just won two Academy Awards (TM).

One of my grandfather's many jobs was sawing New England ice for shipping to world ports (believe it or not, it took a guy 20 years to build up a market for it--sliced bread didn't do that well either, and Hiram Maxim didn't get rich from the mousetrap). At one time, refrigeration was exciting new technology that clever young fellows found fascinating. So were radios and railroads. There is still enthusiasm for steam engines, amateur radio, smallbore target shooting, tying trout flies and playing the zither. You cannot expect it to be as widespread as it was 50 years ago. To say that modern families find their car about as interesting as their refrigerator is an insult--to refrigerators. People just do not remember these things making a major change in their lives.

Sam Rayburn felt he had been cheated by railroads in his youth, attributed all the farmer's ills to them, and made them his lifelong enemy. He became an influential man, to the benefit of highway builders, trucking companies, and airline operators. People got sick and tired of rail travel, and so we lost it. Now, our influential leaders are sick and tired of the automobile, the companies that build it, and the way of life that goes with it. Can we expect kids and 20-somethings to flock to glorify something they've been raised to see as, at best, a necessary evil? You'll find a recruit now and then, but get used to feeling grateful you can still get fuel, insurance and a license to own and operate. The time will come that we'll run our cars in private.

Face it: you're all smokers now.

$2.5 Million '71 Hemi 'Cuda Convertibles and $40K Golden Hawks prove the staying power of the hobby.

Remember, just 12 years ago, there were lawmakers wanting to crush everything 10 years or older? People laugh now, but it was actually being considered. And with recent events, could very well be again.

The next generation of collectors will want the cars. They will just enjoy them in a different way than we did. Social changes in the hobby should not be confused with an end to the hobby.

'Haven't posted here for awhile, but find this discussion to be very interesting. Many good points were made, all level-headed.

There are still good entry-level cars, but not necessarily hardtops, convertibles, and V-8s. Personally, I've grown to respect a nice 4- door six if it is Grandma's original car! You can have 90% of the old car fun in one of those for about 20% of the price of the fancier model. It's important that we accept those cars and the people driving them, both inside and outside the Studebaker hobby.

Ditto modifieds: If you pull a clapped-out '50 Champion Starlight from beside a barn, it may well be easier and cheaper to build it at a street rod than an accurately-restored car...and that scenario is certainly preferable a developer's bulldozer rolling the car up into a ball with the barn when they level the property for yet another subdivision. BP

I had lust in my loins for a 1970 redhead the other day, I actually think she was more into me than I was to her, but I have lost so much weight I look like a raisin nekked and did not want to spoil the moment, I know it would have been less than $100.00

revolution, to the kids of the electronic revolution is called a technological and generational gap. I didn't grow up with steam engines, etc. But I appreciated the older technology and was lucky enough to even work on it a little. I just love the the long throws of the exposed connecting rods of a steam driven generator. I worked for the Soo Line railroads repair shops in the late 70's just before they switched from the 1903 era high pressure steam driven generators, air compressors to more modern equipment. Stepping into that power room with all that equipment was like stepping back in time. Being a child of the 50's, mostly the 60's and 70's, my car interests were from that time frame. I wasn't interested in Model A's or anything from that time frame. Now I appreciate the older prewar cars better than I did, but they still aren't my heart throb. Owning one would be cool, but with limited resources, I do what I can. And I think so it is with today's kids. How do we get them interested in something that has become a necessary evil? Where everything is plastic and disposable. How do we get them away from the computer and the ipods long enough to get interested? Today's family is much different than it was when us boomer kids grew up. I guess we made our own entertainment, and some did the sports thing. There is certainly nothing wrong with keeping kids busy now days with all the bad things that are so easy to get into. And I can certainly understand the busy schedule of parents now days. Things change, society changes and it's how well we adapt that decides whether we survive or die. This kind of subject keeps rearing its ugly head from time to time. Perhaps our energies could be put to a more positive approach in the manner of discussing ideas on how to do something about it. People who are good at organizing things could make suggestions and tell of successes for the events that they have done. And once the ball starts rolling those of us who are looking for suggestions, and ideas, can post our successes to in an effort to boost those who are also trying to get the ball rolling. And some leadership from the SDC board would be a big help too. All the hoopla, and discussions about how things were, and how things are has been gone over often enough that we all get an idea of where we sit on both sides of this subject . Now is the time to take action. A little bit here, and a little bit there, and before we know it that ball will be rolling by itself. In short, WE KNOW THE NEED. NOW WE PROCEED!

OK, Devil's advocate thinking here.... Why is it imperative to get the younger generation enthused about our hobby? If they don't want to play... So what? What exactly is the downside? As the elders die off, their parts hoard's will be absorbed by other enthusiasts. Their cars and trucks will reappear on the marketplace. So, if supply and demand hobby economics' prevail, then the prices will fall as more are available. There will probably be a generational lag as interest wanes long enough for interest to pique again. The comment about disposable plastic vehicles is a great one. Think about the toys we play with. It takes a long time to see 18 gauge sheet metal deteriorate to nothing, and all along that path it can be patched and rebuilt. Doubtful that a polybutalynevinylplasticosis part will ever last that long in the wild, and there won't be any rebuilding of them (cheaply and easily). The cars of now and the future are never going to be rebuilt and restored using our old school methods and techniques. It'll be a new breed of restorers, using stereo lithography plasticene injection and photo etching..... Glad to leave that to them. They can come up to me later on and look on in amazement at me beating on steel with a hammer...Holding their ears all the while . (I can hear it now.... "Hey old man...How did your head get all scarred up like that?" ) Jeff (Oh wait, they say that now ) Rice

"Pckstude" wrote...

"Where everything is plastic and disposable." "The comment about disposable plastic vehicles is a great one."

Always with the Avanti-bashing. Jeeze.

My son and his buddy's love the mitsubishi eclipse and honda civics like we like early C & K cars, just a different era.