(opinion) Can Millenials Save The (Studebaker) Hobby?

[wittsend]

Ok, I'm not a millenial, so what's a bit coin?

When I did the Bit Coin to US currency conversion the other day 67 Bit Coin represented $1,000,000 in my futuristic scenario. Like other forms of currency "backed by the full faith ... "

[DEEPNHOCK]

Bitcoin just opened on the NYSE today... Crashed the system, too.
Futures had it trading at $17,000 per bitcoin.

[KenF]

I hit up a lot of cruise-ins and meets, no shortage of 'millenials' or younger hot-rodders. They do say people get into the cars they are nostalgic for from their youth, so yeah they might be into the Supras and 'tuners', but I see some restoring or resto-modding early Fords and Chevys too. I think Studebaker just has a higher hurdle to get past for collectors and hot-rodders, namely too small a pool of parts/dealers and lack of information.

[bob40]

There are a lot of younger old car enthusiasts out there.Check out hot rod/custom/kustom car message boards and forums.
You may not like what they are doing but it is the younger set and they will do what they want to do.
Those who are into older cars have the passion many of us had as youths..which now has lessened in some or become tempered with a jaundiced eye.
Are there less? Maybe,maybe not.Think back to your past and think about who the real hardcore guys were back in your teens and 20's.
Not the ones who just wanted a nice car to go to school or be seen in but the guys who drag raced,stock car raced,worked on their cars all the time.
It was a small group,wasn't it?
As we age we tend to hang out with others who still embrace the aroma of grease and oil and it's still a small group although we know more people spread over a larger area.
Next time anyone is at a fairly large car show look around and see who is driving a car or truck to the show.It may not be stock or suit your tastes
but the REAL car guys of any generation still show up and have fun with cars.

[8E45E]

How many of us have a garage full of Buggies because our grandfather's encouraged us to keep the hobby going?

Where I used to see LOTS of old horse-drawn buggies at one time was in front of business establishments that had a space in front of their premises to keep one. Nine times out of ten, it would be a place promoting a 'Western' theme, be it a restaurant, or a clothing store. I think time and the elements took a lot of them sitting out in the open like they were.

Craig

[wittsend]

Where I used to see LOTS of old horse-drawn buggies at one time was in front of business establishments that had a space in front of their premises to keep one. Nine times out of ten, it would be a place promoting a 'Western' theme, be it a restaurant, or a clothing store. I think time and the elements took a lot of them sitting out in the open like they were.

Craig

Now that I think about it (and somewhat eating my own words) I have these (to the right of the Datsun 510) but no grandpa influence. They came with the house and I was told they were sourced locally - likely from the 1880's going forward when Scandinavians settled the area and raised sheep. Surprising to find since in 1955 there were about 1,500 people and by 2000 more than 125,000.

[bensherb]

Next time anyone is at a fairly large car show look around and see who is driving a car or truck to the show.

At any of the car shows I've been to, I'd guess the average age of the guys driving the cars and trucks to the show to be in their early 60's.

If you would have bought $1,000 worth of bitcoin when it was par with the US dollar (1 to 1) in early 2011, it would be worth $16,000,000 today. (BTW, by early 2011 it had ALREADY gained 300% from its 2009 opening price).

It's always good to get our heads out of a carburetor every now and then to see what the millennials are up to .

And I should have invested the $1000 and bought into Ebay in 1994 when it was offered to me, I'd be a millionaire now, but unfortunately hindsight is always better than foresight.

On the topic at hand, many of my friends (I hear we are borderline millenials) are into old cars, but we just can't afford the hobby. A large percentage of my generation lives check to check. Spending some money on that $300 set of headers, $1,000 on interior work, or $2,500 on a project car to even start is a hard pill to swallow. The money isnt there for many. It is also a matter of not having a place to work on these cars. Many millenials live in apartments and condos where working on a car isnt allowed in the garages per HOAs and such. Or they live with roommates in a big house no garage space to work on a car because it is a shared space. With rising home prices, I dont see this trend changing any time soon. I have had my Lark wagon in the garage for over 5 years and haven't touched it until recently. My wife would like her own old car in the garage but knows that it isnt in the cards financially for us right now.

This is no different than it has ever been for many of us. The only difference is the numbers. 40 years ago it cost about three days gross pay for that set of headers. That 20 year old POS Chevy you towed home to put the headers on cost five weeks gross pay and a set of cheap mags and tires was over a month's gross pay. I think it's actually become cheaper in some respects. I just bought a set of new mag wheels and tires, and a new carb (I've never bought a NEW carb before) for my '62 GT. That brings my cash investment in it up to about $800, if I don't count registration and insurance, but I have invested a LOT of time and work in it.

Around here the millenials don't seem to be interested in houses with garages or yards they'll have to take care of, they buy new 3 story row houses (costing no less than a house with a garage and yard) clustered together near public transportation and shopping so they won't need a car. The ones with cars are driving new to two year old Escalades, BMW's, and Mercedes. I don't know what they do for a living but they're clearly making more than the $33.000 a year I did when I retired.

[DougHolverson]

Youthful car culture has probably shifted over to Tuners and Rice Boys. Then again I feel that car culture took a triple body blow in the'70s with OPEC 1, OPEC 2, and Detroititis, and never fully recovered.

