Woodward Dream Cruise:
Generation Why: Are Boomers Going to Be the Last Car Collectors?
The topic of young people not getting drivers’ licenses has become a topic of concern for the auto industry, particularly in, ahem, mature markets like Japan and the US. If young people never embrace the automobile as consumers, they’re not likely to become enthusiasts or collectors. Many collectors, of cars and other things, are often trying to rekindle a spirit they felt as a youth. People will gravitate to collect either a car of their youth or a car they aspired to in their youth. Zlati Meyer writes for the Detroit Free Press, often about car events. In this video produced in connection with tomorrow’s Woodward Dream Cruise, Fifty Shades of Dream Cruise, Zlati takes a lighthearted look at the greying of car culture. What do you think, will car collecting die out, or, twenty years from now will the people born in the first decade of the 21st century start Camry, Accord and Elantra clubs? If there is a Woodward Dream Cruise in the year 2030, when today’s 18 year olds will be entering their thirties, what cars will be driven, and how old will the drivers be?
If you think about it, though car collecting has always been a hobby for the mature. I can remember 20 and 30 years ago, collectors bemoaning the lack of young blood in the hobby and the decline in interest in the so-called true classics, the pre WWII cars. Now a lot of collecting focuses on the cars of the youth of mature folks today, so you see cars from the ’50s and ’60s increasing in value. That Vietnam veteran in the video might have been one of those proverbial guys who went off to war leaving a muscle car in the garage.
Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, the original 3D car site.
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The musclecar hobby isn't going anywhere, this article is silly. Go to any major event and you see just as many young people as you do older ones. And the age of musclecar owners continues to trickle down over time. You see just as many guys in their 30's and 40's that own them as you do guys in their 50's, 60's and up. And the guys in their 30's and 40's didn't even own them back when they were new, many of them weren't even born yet. These guys grew up around the boy racers of the 80's and 90's. Many of them were raised by musclecar owners, and many were not. Heck, I'm 50 years old and I wasn't old enough to own most of the cars that I now own when they were new. The hobby gets passed down from generation to generation. And most of the cars that you see at local shows and cruise-ins are not ultra rare several hundred thousand dollar or million dollar cars like you people seem to think. Those cars are kept in climate controlled garages and transported via enclosed trailers to national events. And the comments about camrys and such becoming big time collectibles someday are hilarious.
Well yeah, you see many different types of cars roll into car shows. But just because some kid rolls up in his grandfather's mint 76 chevette that doesn't make it a high roller collectible like a hemi cuda. Novas, Falcons and A bodies aren't big buck collectibles except for the rare performance versions. I don' see many people in their 20's with a nice old ride at shows, either. But I see alot of people in their 20's, they are highly interested in the old stuff, but obviously they are not yet in that place in life that they can afford such cars. They will be the next generation of classic musclecar owners.