Features Your Car Time Going Forward: A Poll Of Sorts

I've had mixed results in this department, too. I very often resort to phone calls. But a late or non response from a company will quickly send me to the next business. I also find that some big name websites have lousy search engines for their parts inventory.

I stopped trying to search Pete & Jakes website -- google does a better job from outside their site. Instead I just call them or browse their printed catalog. But their catalog is great, and they are wonderful with taking and returning calls, and superb with tech support.

 

On a side note, HAMB types are not the SEMA target.
Most folks here seem to build most of their parts and or rebuild old parts.
We seem to like tools a lot but even those are old for the most part.
We build most of our own body panels.
Most have access to machine equipment.
I guess in some way, the HAMB is detrimental to many vendors and suppliers.

 

Probably less for me......a new baby tends to cut into shop time. (Even though I WAS ordering parts while we were waiting for her to make her grand arrival at the hospital LOL)

 

I have been hearing the same negative Nellie BS about the car hobby since I was 16. It's not shrinking just changing. In my end of the world the pandemic left me with the same 60 hour work week with a cut in pay. As an essential service industrial supplier we were just as busy as ever while corporate used it as an excuse to cut payroll with partial government subsidies. As things turn around I am looking forward to having more money and just as much time as ever. Maybe less time doing home renovations during lock down.....

Stay positive people!

 

More for sure........as the list of jobs finishing my house gets smaller, time available increases. Hoping to get my 32 pickup from a pile of parts to an assembled hot rod.

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Definitely more time behind the wheel & probably working on it too!


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More. I've considered my 34 coupe done.
And I've picked up a 50 Pontiac coupe to build. I've been retired since '05 so I have a little more time. Mrs Rocky thinks it's more time to do house projects but I think it's about time to turn up the wick on the Pontiac project.

 

To me, from a distance - SEMA in Vegas looks like a circus. It is filled with people looking for an event. Not people looking for parts from the manufacturer`s and wholesales. They need to get back to the basics of why they started. I have an article in a trade magazine from 1959 from a trade show that was later transformed into SEMA. In the midwest, people are spending money like crazy. Houses are selling super fast and workers are in short supply. Less time for social life for the people who are working which means I have to manage my time wisely and decide what I really need to spend my time doing. Still need to get the car out from a winters nap. But I have attended 2 swapmeets and and more car club meetings than all of last year. Took advantage of the events going on last year and will do many more this year. Parts being bought and parts being put to use is a different question I would like to know the answer too.

 

This is weird. There are sure to be disruptions, one major supplier of something goes away and it sucks. But then again there will still be those around that will find a way around it.

As for the youth being involved in the hobby- that's an interesting issue. At work I deal with recent college-grads who are into their first job, so they're like 24-26 years old and they're the elite at what they do, so they're starting out making north of 90-100k. What is the first thing they do? Invest in a home? Hell no. It's dream-time. They're surfin car sites, and scrolling around imagining themselves in all sorts of different new rides. It's always the same cars that show up too- Vettes, M4's, and Mustangs are the most popular, with Giulias and Raptors sprinkled in.

I always will try to influence, I want more Hot Rod buddies, so I take em out in my A. People stare at us and honk and we park wherever we want, etc... They always get excited, they want this too. And then the questions flow.

What are the questions?
**
Q. How hard is this to fix? Does it break, or do you have to mess with it?

A* Honestly yeah. My car runs like a top and is pretty much issue-free, but it's a custom hot rod so I'm always messing with one thing or another.

Q. Are these hard to build?

A* Well, yeah. You have to make everything. Honestly even stuff meant to go together sometimes needs a little help.

Q. Can I buy one EXACTLY like this?

A* Okay, well usually no. They're all unique. And 90% fail to hit the nail at all, let alone on the head- lets be honest, most hot rods for sale are some bum-ugly misses.

Can the average newb or potential enthusiast spot the difference? Hell no. Most capable hot rodders still have taste issues, the average person just is not capable of seeing WHY one car is so appealing over the other and they stand no chance of making sure they go down the right path without loads of help and influence.
(although for this one kid, Live-Wire happened to be for sale and I was like dude it's almost identical GET IT!) (he didnt)
**
So at this point I'm showing them something they can't find, that they don't know how to work on, that will probably need a LOT of attention and that they will absolutely have to keep in a garage or something.

Sooo Interest is lost and another M4 shows up- Oh look it's blue.



I'm about to breach protocol and mention an unmentionable name (newbs back-off on me on this one), but the thing about the Rat Rod craze starting with CKDeluxe and OSR, was I think it spoke to a LOT of youths coming out of the mini-truck and tuner fads, or just coming into their own in general. They saw something they could do and it was accessible to them. For the few that stuck with it, and weren't driven off by assholes like me who were like "cram that RR shit", they actually evolved into legit traditional builders and owners. The skills and taste evolved.

