There’s a phrase I like to use: “smacking the hornet’s nest”. This is where you find a sensitive subject, and instead of leaving it alone like you should, you get the biggest stick you can and you whack that sucker until the hordes come flying out, pissed off and ready to go. Brian’s story about the loss of the corner gas station was on point, and the stick hit it’s target…and that’s when the buzzing began. Naturally, I took notice, and found something I felt needed to be highlighted.

Before I dive into what caught my eye, I should probably give a little bit of information, just so we are clear: it might not seem like it, but Lohnes and I are about the same age (he’s got three years on me), yet we’ve had wildly different experiences, it seems. Part of that probably has to do with our geographical locations growing up…I stayed mostly around the western United States, while Lohnes is an East Coaster, through and through. We both had people in our families who were gearheads…for me, those people included my stepfather and his friends and my dad, who wasn’t so much of a hot-rodder but was adamant about working on the car himself. We couldn’t be more different in first jobs (lots of cheap pizza and construction in my background) and to be honest, I thought the three-car garage gas station was already long gone, with most being converted to mini tire stores or anything else long before either one of us was ready to enter the workforce. Brian is lucky that he managed to find one still functioning, with the wise old man who could teach him the ways. As I was coming through junior high and high school, vocational classes were being scrapped left and right for technology classes, or were being ditched altogether due to the inability of a school district to afford them. They were old fashioned, out of date, dangerous for a teenager to be a part of. I managed to stay in an auto shop class until mid-way through my junior year, but that was it. Everything else I learned I either did it myself or sought out someone who knew what they were doing and started learning. I’m 33 now, and I still have a long way to go in my automotive education.

But what I wanted to talk about today wasn’t a rehash of Brian’s story, but what was posted in the comments by “Crazy”, who made some excellent points and brought up some issues that I feel need to be addressed. Agree? Disagree? Say so in the comments. This strikes home to me and I want to see your opinions.

I never said that ALL the younger generation want 4cyl or fwd.. but the fact is, most are going to be driving them. They are not going to be driving a rear drive car, nevermind a V8. Most of those from my age group would not allow their off springs to have one as they know what they were like with one.

This is so accurate it hurts. There were a few avenues to look at as to why: fuel consumption tended to be the most honest reason. It was a V8…how could a teenager just starting out with a side job after school afford to fill a car that might get twelve miles per gallon if they were lucky? Many kids I knew growing up weren’t allowed to get older (read: pre-1990, usually) cars because there were no airbags, anti-lock brakes, or any other gizmo that was supposed to protect little Timmy from themselves. “Crazy” is accurate about some parents remembering their fun, but I’ve got a great story about a kid’s dad flipping the F out because his vehicle of choice was a baby-blue 1987 Mercury Cougar XR-7 with a 5.0L in it. At best, they made what…155 horsepower? Hardly the street-stomping Eliminator of years past. And finally, imagine all of the parents who grew up with Malaise cars that believed that Detroit could do no more right, who force-fed their kids that the only good cars were imported. Takes a lot to get past your father’s wisdom, doesn’t it?

Sure, the old gas station job’s are almost a thing of the past.. but they are not needed or a requirement for the younger generation to get into the hobby. I had a gas station job, but my start was way before that…Erector sets made of thin metal, screws/bolts/ nuts that the safety Nazi’s would never let fly today. Wondering how things worked, and opening them up. It started there…. an electric homemade go-cart…once I felt the power pushing you forward. And it was only one ride, as I cut the top of my finger almost clean off…rear end of 66 Impala so what, foot mashing the go pedal, and didn’t let off. Next was making the Snapper rider faster.. dad wasn’t to happy seeing it do a wheelie, I thought it was awesome and had to show him, grounded was the outcome..etc.. the working at a gas station came much later.

