Will it all die and go away.

My favorite little junk yard has turned into a scrap yard. You see all kinds of trailers hauling off cars, and other good stuff. Remember that when all the old cars and trucks are are gone what will be traditional then. Barn finds, pasture cars, little old ladies cars, will all gone. New people will have to build cars from the 70' and 80's, god forbid. Price a 55 Chevy lately. Or a 62 ford, 67 dodge, 32 Ford. Not junk, or just rust holding it together

I say a early 70's Chevy truck on its way to the scrap yard, it just broke my heart. No one will be able to fix it up, have it be their pride and joy. Will any one be willing to sell their car to some kid in 10years? For what $100,000, more?

For any hobby, life style, or whatever name you want to give it. With out new blood(people) it will wither and die. No swap meets or whatever you love. $$$ gas prices, $$$ parts, $$$ cars, OPEC, Global Warming.(true or not) electric cars, and more.

I know I won't be around for some of this, but what about those that do.

I will now keep my stupid internet mouth shut.
Sorry folks.

 

maverics and mustang II will be the next craze.

 

I think the combined tears cried about this would rust out more old rides than the elements and China scrap prices.

You can't save 'em all, but you can try.

 

It's all disappearing...and yes, it's sad. I remember being able to find 10 junkyards on ANY Sunday that I could go walk through just because I felt like it. I could find cool hood ornaments, old wheels, fenders, engine goodies, etc... They were plentiful. Now, with scrap metal prices and environmentalist whackos running our country, they scrap yards are gone. This hobby is fading away right from under our noses. In 20 years gasoline will be a memory, our cars will be crushed or sitting in a museaum, and the kids that wanted to get into the hobby now will be forced out of the hobby by economics and politics by then. Sad, but the truth is that we aren't loud enough collectively. I guarantee that if EVERY one who complains in a thread like this wrote their congressman, their representative, their governor, etc... things would be more likely to change in our favor, but we don't have the clout, the finances or the voice. The hobby has dropped off quite a bit since I was a kid...and it seems to keep going that way.

 

HA!
I hadn't seen a Maverick in years, up until yesterday.
I saw 3 Mavericks in the last 2 days.
And they were all very clean and looked "restored".

You heard it here first.

 

cars that weren't considered "restorable" 5 years ago or more are nowadays. Its sad. I can't imagine the hobby 5 years from now. Have you even looked at the prices of say a decently-clean 1980 Camaro? A car most wouldn't even have THOUGHT about restoring or wanting but now are pulling $8-10k? Ick.

 

Yesterday I saw a truck with 4 or 5 some what flattened cars on a trailer. They were all 1950's and several looked like 2 doors with very little rust. I am sure it was heading to the scrap metal place.

 

In 2002 is when I realized that everything was slowly decaying in our industry because the waning supply of kool old steel and the funking environmentalists. A kid brought in a 76 pacer he wanted to restore. All the other kids had mustangs , one 56 chevy, one 49 caddy and two camaros. All those kids laughed at him. Poor kid. I walked over and asked him why he wanted to restore it and he said "cause it's literally a classic now" Holy crap, I thought. This kids right! It's scary. I thought about all the dodge darts and various other cars I used to flip for the cash cause I could find them in any junkyard, and realized I had'nt been able to find more than one in the last few years.
You guys are right. the industry has cancer and it's called "environmentalism" or "going green". Those bastards! They killed REAL cars! Ok, I'm done ranting for today...

-GothY-

 

I know that some of you will not want to hear this, but....It is relevent to your own concerns.

I have been a drag race fan since 1958. By the late sixties, early seventies, the slingshot dragsters, gassers, and altereds were really peaking...but some things had already changed.

The dragsters were faster and more beautiful than they had ever been, but they no longer smoked the tires or pulled giant wheelstands, and the new rear engine cars were reducing the number of fatalities. The Gassers were also much faster, but better tires and suspensions were bringing the nose down, and newer more aerodynamic bodies were showing up, and my beloved Altereds were destined to disappear from national competition, due to the Funny Car being the same construction, but with more popularity.

Here we are 40 years later, and drag racing is still going strong, but now the younger generation is changing the sport to what they are familiar with. Front wheel drive, 4 cylinders with nitrous and hairdryers (but they are very fast!), and bodies that us older guys have no interest in. All of this is a little depressing for me, but I realized something. The passion that these young racers have is the same that I have! Only the equipment is different.

You are concerned about old cars disappearing. Believe it or not, a few decades from now, your own kids will redefine this hobby...just like 20 & 30 year olds are doing to me and my friends today( my kids are all in their 30s). You won't like their choices, and they will tell you that you don't know what you are talking about, but...(here is the good news)....They will drive the hobby forward with their passion and motivation to reinvent it again!