I hoping to retire from inheriting half a farm up in the Loess Hills in Iowa and work on my Studebakers. I'm not counting on it because I don't think such stuff is a sure thing since I lived through the Farm Crisis and saw relatives lose their farms and an Allis-Chalmers dealership, and my own personal bad luck with things like Heroes World and Fun Rockets.

[JoeHall]

I believe modern auto companies have addressed any millenials' desires for classic/analog, with the retro style cars they have came out with. For example, a person with deep pockets can have a modern car with classic appearance, i.e. 55/56 T'Bird, Camaro etc.. That can include analog appearing gauges, for those who want the look of analog, but the accuracy of digital.

As for anyone saving the Studebaker hobby, I believe we should just accept we are a dying breed, enjoy our Studes while we are here, and not worry about what will happen after we are gone. As someone else said here, in the end, its all just stuff anyway.

[bensherb]

As for anyone saving the Studebaker hobby, I believe we should just accept we are a dying breed, enjoy our Studes while we are here, and not worry about what will happen after we are gone. As someone else said here, in the end, its all just stuff anyway.

It's not just Studebaker, at least from what I see here. I've been going to the Goodguys "Nationals" show in Plesanton since Goodguys started in '85 (I missed one, stuck in a huricane back east). Vehicle numbers and attendance increased until about 15-20 years ago then began dropping. In recent years it has dropped off dramatically. Back then they'd have maybe 5000-6000 cars, and the place was really crowded for three days. Last August I can't imagine there were even 1500-2000 cars. The place was never what I would even call busy, and Sunday was a ghost town, with maybe 100-150 cars.
Perhaps the attendance drop is due to the fact that the guys from 20-30 years ago are in their 80's now, dying off and their kids aren't interested either. I know many who have died in the last few years, including the Goodguy himself Gary Meadors. I'm guessing in another 20-30 years there will be a glut of very nice old cars available very cheap because very few are interested in them.

[Bo Markham]

Bit coin is a cyber currency that has come on the scene over the last few years. Its value swings wildly and has traded as high as $15000.00 lately. Bit coin futures started trading in Chicago today. I guess that makes a Prius a good "bet" to put away as a store of future value.

Ah, yes! Another artful way to apply artificial valuation on something with no inherent value at all. I all ways thought the Federal Reserve had a monopoly on creating this fantasy. Now, comes along cyber currency, bit coins and the ever loving stock market.

I'm glad my Studebaker's have some real value, at least to me, and CASO I may be, I'm still not fooled by the bit coin con.

[wittsend]

For the past 20 years I've been attending the Mopar Spring and Fall Flings in Van Nuys. The swap area went all the way back to the rear of the property. Every year it trickles down a little more. It is now less than 50% of what it use to be. And this is billed as "The Largest Mopar Event West of the Mississippi." I hate to see what a lesser event is like.

The car culture boom began with people who were born in the late 20's/early 30's. Most of those people are either in or rapidly approaching their 90's. I'll say 1972 was the "pull back" year for performance and at least from the manufactures the point of decline. If you were 20-25 back in '72 you are between 60-70 now.

So, the greater age group of the car culture interest are people 60-90 years old. Fear not it won't completely die. And the premiere cars will always exist but it is those cars across the middle, the "drivers" and "want to be drivers" (project cars) that will slowly trickle off to China as our survivors "clean out that junk" we left behind. I think what went on this year in Arizona is a foreshadowing of things to come. Not every car and every part out there in the desert found a home regardless of one man's valiant effort to leave something behind when the time came.

[TWChamp]

Ah, yes! Another artful way to apply artificial valuation on something with no inherent value at all. I all ways thought the Federal Reserve had a monopoly on creating this fantasy. Now, comes along cyber currency, bit coins and the ever loving stock market.

I'm glad my Studebaker's have some real value, at least to me, and CASO I may be, I'm still not fooled by the bit coin con.

I never heard of bitcoin until a couple days ago, and this is exactly my thoughts about it also.

[Geigs]

A passage from Travels with Charley (1962): "Preparation for the winter in New England is drastic. The summer population must be large and the roads and highways gorged with refugees from the sticky heat of Boston and New York. Now the hot dog stands, the ice-cream parlors, the curiosity shops, deerskin-mocassin-and-glove places, were all shut- tered and closed, many of them with cards saying 'Open Next Summer.' I can never get used to the thousands of antique shops along the roads, all bulging with authentic and attested trash from an earlier time. I believe the population of the thirteen colonies was less than four million souls, and every one of them must have been frantically turning out tables, chairs, china, glass, candle molds, and oddly shaped bits of iron, copper, and brass for future sale to twentieth-century tourists. There are enough antiques for sale along the roads of New England alone to furnish the houses of a population of fifty million. If I were a good businessman, and cared a tittle for my unborn great-grandchildren, which I do not, I would gather all the junk and the wrecked automobiles, comb the city dumps, and pile these gleanings in mountains and spray the whole thing with that stuff the Navy uses to mothball ships. At the end of a hundred years my descendants would be permitted to open this treasure trove and would be the antique kings of the world. If the battered, cracked, and broken stuff our ancestors tried to get rid of now brings so much money, think what a 1954 Oldsmobile, or a 1960 Toastmaster will bring—and a vintage Waring Mixer—Lord, the possibilities are endless! Things we have to pay to have hauled away could bring fortunes. ~ JOHN STEINBECK
Travels with Charley 1962

[DougHolverson]

Prophetic. 1960 Toastmaster! Mid Century! Art Deco! Machine Age! Space Age! Now up for bids on eBay!