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Kids just don't care. They don't understand how a car works and anything vaguely modern is far too complex and costly for them to wrench on. To them cars are an appliance on wheels. Driving is highly regulated, especially for younger drivers, and speeding is a no-no, so in their eyes why do you need a car that does >70MPH? Finally insurance is a big issue, again driving the need for a small, low powered cars.
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kids these days...
Parents haul them around to soccer and ballet practice (We used to have to ride our bikes or walk)
Not having a car centric group of friends, (Same ole group is still 'motorheads' 40+ yrs later)
No auto mechanic shop or class at school, (It was full, so I had to take choir)...
Not growing up on a farm (Where you had to shamefully WALK home if your tractor broke and you couldn't fix it)
Very few with dads (divorce)
Fewer with dad's that tinker
Grandpa is often out chasing 'girls' at the senior center rather than taking the role of mentoring teenage grandkids (I lived with my grandparents, thank goodness)
Lack of companies willing to take on 'kids' as employees (Liability / gov / school laws) Many of us were busting tires at age 15.
Too much diversion - stuff that SEEMS important (facebook / music videoke / writing the next $100 million dollar app)...)
More kids live in town, (in communities with CCR / HOA that would not have been keen on the 6 cars I made before age 16.)
Cost pressure... as mentioned above 'classics' are spendy, they were CHEAP in earlier era. $2,000 would have bought a pretty nice car. There were still 'classics' sitting in the alleys and garages of old people. (I got my 51 GMC for $75 (which is still more than I currently pay for cars ($35 at abandoned vehicle auctions)
Kids often only want the best / something very special, not willing to wait / build something (My kids are that way and it cost them a LOT of dough)
Regulations... It is actually hard these days to go buy the chemical components to paint a car, and Environmental fees are HIGH. Eventually the paints will be banned for consumer purchase.
and.. today there is little interest / opportunity to acquire 'skilled trades' ... The skilled workforce is aging, and employers now can use an H1B visa for a machinist or toolmaker.
Fuel, repairs and finding places for the old style emission tests are tougher than they were 15 years ago when the computer technology of plug and check testing was first done. Most places have switched to that so you need to go out of your way to find one. My brother had an old Chevelle Malibu ten years ago and the repairs for it was very costly at times. My only car was an 87 Buick so it wasn't that old but still would some what be a pain for modern emission testing. The fuel economy for these older cars are also lower than modern cars do, even the modern gas guzzlers.
Don't know any kids into cars and most are not in any hurry to get a license... even into their early 20's.
When I was in school, it was right of passage on the day you turned 16...
All the guys had to have wheels... even if you had to work on it all the time.
Friends are also very particular on what their kids drive... two very close friends were offered grandpa's Nissan pickup for one and an s10 to the other... both parents declined and one was even mad... reason... no airbags, etc..
A trend I do see working here at the hospital is when a car is in the picture... most of my coworkers will buy a brand new Civic or Corolla to send their daughters off to college.
I'm working with a 25 year old nurse that has like new Corolla her parents bought for her new 7 years ago... she really wants to get rid of it because it's boring... she want a new BMW...
I bought my first car at age 12 with money I earned and it came home on a hook... 1929 Model A Ford for a $1,000 dollars... still have it today.
Don't know any kids into cars and most are not in any hurry to get a license... even into their early 20's.
When I was in school, it was right of passage on the day you turned 16...
All the guys had to have wheels... even if you had to work on it all the time.
Friends are also very particular on what their kids drive... two very close friends were offered grandpa's Nissan pickup for one and an s10 to the other... both parents declined and one was even mad... reason... no airbags, etc..
A trend I do see working here at the hospital is when a car is in the picture... most of my coworkers will buy a brand new Civic or Corolla to send their daughters off to college.
I'm working with a 25 year old nurse that has like new Corolla her parents bought for her new 7 years ago... she really wants to get rid of it because it's boring... she want a new BMW...
I bought my first car at age 12 with money I earned and it came home on a hook... 1929 Model A Ford for a $1,000 dollars... still have it today.
The world has changed since you were a kid. Unless your family owns a small business or it's from odd jobs, you wont be able to buy a car at age 12. Kids don't need cars anymore because of emerging technology over the past 20 years. E-commerce has made things easier. The mall is replaced by Amazon and eBay; the shoe store is replaced by Zappos; the record stores are replaced by iTunes, Amazon Music and Spotify; razors can be bought from manufactures on subscription. Also at college you can do what I did and WALK or bike to class or off-campus to stores, the movie theater and restaurants in town or get on the bus for low rates if you need a further area than you can walk or bike to. The fact is, even if I were sick, I basically walked everywhere while at school.
As for the safety features, I can understand that. We got use to airbags and side impact bags that the when cars don't have that we think it is weird. That is like seeing a rotodial on a phone compared to buttons or a screen.
Those 1969 Mustangs in that autotrader would be bottom of the barrel selection even when plentiful say in 1980s when I was looking at used cars. But then they were about $3000 in today's money.
351 minimum and fastback although the Grande looks nice with Cragar SS wheels and a bit of a rake.
I've always been fascinated with old technology... hey, still have rabbit ears and only one car ever with airbags and it is a 2002 year model.
