My neighbor of 6 years has watched a lot of rare and interesting cars come and go out of my garage. He must have some interest in cars beyond transportation, because he likes to see if he can wind his G37 up to 7 grand before he hits the end of the block. But he has never once said a word about my cars. Until one day he says " wow,that's a beautiful car parked in front of your house !" It was my son's girlfriend's car , a 2004 Celica.
Back to the original post, maybe the guy just doesn't see lots of things in life. Case in point is my wife pointing out things on the way to work. Buildings, stone walls, rivers, things she has driven by for 30 years now, but just "discovered". I once made the mistake of asking what she looked at while driving, I mean is it total tunnel vision without checking for cars in barns? I really wanted to know how she saw things. Then it got loud and ugly.
Well you did find out one thing for sure. The man isn't nosy or snoopy. But you can bet that almost everyone on the HAMB has at least one friend, relative or acquaintance who looks and thinks we don't have a clue because we don't understand their hobbies. But and it's a big but, the most boring people I know are those who only have one interest no matter what that interest is. But then we are probably just as guilty in their eyes when we give them that deer in the headlights look when they discuss their interests. Pick an interest or hobby that someone else around you might be wrapped up in. Soccer, MLB, NFL standings, Golf (any level) duck hunting, white water rafting, jumping out of a perfectly good airplane with what amounts to a drag chute on their back. Many of us would never quite understand why some people get so involved in one of those activities.
WOW, I'm honored!! I just knew if I kept spouting off long enough, sooner or later I'd say something intelligent!
Here’s my take on it. For those who “get it” no explanation needed, for those who don’t no explanation possible. I'm 22 and work at a dealership full of people who aren’t into old cars; every time I bring something in they say one of two things. How do you know how to do all this stuff? Or Why are you wasting all this time and money on this stuff? They all think because I'm young I don’t know how to weld, fabricate of fix anything. It just amazes me how little people in a dealership know about cars. I’ve had guys who have been techs for ten years not know how to change a u-joint.
Back home I had a friend who was a master tool and die guy. One year he builds a Pitt Special looking aerobactic plane. Then he builds a completely one off custom harley trike(all hand made parts). Then he builds one of the most beautiful 29 ford sedans I've ever seen. Last time I saw him, he was remodeling a 100 year old mansion. My point is, he didn't fly, didn't ride, and always drove a new Mercedes. I asked him why he built but didn't participate, and his answer was... "I don't have a TV, and when the project is done, they boor me." While he had the skill most car guys only wish they had, he had no interest when the project was finished.
the guy next door is super nice,,doesnt say much about the noise or old junk laying around. when i started messing with my car (53 ford 2dr) he said hey thats just like christine.... to him they are all just like christine...i smile, fix things for them and try not to make too much noise ...
Good, just the way I like it. I prefer to be in the minority. If something is a bit too popular for my interests, I look elsewhere. People who aren't into old cars don't bother me a bit. Too many people into old cars, that's when I start having problems.
Down here, my country is mad on rugby, and i saw a woman being interviewed on tv, the other night, who had only just realised that not all our population were interested in rugby. She could'nt believe it. Sure was funny seeing this concept from a diffrent perspective. I discussed this with a hot rodder friend last just night.
I'm into Warbirds..I work on a lot of World War II vintage aircraft and I help put on an airshow. I was showing some photos of the airshow to a guy and he saw the F-6 Hellcat and asked "Is that what the blue angels fly?" I very nicely educated him........I thought it was a silly question but when he pulls out his golf clubs I become blind too. we relate on other levels.
My neighbor is sort of a car guy. He always talks fondly about the corvette (that should give you a clue) he had before he got married. A couple of years ago, he built a car, a late 70's, or maybe even 80 something square Chevelle. He put a sbc crate motor in it, but first changed the cam to give it that bad ass idle, then put in racing seats and harnesses. He only takes it out of the garage to go to a few local cruises, but I ran into him one night at a cruise and while walking past a couple of my friends cars he asked a question I couldn't believe. He asked why the tops looked so low on their cars! I looked at him, then realized he was serious. I told him they were chopped, and he said "what do you mean?", I tried to explain, half wondering if he was just messing with me or something, but I realized he really had no idea what a chopped top was. This guy's probably 50, how can you even be mildly interested in cars and never come across a chopped top in a magazine or something? But it seems he has a very narrow vision of what a car should be, and didn't seem interested in expanding upon it. But most people, no matter how broadened they may seem, actually live in a very narrow tunnel of focus. In fact, most of us here are focused on our own little "tunnel" of interest, and probably seem pretty shallow to those who don't share our interest, including those guys who like to chase that little white ball around. Hell, look at the division among car guys, who look down their noses at other car guys because they're not "into" the same kind of car as they are, they just don't get why you'd want the car you have when you could have had one like theirs. Make no mistake about it, we are a minority, most people really just don't get it.............thank God
I've talked to a few of my neighbors while working on my '51 F1 out in the apartment parking lot. I met a new one last week right after I took the truck for its first drive in 24 years. He was amazed that the truck ran, apparently to him a vehicle can only run if it has a nice paint job. My next door neighbor, who is a real good guy and originally from a country that has no hot rod type scene, occasionally stops by and asks questions about the truck. When he asked about the engine, I told him it was a 350 Chevy motor. He asked "Why would someone put a chevy engine in a Ford?" Come to think of it, maybe he knows more than I thought.
I've got my Model A, A 1967 GTO, a 1968 LTD, a 68 Falcon, a few other "classics", And a 1959 Nash Metropolitian. The Met gets the most interest by average people walking by. "look at that funny little clown car"
Look at it this way, without clueless people, there'd be a lot fewer deals to be had out there for the rest of us.