If there is still an interest in 20s & 30s body styles, they will make whatever they cannot find. The bodies may be carbon fiber, or some material that hasn't even been invented yet, but they will find a way to enjoy the hobby, the way they decide it should be. Be happy for them. They will be having just as much fun as you are now......and they will get very excited when they find a vintage 'glass body, because that will have become one of the symbols of the way it once was!

I guess my point is that, it is better to see it evolve and change, than to see it die.

 

We moved closer to my wifes work because it was a hour and a half drive for here. 150 miles a day. She drove a Saturn Vue 4 cyl, with the GM ecotec engine. We rent a house that is 25 miles from work and she car pools now. Now this doesn't effect what and where I drive, but the fixed income is a b*^h. I wish she would and could drive a older something, but hip and knee problems won't let her. NO running boards, no getting up into something and forget her setting down and getting out of a lowered car.

She can do this, not not on here drive to work every day. Here car pooler drives a ford Explorer. We has a 64 Impala SS, which she loved, all except the white interior. If I can ever find or build her something that fits her need, well it might be ok. Parking at the college where she works is a tight fit. I can see what a old big cars paint would look like. Even a small car like she drove to high school would not be any better.

A maverick would be cool if it had the normal requirements she insists on here in Texas. The only state she has ever lived in.

But my main point it the Mavericks will all be gone. It will be tough for my kids to get something like people here love.

My daughter and her husband are straight out of A&M, bought a house, old cars that she has been exposed to. Well that may never happen. I bought her a 68 VW fastback with a automatic tranny so she could drive something older. I would have to rebuild the whole thing for her to drive. Technically it's mine, but I can fix that. Not real sure on hubby. He has always drove Ford Diesels that mom and dad brought and paid for everything.

My son, wife and daughter just bought their first house and a couple of acres. It would be all for it. He grew up drag racing with me and friends. When he gets established will there be anything left.

He is the parts manager for a small rural Dodge dealer. Sounds good but the pay is not there. He could drive to Houston, like I did for 30 years, but then there would not be anything to live with.

His grandfather had old cars 50's chevy cars and trucks. 50's ford and the last one was a 31 Model A. He was supposed to get it, but that didn't happen when GP died. His sons took every thing, but that is a different story. My son had bought a flathead V8 ford and some other things to convert the model a from stock to a "hot rod".

Will he get a model A? Maybe sometime later in his life, if there are any ones left. One kid, and they want another, that will make it tough for him with a family.

Do kids do that now, sure some do. But others can't and when they can will there be anything left. I can buy his old 85 GMC race truck back, but it is in peaces. My V8 Luv truck. My 56 ford truck thats at my real house half finished, which I am trying to sell. (House that is.Any one want a house built in 1892?)

I just feel like we HAMBers will be a dieing breed. Everyone going to leave the car's and truck's to their kids? A niece or nephew that won't sell it when we are gone to some Bill Gates, Donald Trump or IceT person. Those rich folks won't keep this alive.. It will just be something they can show off at a party.

PS I don't mean Jay Leno.

 

Yes... Take a look at history. I am sure there were horse and buggy guys at the turn of the century lamenting the passing of that form of transportation. Life as they knew it was changing.. did all the horses and carriages vanish.. no.. but life as they knew it changed. Romantic poets of the pre industrial revolution saw change coming.. the changes are what we are used to as our reality.. factories .. machines.. corporations.. it was a move from the agrarian farm based life they were used to. It is ironic that almost 100 years later we are on what looks like another change. It doesn't happen overnight and everything doesn't vaporize.. but over time the junkyards will be gone. Save what you can.. hell ...you still see wagon wheels from the old days.. you will still see remains of cars in the future.. but we are at a crossroads.. what you used to pass by and hope to see the next time around may not be there.. the landscape is changing.. take pictures and talk to people .. get the stuff you love.. otherwise you will not have the chance.. The world is a dynamic place.. concider yourself lucky you were a part of it.. How many folks are left that remember the horse and buggy days.. not many.. we are going to be the generation that saw the peak and fall of the automobile.. does it make me happy.. hell no..

 

On racing you have stupid s%^t going on like happened this weekend at little river dragway this weekend.

Granted it is some little hick track in Texas, but I have raced there since the late 60's.
We went through Imports. Front wheel VW's. A regional Autocross DSP car, now FSP. It now sits in my barn... Drag raced them too
but it is not the same. When he could drive it was a short bed 76 chevy truck, then a 67 chevy and the last was the 85 GMC...
I could not afford a BB so it was alway a SM. I got a 409 in the barn. But what to put it in for us... The fixed income is hell.

Your turn

 

It's a rolling window. There are less 20's and 30's car sitting around now than there were in the 50's.

There are less 50's and 60's cars sitting around now than there were in the 80's.

In 20 years there will be less 80's and 90's cars sitting around than there are now.

