Quote:
Originally Posted by Beoweolf
'Not too sure about the complaints I'm hearing. I have to wonder if its a case of instant gratification?
I can't begin to tell you of the kind of junk I drug home...to fix. Seats that needed 2 blankets to sit on, if you didn't want a broken coil worming its way up your backside, windows that would not either roll up and stay up or would roll down. Doors that you had to either climb through a window or go through the passenger door (or backdoor - my first "hot rod" was 4-door Fairlane). Rusted fenders, rusted roof (also dented from local kids using the roof, hood and trunk as a trampoline)...I or actually my best friend and I would drag these POS junkers home and get them running, one way or another.
I'm not trying to hurt anyones feelings, but I can't help but think kids are turning their nose up at stuff they can afford - then complain about not being able to "anything". What they want is fully finished car for free or just enough that they can brag about the "steal" they got from some low life, who didn't know the value of what he had.
|
I'm completely with Beoweolf on this one. I dragged home the same sort of junk or worse. Plus, kids today have so many more hobby choices that we who grew up in the '60s did. Video games, 'texting'..wish somebody would explain the purpose of this to me someday, My Space, scoring MP3s, paint balling, rollerblading, hanging out at the mall and such along with overindulgent parents buying their kids whatever the hot new 'toy' is, along with the good old standards of sex, drugs and rock&roll fill in the time that a young guy or gal with an interest in cars would spend building a rod.
V8 powered cars with hot rod potential are out there cheap...look at the Parts car section of eBay as one example, but they're cars that today's youngin's would turn their noses up at. Running, or close to ,'77-'79 T-Birds, Cougars, LTD II's, '81 Granadas, mid '80s Crown Vics and Impalas plus many more cars of every flavor can be bought for crusher money or less and built into great "first cars". Even the oldies like Galaxies....I paid $500 for my '64 Custom RUNNING in '03 are findable with some patience. But Generation Y, Z or whatever other doesn't see that potential the way we Baby Boomers did.
BTW, we're having the same problem in local circle track racing as the median age of fans and competitors keeps getting higher. Granted, racing a Late Model, DIRT Modified or even a Street Stock is hideously expensive unless Daddy has money. But all of the local tracks have 4 cyl FWD classes where a kid can throw a $100 roll cage in a beater Neon or Escort and go racing for $500. But most of the racers in these classes are 35 year olders and up that could never afford to race until now.
Jan