Nothing about this is quick-fix instant gratification which I think turns away a good majority of potential enthusiasts. What keeps our hobby niche and small is also what can hurt it.

Of course we are one Tom Holland Netflix series and Taylor Swift music video away from all this turning around on a dime. But youths (and most people in general) just don't think in those terms anymore- the act of creation. Art, Music (bands), Cars, etc.. the stuff you have to learn hard and build from inspiration is all taking a hit. Once we are back to a little bit more normal, as in everyone feels comfortable getting out and about and what not, I do see an explosion of activity coming though which may make us feel better.

I guess. I dunno, don't listen to me I'm a madman. I want to just delete all that ^ but screw it it took a while to write.

 

Preach it Brutha Dreddybear.

 

Dang man, really inciteful. Thanks for not deleting it.

 

More time for me, both on my projects and customer projects for my component restoration business.

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Well said. But who is Tom Holland?

 

Yeah, and who is Taylor Swift? He sounds cool.

 

A member of Florida Georgia line I think?

 

Great post. I have seem the same. One of the new grads bought a 2020 GT500 right away. But another bought a built 63 Chevy with a 409 in it, another is building a 55 Chevy and the really odd dude is building a 1922 Hupmobile, but his uncle was a restorer and got the big from him.

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Well when you mean driving, I mean most people drive their car every day

 

I sure plan on more time!

 

I voted for having more time to spend this year. The last year was fine if you consider that with no place to go one pretty much had to work on stuff in the garage. My project is now close to rolling around, the engine/trans are done and the their is no rust to repair. HTF did that happen?

Anyway, my only problem might be the pile of ancillary parts I bought for the project. There are thousands of dollars sitting on my shelves in cardboard boxes that contain parts that the return/warranty has long expired. If the alternator works, the water pump doesn't leak, etc., then I will be fine.

I've already got more miles this year than all of last year.

 

I've been retired for 11 years, and built 3 cars for myself since retiring, and twice that many for friends in the last decade. So I do plan to keep doing car stuff, but have sworn off doing almost anything for others. At this point in life I don't care about the money, and no amount can entice me to build another car for someone else.
I'm getting to the last few hours of work to finish up my current '39 Chev coupe project, and then the plan is a lot of trips, and a lot of miles this year! I don't foresee any building or much working on cars until next winter, but I hope to spend a lot of time with my cars.
If there are no formal car events this year I'm fine with that. But I do hope there are lots of casual get togethers this year for car guys!

 

I retired last July, lots of home projects that I postponed until retirement have consumed most of my time. I still have some time for my favorite project, a 56 f100. More time than I had last year. I have most of the hard parts I need, what is left to be done will be made or done by me, so delays due to employee problems should not affect me. If I have a worry it is that some consumable I need to weld or fabricate will suddenly be of short supply, or go up in price. A lot of that going on these days.

B

 

We both retired this year and are having the time of our lives. We have a 1959 custom build house that the designers used Frank Wright styling.. Now we have time to fix it up the way we wanted.

We are also working on our el Camino. We wanted to swap the buckets for a bench seat.. I'd like to get a bench seat with black satin from a luxury car like the Eldorado, Toronado, Caprice.. We want to sit next to each other, like we did when we were teens, we met when we were 14.

 

Solution for wife's honey-do list. Take several small slips of paper, the smaller the better. Have wife write one honey-do per slip. Throw slips in basket and and remove one and only one per week ( or month ). If it's something that can be readily accomplished with a minimum of effort, do it. If not, throw it back in basket and try again next week.
P. S. Get used to doing your own laundry and cooking

 

I think a lot of specialty car oriented businesses will be in trouble. Talking to my nieces, nephews and their friends, I don't think their generation look at cars like we all do. To a lot of them cars are just a mode of transportation to get from point a to point B with no real interest in buying or building a car as a hobby. And the younger generation that is buying and building cars are buying imports as that is whet they grew up with and can afford. The imports are their generation's hot rods. Many race tracks are hurting because the next generation is not coming in droves to replace the older generation as it leaves the sport. The two swap meets at Hawkeye Downs Speedway were always pretty big swap meets. The spring meet was put on by the Model A club and the fall meet by the AACA and they used their members to volunteer staff for the meets. As their members get older and leave us, they are not getting younger members to replace them to staff the swap meets. The two swap meets are now combined into one smaller swap meet and moved to another location.

 

My wife knew how important it was to me to do my Austin gasser when I retired, so she let me finish it first. Then a couple years later I bought my 2nd retirement project and she told me I needed to do the remodel of bathroom and kitchen before even thinking about that build!
So six months later I'd torn both rooms down to bare studs and remodeled both. Then back to building the car again! She was happy, and I was once again happy!

 

More time at shows and races but that equals less time on my own projects.

 

Here’s a hint what SEMA and others could do to keep the hobby going strong.