As time passes, the older stuff becomes scarce for all sorts of reasons. Yes, the current scrap steel price is speeding things up a lot, but that has happened before. Cars go from being new and desired to old and unwanted to eventually old and desired again.

In 20-30 years finding a car from the 20's and 30's may be like finding a car from the turn of the century is today, very uncommon. That is just a fact of life. In 20-30 years people will pester you every day about buying that '85 monte carlo SS on the back lot and you won't be able to understand why.

If nothing else, things are actually being perserved more today than they were in the past. People now recognize what "collector" cars can be worth, and as a result aren't just pushing them down a drainage ditch or leaving them in a field anymore.

It will be interesting to see, for those of us who are young enough to be around, what the "classic" car market looks like in 50 years. People restoring '95 ford escorts and hyundai tiburons? I don't know. Maybe my grandkids will cringe one day when I tell them I had an '85 camaro but sold it for nothin, just to get it out of my hair. It's the same shit all over again.

 

I do write my congress lady about different things. SEMA member. NRA and more. But I thing my things are toward the bottom of the list.. She has to get elected each time, but she does some good things too.

Some States Requiring people to license every thing they have. I don't understand this California thing about having to pay back old license plate fees when registering on car. I guess Arnold needs more money j/k

Thank god Texas has not done most of the BS things.

 

I have not seen any Mavericks in junk yards for years and years. It's pretty much all late 80's/early 90's and up stuff around here now days. Mostly 90's and up.

 

I remember selling a '66 GT350 for $1,400 in 1985 because it was a coupe and no one wanted them. Heck, I STILL think Mustang coupes are UGLY, but today that car would easily fetch $40K. I also passed on a Convertible '69 Z29 for $2,900 in 1988 because it was Rootbeer brown (factory) with a gold stripe (dealer installed) which I thought looked odd, it had black interior which seemed WRONG for a convertible (I imagined the sun damage and how HOT the interior would get) and I thought that 396's were too tempermental to maintain. Apparently I'd have a $100K+ car at this point...go figure.

 

The HAMB for Maverick owners...

http://mmb.maverick.to/

 

Man whats with this place lately...from hot rods and customs to the place to piss and moan about gas prices, scrap prices and what movies you like and how people wave at you in your old car. Wtf?

 

who cares.. Im tired of these posts taking up space bumping down all the real topics About Tech and hot rodding.

 

roll with the changes...it does suck. hang on to what you have. had two gentlemen roll up to my place this past weekend, they where from england over here looking to by something running from the 50's to hotrod.

 

Having been into rods for the better part of 30 years now, I definitely think this is pertinent. Maybe this board needs subcategories for this kind of stuff, but to say it isn't worth discussing is the same as asking why it's gone when it finally disappears. GENERAL Discussion pretty much means...ummm...GENERAL discussion...right?

 

"it isn't worth discussing is the same as asking why it's gone when it finally disappears. Discussion forum pretty much means...ummm..discussion...right"

Thats the thing its the main topic everyday by Fngs and newbies with nothing else to discuss. read threw the pages you will come up with hundreds of these posts. It realy does suck but boohoo get over it.

 

Well, I just find it easier to "discuss" a topic that is being discussed than one that WAS discussed 3 weeks ago. Gas prices change, parts availability change, guys build NEW rides, NEW car shows come, junkyards get closed, new products are developed. I guess if we have to discuss OLD threads and stop posting new ones then we really can't discuss anything at all. Not sure what the point of a "discussion" board is then. As far as FNG or newbie...maybe on this board, but not with rods and not with wrenching. I don't think a magic number next to your name or the absence of one qualifies or disqualifies you. As a matter of fact, I had been wrenching about 25 years before this board was even around...so there.

Hey, lets put a number next to our names that tell how many cars we've built, rearends, carbs, how many we've helped build, how many we've owned and sold...THAT would be a REAL number to look at... K?

 

Look on the bright side!! At least it will weed out all the posers that just don't get it!!

 

If that were true, how many times do we need to read about Flathead engine rebuilding.

Thanks folk, I feel better.

 

Funny you should say that. My first car was a Maverick and I've looked at putting together a cheapo V8 to slam into one of these. IIRC, the front suspension was shit, but it would be fun to do (again)

 

I know where to find an AMC Hornet wagon in it's original Safety Yellow paint. It's...it's... really...uh... cool. Really.

 

the sky is falling........the sky is falling!!!!!!!!!!....damn

 

Maybe my memory is getting fuzzy with age, but I'm almost certain that there were NO 1966 Mustang GT350 coupes built and NO convertible 1969 Z28's and NO 1969 Z28's with a factory 396. Was this a test to see how closely we are reading the posts? Did I pass?

 

At least it is a AMC Gremlin. What was that fish bowl looking one?