We are losing this battle. Got a friend that tried and tried to get his son interested in what we were doing in the shop. Even bought a 68 Camaro to do as a father-son project. The project was sold about a year later due to lack of interest. As far a cars go, all the kid cared about was having a sound system that could be heard in the next town.
Not totally correct! we my 18yr son & I were building (still are) his project the stero was one of first thing to go-why? damn i hate driving a vehicle where i can hear the bloody 4 cylinder engine sucking air! my 16yr daughter is saving her $$ to build her own motor(BIG BLOCK) I remember & still see today at shows-the old guys treating kids like shit because they don't know the difference between a Gmc & chevy or what a 'shoebox' is, we spend so much time on our cars/trucks &so we can just talk to other bitchy old dudes! i seem guys walk away from a kid looking at their ride just yap with a guy they see at every damn car show,If i see a young kid looking at one of ours-i'll walk over & shoot the shit & get their feel of it. Most of the kids i deal with (over 19.000) come from fathers of the 80's when alot of guys didn't even know how to change their own oil or the father figure is non-existent,I figure iif i change 1 kids mind of what they think about old iron~i've done my job on this earth. Sorry for the long ass rant!
Yea , well I grew up with Sunday Sunday Sunday on the radio. Bigger better faster on the TV auto commercials. Local speed shops on the corners. And plenty of cars on the road with style and chrome. Plenty more old retired race cars resurrected into transportation. Plenty of local round tracks that normal guys could race at. Several areas available for Friday and Saturday night industrial area races. ^^^ this is what I like because to me its normal and ingrained into my thinking. The kids today don't get this exposure, its very different today for them. Just like I have no idea whats it like to have to wory about getting my school shot up. They think other things are normal, ingrained with sponge bob square pants.
I'm lucky---I have 3 grandkids that want to work in the shop. I hope I live long enough to help thru their projects. I have 11yr old that wants a model A project hanging on the wall, a 15 year old that has helped me with the 48 International, and a 7 year old that will get as greasy as it takes to get the job done and is my best helper when it comes to getting the right wrenches when asked for so G Pa don't have to crawl out from under the truck.
I have been reading used and old car magazines my whole life and I can tell you that every year or two someone, somewhere would publish an article pretty much exactly like that. The sky has been falling for at least 40 years. The '70s and '80s magazines were full of articles explaining why there would be no hot rods by the year 2000 or car shows would totally disappear by the 1980s, etc., etc. Heck, I remember at least one article from the 1950s arguing that interest in what they called "antique" cars (brass era, early stuff) was dying out rapidly and soon no one would restore them any more. Hershey thrives, cars shows are bigger than ever, builders and customizers have their own TV shows, and I'd venture to guess there are more nice '50s cars running around now than there were in the '80s when I was a teenager. This hobby could shrink dramatically and still be bigger than it was in the 1970s. Are kids today as much into cars as kids in the '50s and '60s? No. Will some of them be diehard hardcore car nuts by the time they are middle aged? Yes. I teach college students and I can tell you that every semester in every class there will be at least one or two students (out of 40-50) nuts about cars. The world isn't ending.
Guess I'm lucky my wife and daughter both love the old cars and work out in the shop with me. My little girl claims every car I bring home.
my impression from where i am is that there are a lot of young guys getting into rods and building up cars like crazy. you see some of them on here. the old guys are slowing down and doing nothing...like me! i used to build 2-3 cars a year , now i haven't finished a car in several years
The young guys I work with don't care much about cars new or old. It's such a pain in the ass to even get a license anymore and in my state they can't even have anyone their age in the car with them for like six months or something. Pretty sure they can't drive after dark for a certain amount of time too. All the fun of having a car is being legislated out of it. Pair that with $4 a gallon gas and it's too much for kids to take on with the lousy jobs they can find. It's a lot easier to ride a bike or walk. Pretty sure big brother is pushing us towards a bike/scooter/pedestrian society. We're trading places with Asia slowly.