Growing up in East Oakland... taking the bus was always problematic for school and work... walking to school would take a good 40 minutes each way and longer by bus because of route and I would have to walk 20 minutes to reach the bus.
At age 15 1/2 I started driving a motorcycle to school with my learner's permit and on my 16th birthday got my license and the full time job of driving my siblings to where they needed to be.
Started paying into social security and room and board during the summer months at age 12...
My parents were always finding jobs for me... if a neighbor needed a fence painted, weeds pulled, clean-up... they would send me over...
My first real job was stocking shelves for an auto parts company... Friday after school and all day Saturday... no connection to my family... just a place I went to buy parts.
I would say young people for the most part are not into cars period.
On the flip side... I know many teens that have gone through I phones and Ipads... some always seem to have the latest model and they are not cheap and don't forget the plans...
At work... most of the new cars are electric are hybrids... everything from Leaf/Prius to BMW I3 and Tesla...
PS... my 13 year old god daughter might be an exception... too early to tell.
Every year she would ask for tools from presents and even as a young child was very interested in how things work... already have the green light from her parents to teach her to drive out at the ranch... have an old Jeep with a stick... told her if she can drive a stick... everything else is easy.
Is it me? Or do you guys notice less and less younger people driving around in classics? Because at times I feel like I am the only person that's under 35 in my neighborhood that owns old cars.
I can't put my finger on it. I guess the appeal is there, but maybe it's possibly that young people just don't know how to work and diagnose old carbureted engines, therefore, they're afraid of them so they don't bother to own one, that or want to deal with old car problems. I know I have a difficult time trying to figure out what is wrong with my old cars, but that's a great challenge I learn from. It's how you grow and gain the knowledge to keep at it. Plus I have the passion for them, this is what separates a hardcore enthusiast from the so so hobbyist and car flippers that just like to look at them, but never to actually do any wrenching.
None of my parents owned any cool old cars, it was mostly junk from the 80's ( no offense ), so I honestly don't know where the passion for loving the old stuff came from. My grandfather that I never met on my mothers side was a mechanic for years, and he was always out in the back in the garage working on his cars, tearing down engines, doing body work, pretty much anything and everything you could think of, my grandfather could fix, he even worked on Jaguars and Mercedes cars from the 50's and 60's which he always disliked because of there complexity. He was also self taught, and learned from just reading shop manuals.
So maybe it runs in the family.
When I was 19 or 20 I fell in love with big old Caddy's for some reason. I mean I was always into Lowriders as a kid, that always fascinated me. Going to car shows at 13 years old was what did it. I guess part of the reason that I've always been into classics is because mainly how much character and great styling the old cars provides. Also the presence they command and knowing that you're not like everybody else driving the boring, and stale modern car that nobody notices.
Any time I see something old and cool on the road it brightens up my day, seriously. I could be in a bad mood or having a rough day when something bad ass rolls on by and it completely makes my day a little bit better.
I wish more younger people were into what I'm into, many don't understand, or even care. All my friends think I'm crazy for owning old Caddys and Lincolns. It's hard to relate to them at times because they don't get it. They think there cool in all, but to own one, they rather just check em out at a car show instead.
When youngsters do get classics they hose them up by lowering them and/or putting 26" rims on them. I would rather see one sitting in a barn than that.
Youngsters are into the bling factor of new cars and don't want to worry about refurbishing an older car.
I love 80s-90s Buicks and Lincolns. Caddies are OK but I don't like the body styling.
Is it me? Or do you guys notice less and less younger people driving around in classics? Because at times I feel like I am the only person that's under 35 in my neighborhood that owns old cars.
Depends on what you mean but "classics" if you are speaking of the 40s and 50s muscle cars- they are already antiques and a lot of them are gone, junked, scrapped, in collisions, rusted out, probably only a few percent of the whole are even around any more, that also makes them valuable as collectors items which prices them out of the range of most people who can't afford $50,000 for a car that will need restoration work, a secure heated garage to store it in, and which gets 8-10 mpg of $4 a gallon gas to run it.
Many of the older cars yet from the 20s 30s were completely ruined by teens modifying them into stupid wide tire "hotrods"
Many cars made in the 70s and 80s weren't worth the steel they were stamped from because they didn't last, got poor mpg and after 1973 the big block V8 engines in those two ton cars just didn't cut it any more due to gas prices.
Jay Leno has an awesome car collection, his youtube videos show them well, and running. The one I really like the looks of and everything else is his Doble steam car from the 1920s, fully restored and he takes it on drives all the time.
He has a video on that car showing everything about it, including how he can fire up the boiler from a cold start and drive off in about one minute, and reach freeway speeds easily while actually producing more steam than the engine uses at that speed.
He gets about the same mpg as a large SUV gets today, it burns any liquid fuel- oil, kerosine, diesel, but for ease of finding it on every street corner he uses gasoline.
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), so I honestly don't know where the passion for loving the old stuff came from. My grandfather that I never met on my mothers side was a mechanic for years, and he was always out in the back in the garage working on his cars, tearing down engines, doing body work, pretty much anything and everything you could think of, my grandfather could fix, he even worked on Jaguars and Mercedes cars from the 50's and 60's which he always disliked because of there complexity. He was also self taught, and learned from just reading shop manuals.