I think that NON CAR people are actually jealous of us that can do this stuff. I know a women that told me its a turn on and it makes her wet when a guy can change his own spark plugs and stuff like that. My former (THANK GOD!!) father-in-law was absolutely fucking astounded when I pulled out the HEI distributor from a Olds he had back in the eighties and changed the O-ring that was leaking oil by it put the thing back together and he drove it home!
Did you explain which car you were referring to? Did he have a response? Or did the conversation just end with him asking, "Oh, do you own a race-car?", and you being basically silent from dumbfoundednessism? Did you determine for sure that he never saw any vehicle at all? Maybe he did see it, but doesn't see it as a race-car. Maybe he thinks of it as just a really old car...and in his mind, a pretty roughed-up one at that. No offense intended, of course, but I can easily see a non-car-guy looking at your car, (pic below) and never thinking "race-car". Relative to even most "car enthusiasts", we're really goin' back in time with this stuff we do. And I dare say that early dirt-track cars are probably even more obscure to the general public than hot rods are. Or maybe he's just blind...lol. And as others have said, there's just no interest there. I used to drive a 1951 Buick Roadmaster 2-door Riviera. I was rather impressed that I could pull up to a stoplight in heavy traffic...look around, and nobody...I mean nobody was lookin' back. They don't understand, they don't care, they don't see. But there was that little old lady at the one stoplight, giving me thumbs-up and smiling big...so cool. And the time I was sittin' in a parking-lot in the city, and a group of 1/2 dozen black guys went crazy over it...one guy was squatting down in front of it, goin' "Oh maaaan!". Or the kids yelling and screaming as I drove down a side-street one day. Or on the other hand...young teenagers singing the Happy Days theme at the top of their lungs...smartasses...lol. Nice to get a good response. But I have to add this...If I was the last man on earth...I would still be driving these old beasts. Boy...that'd be strange. Badass race-car BTW. I bet it shits and gits.
We've got the same problem. By high school I'd developed a healthy dislike of that game. Consequently I had to endure all the conclusions supposedly drawn from the fact of that dislike, even though I wasn't the one who liked to look at muscular men groping one another ... I'd like to do a scholarly dissertation about how the motor industry has nurtured indifference to their product over the years. They'd rather have people use their product and get rid of it than (gasp!) participate in the technology. They'd prefer the market appeal of whatever car to be extrinsic to the nuts and bolts. Hence the whole 'retro' thing and the cynical superficiality of that. This is in stark contrast to the universal mantra among the "car-free" people, which blames the amount of vehicle traffic there is on "car culture". We've been seeing the level of social/technological engagement with cars decline as new generations of cars appear that encourage technological engagement less and less. I wonder if any statistics exist for this. At the same time traffic levels have risen to unprecedented levels. The "car culture" theory just plain doesn't work. In fact the realization that car people of whatever stripe are a minority, even if taken together, always have been and are quite probably diminishing, leads to a different perspective on how our cities are set up. It raises the question, why is a systemic need for mobility maintained in a population that is largely indifferent to the available means to satisfy that need? Or, why is a predominantly non-car population being kept driving? Roughly translated, cui bono? We have to endure a weight of legislation in order to keep people who don't give a damn one way or the other dependent on their silver-grey POS disposables. Cui bono?
non car people are the one who like to fuck with us gearheads because they don't get it, just huge assholes usually!
I just bought a "new" car and told my friends about it. "What is it?" "It's a '51 Ford" "Yeah, but what model is it?" "Some call it a shoebox" "Yeah, but what model is it?" "Victoria, it's a hardtop coupe" "Ok, can we see it?" "Sure" After showing it to them: "Ohh a real Oldsmobile!" To them my car was just some old car and Oldsmobile have old in the name, which made my car an Oldsmobile. Logic. But I must give them credit for knowing "Oldsmobile" and I treated them to a ride and they where much impressed by the column shift which they had never seen anything like before.
The girls that i work with just can't understand why i love going to the racetrack so much. They say to me "i don't know how you can stand it there with all the dirt and the fumes" I tell them that i go out of my way to smell those fumes. My boss once said to me "why do you go to those stupid shows" I said to her" why do you spend all day chasing a little white ball around the golf course" She has never called my hobby stupid again. Gasser Girl
Several weeks ago at our Tuesday night cruise spot ( Rutt's Hut) a guy around my age ( I got my license in '62) was looking at my friends '57 Chevy Belair 2 dr hardtop and he asked me if it was a '59 or a '60! How is this possible? How can it be that a guy, any guy, doesn't know a '57 Chevy from a '59 or'60? Especially considering his age. I didn't think there was a person anywhere in the world that didn't know what a '57 Chevy looked like! There must have been something else going on when I was a teenager that I knew nothing about........
He's lucky. I'm in my early 60's. I wish I could quit, but I can't. It's an addiction you're born with and if you have it, it's a monkey on your back for life. Bob
I get an inkling as to what goes on in non car people's heads when I talk to my nephews, 15 and 18 years old. They like cars, and the 15 year old understands a bit better because I give him all my old car magazines, but when I took them to the drag strip they said during a particularly vigorous burnout "isn't that smoke bad for the environment?" For a couple of generations everyone has been taught that cars are bad and especially those old ones that pollute more than a coal fired generation plant (so Al Gore would tell you). But by the same token, everyone is taught to recycle and not waste energy making new products where you could use an older one. I don't think people care about old cars because they are afraid to and don't really want to think for themselves or be individuals. Sticking out is bad, be one of the mass media clones.
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