Today, erector sets are dead,, sure you have Lego’s , but not the same. The car models you built are also dead.
No vcr to take apart to see how it works, not much to look at in a dvr as far as mechanicals go…no cassette decks, 8 tracks, turntables, t.v’s with removeable backs covers..vehicles that you don’t have to do much to, and most can’t do it anyways, so, no helping dad do a tune up.. or belts/hoses/etc..

Lego Technic #42050

I got lucky…by the time I was ten I had minibikes, model cars were still available (and you didn’t have to be 18 to buy model cement and paint either), and I was cut loose. Most people I grew up with had only a couple of options: they either got into computers, which provided some outlet of “take it apart, see how it works, make it better” or at best, had one of those Lego Technic sets that bridged the gap between typical Legos and something along the lines of the old Erector sets. But this is also the era of safety…that’s why model cement soon needed an adult to purchase. Now, safety on it’s own accord isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the one issue I have to take with Crazy’s statement here involves taking apart other people’s things. I did that once, with a corded drill of my step dad’s. Guess what never worked again. Guess who’s ass got grilled over that deal? If you really want to get a kid to turn and run, bring home an outdated device that nobody has, and try to teach them how that works. You might get lucky with the turntables, but imagine trying to show a kid how a VCR works. They’d be on Google before you could grab your screwdriver, and have the schematic…in a moving GIF file…on their screen before you’d have the cover off.

Back in my high school days.. everyone could get a cheap rear drive car, silly simple to work on, that basic tools could keep it on the road. Today, not a chance…go walk through a school parking lot, the rear drive cars the students are driving, is a small % of the ones in the student lots.

Photo: Bryan McTaggart

That’s because the car choice is usually down to one of two things: cost, if the kid bought the car, or parent’s choice if they didn’t. The only reason I had a 1987 Monte Carlo SS in high school was because I had moved out on my own and found one in my price range. The previous car, a 1979 Chevrolet Caprice, was a $150 yard find that needed a distributor, intake manifold, carburetor, new fuel line, and a check of the fuel system and brake system. Doesn’t sound like much work, but tell that to a 15-year-old who is just starting out. The Chrysler LeBaron that replaced the Monte in my junior year and kept going until I stupidly traded it in? $1,300 off of a buy-here-pay-here lot, and that doesn’t include whatever my grandfather paid to get it’s electrical system sorted out. Chances are good that the used Pontiac they get will suffice while they save up for something better. And no matter which one you got, “silly-simple” need not apply. You look under the hose of a cheap RWD car that some kid can buy, and when you make sense of the vacuum hoses, let me know, ok?

Most of my age car guys turn their noses up at the kids with the FWD pos, with add-ons…yet I remember the same themed parts added to more than a few of the vehicles in the high school parking lots. Take one pos with a gutless v8 and jack up the back, put on silly wide tires, chrome exhaust tips, and other really dumb mods…turning over the air cleaner lid, anyone, anyone?? Face it, the v8 rear drive car is not the new breed’s platform, as very few have the means to get one. Be it parents that say no, the lack of jobs, the lack of cheap vehicles, the insurance cost, the place to work on it. So they have a FWD 4 banger that if they showed up at a cruise, that isn’t of the same type, they get shown the door. ?Hell, even my rear drive 4cyl. got laughed at when I brought it to a big cruise night. Hot rodding has always been using what was available and cheap. Today that’s an egg shaped 4cyl. with four doors. And what does the old guard do when they see one, modded? And some wonder why the hobby is slowly going the way of the dodo.

Photo: CarDomain.com, “nostransam”

Let me add on to this, because I agree: what if the kid showed up with a 1997 Thunderbird with exhaust? A Mustang II that ran healthy with a fresh motor, but still looked like hell? What about the kid with the Fiero that’s clean and fairly stock? The slightly lifted first-gen Durango? The problem is that what is accepted is so ingrained that what isn’t the normal is automatically cast out. Why is that? I don’t have the answers. You tell me…because I’ve seen it myself. I’ve seen Ford Probes that I wouldn’t mind owning, because some kid grew up with it in the family and did their best. I’ve seen that Thunderbird at a show, and the owner had printed out a sign and stuck it on the dash:

The lack of vehicles that look like the rodded out loud fast car…There once was a time you could see a loud/fast Chevelle and then see 15 normal Chevelle’s the same day. Today.. you only see the hobby vehicles out on cruise nights or week ends. Years ago, everyone drove their modded car a ton, as you could get a replacement if needed easily. Today, to fold up a 76 Cutlass, or a 84 Monte or a 84 T-bird.. you are going to have to work to get a replacement that isn’t a total pos.