i think you have to keep in mind that the number of guys/gals that modify and build cars has always been a small group. it may have seamed like a lot when you go to a big car show like BTT50's etc , but it's still a small percentage of the total population. most people don't give a crap about any car , but those that do are really into it several young guys i work with have rented my old shop to work on their stuff. sure, they are not working on old fords....mostly Hondas, mazdas , etc......but they are enthused and doing stuff. one is doing a mazda RX7 with a twin turbo Mistubishi engine. if i keep telling them about REAL hot rods maybe they will come around
Nice article. This topic pops up about every other month and they all amount to kids doing, what kids want to do. You can't MAKE someone do or be interested in what you want them to. Regardless of age. This mid-life crisis, worrying if someones going to be around to walk in our foot steps, is just that... a lot of worrying. I see younger guys and gals working on cars all the time. Go into any parts store and you'll see them. They may not be working on an old car, but guess what? A lot of you weren't either at that age. Most of us started out working on what we drove to school or our first car out of school. Because of that, not many of us were driving a hotrod (older than '48) to school. We were driving stuff that was probably only about 10 years old. Now, don't the few guys who grew up in a '32 start crying foul. You were the EXCEPTION not the rule. So, quit worrying and let nature take it course. Help that kid fix his Honda, if you know how, or introduce him to what you're doing. If old cars sink in, fine. But if they don't get it, don't equate that to lack of interest. It may be finances. And remember, an old HONDA is comparable to that old Chevy you started out with. Jees, this topic gets old and worn out. Shit, just keep spreading the gospel and quit worrying about nothing. Quit trying to use todays kids to re-live your youth. Once you're dead, it won't matter if the kids get it or not. PS: To the mods. When I say, "gospel", I mean the gospel of hotrodding. NOT the church kind like you misinterpeted in a post I did a time ago. So, please don't delete. TY
I really don't understand the need on insisting that my kids enjoy the same hobbies that I do. My grandfather had no interest in cars as any thing other than transportation. My Dad did somewhat, when time and money allowed. I have a life long interest in hot rods and bikes. Not my sons. They build guns as a hobby using the machine tools I build cars/bikes with and I support their hobby. We're all a product of our times, and those times constantly change. Unfortunately, they're not changing in favor of hot rodding. Bob
We tend to forget that to a young guy and old car is something made in the 70's with rear wheel drive and quite often their "hot rod' has 4 cylinders and a lot of horsepower. My nieces hubby works mostly on the made in Japan performance cars and has a Celica Gt that he has built up to where it dynos 750hp. They build hot rods, they just don't build the same kind of hot rods we build. I put a big part of the blame on school boards and school administrators who seem to think that every kid needs to go to a four year college and get a degree in something that may or may not be marketable rather than heaven forbid work with his/her hands at something that takes a lot of skill even though it doesn't have a lot of "status". Out of the five hundred or so kids I had go though the auto mechanics classes I taught over 13 years there are probably 10 who actually make their living working on cars and another handful who are now in management positions with Les Schwab tire stores around the west. I run into a lot more of them that have used what they learned to repair their own cars or build or rebuild their own cars. Two still have the same cars that they had in high school and both cars can easily hold their own both at the strip and in any show they happen to enter. One was rebuilt from a total and painted by another former student whom I wish was still painting cars. My daughter says I still owe her a father daughter project car and my son gave me a birthday certificate for x# of hours of fabricating time on my hot rods as he is a top notch welder. The main thing is that if a young kid or someone older asks a question don't act like a snob and ignore him or her, give them a legitimate and good answer to their question as that might make the difference in them wanting to build or have an old hot rod or custom. If you don't know the answer don't friggin fake it but help them find the right answer.
I also have to agree with the concept of Bobscogin's comment in post 13 in that your kids actually having hobbies and creating something is more important than following in your footsteps down the hot rod path. That beats the hell out of their greatest accomplishment being that they attained level_______ on WOW.
There are more young dudes working on old Hot rods than there were back then. I'm 32 and I remember as a teenager all the older dudes complaining about how there are no young guys into this shit. Well me and all my friends are, and now there's a whole group of dudes ten years younger than me into it. Take my buddy Jeff for example. He's in his early 20's and has developed into a great fabricator and enthusiast. He's restoring an early 60's Model A showcar back to it's original condition as well as a late 30's Mopar. This type of shit gets in your blood and it's impossible to ignore. It will always be that way.
I don't insist that my wife and daughter enjoy my hobbies, they truly enjoy the cars. We get to spend much more time together as a family when were away from our OT jobs. When we finish one we can either keep it or sell it, enjoy a vacation and buy the next project. Mr48 your last paragraph , I agree 100% about the ignoring or being just a plain ass. I've had car owners at shows snub me when I was younger while trying to ask them questions. Mostly custom owners at Kaspers.
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