This, right here, is my justification for my weird tastes in cars. When I started driving, Chevelles, Mustangs and the “good” Mopars were the hobby cars, yet you could still get a Cordoba, colonnade A-body or a decent Fox anything for a good price. That was twenty years ago. Time hasn’t been kind to the middle-kids, and those alternatives are starting to climb in value…yes, even the Cordoba. So where do you move to next? Unless you’re gonna stuff a 5.7 Hemi into a Chrysler Concorde, the pickins’ are slim, indeed…unless you have the cash to move on to modern muscle cars or to buy useful parts cars and the storage needed.

Yup, Facebook is littered with car meets for the Car guy or gal..many for the groups that the muscle car guys and rodder guys shun. They are building what is available to them. That includes what they can stroll into the junk yard and get parts for and mod. 

If I can take a $600 shitbox Dodge Mirada auto crossing with a Subaru group, then there should be no reason why you should be nervous about finding a group to hang with. A car is a car…type be damned, we all work on them. If it’s all about make, model, or the particular way you build it, be wary. If it’s car people helping each other out and enjoying what brought them together in the first place, that’s the ticket. There’s a reason I stay off of certain, one-make websites…there are other cars out there.

They don’t want a $60,000+ turbo engine that is so great, it became garage art. (F-Bomb, here is looking at you) .They can’t afford to have a daily driver and a hobby car, for most of them it is one and the same. The aftermarket didn’t help matters. You can build a 55-57 hevy/a 64-68 Mustang /a 67-69 Camaro/ a 68-72 Chevelle without having any OEM parts. And many other vehicles are covered mighty well, even the full sized tanks. Need parts for any 1973-up vehicle? You are pretty much screwed, even the #1 selling vehicle of the late 70’s in this county, the Cutlass. Same with the 78 up other than the Mustang/Camaro/Firebird.
Even the Monte SS and Grand National are very limited on what is out there…and it’s got much better in the last 5 years.. tons of grandma/pa regals or base Montes, but no parts.

With the 1987-up Mustang a possible exception, this is the linchpin. And he only touches on the “popular cars”. If you don’t have a G-body GM, F-body GM, Fox Mustang, or truck, you’re in for a bad time. The aftermarket has been playing catchup after sitting on their laurels…there have been a decent amount of parts for 1964-74 muscle cars for the most part, but once the vehicle left the “good” year range, the selection became nonexistent. Mopar guys got shafted the worst on this deal, shortly followed by 1970s Ford guys. But regardless of the vehicle selection, it’s still a bitch to find parts if you need it, and if you’re expecting a kid to catalog-build a car that isn’t a Fox Mustang…yeah, good luck with that.

When was the last time anyone of the authors of this blog hit any of these meets?

I’ll answer for myself: 2013, before I moved to Kentucky. Prior to, I was actively involved in two groups: in Arizona, the collective of students from the school who would meet up once a month and make a 30-mile canyon-carving blast to a remote hamburger shop, and before that a Subaru group in Washington State who welcomed me in and introduced me to auto crossing. They’re good times if you can find a good group, which is why I haven’t been involved in one in a while. (I blame that on the wanna-be racers local to me…I want no part of that scene.) Have you checked out a get-together? Not a cruise-in, but a meet-up that doesn’t involve lawn chairs and 1960’s tunes on speakers. If you haven’t, go. Seriously…seek them out.