Time for me to chime in here too.

My son, 20 years old, isn't into hot rods at all. It just isn't his thing to do. Why?? Beats me....it's not because he has never been exposed to it around the home front. I ALWAYS have some car project going. Most times too many. But, I can tell you this. When he was in high school he never had a shop class. They did away with them for budget reasons. So a car with a good stereo in it is more important to him. Go figure, I lost too much of mine during Air Force days working on jets.

When I go to the car shows, and I go to many, they are ALL graying men there. Sure, we have more $$$, but I think it has to do more with what we grew up around the 50's, 60's and 70's with the automobile scene. Remember all the manufactors were selling performance. Ford had "Total Performance", Chyrsler had all the "Ramcharger" stuff, AMC had the performance Javelins, "Big Bad Packages". GM had the vettes, GTO's, 442, 409, etc. All of that was major advertising too. It's just a different time.

I tell my young mechanics, at my shop, about how we built power was swapping parts off of the other cars to make ours go. My parts came from the junk yard. 4 barr. intakes, solid lifter cams, 312 cylinder heads, double hump heads, etc. They are just all ears and wide eyed. I was telling one just yesterday, "Why do you think we like multi-carburation so much"? You had to put a couple of carbs on your car, because they didn't make large carbs. then. You needed the carburation. Heck, most 4-barr. were like 400-450 cfm.

When I was a young gearhead the older guys always were swapping in larger engines. Mostly Caddy's and Old's. They were OHV, large displacement with lots of torque. Heck, most people don't know that Hurst got it's start making engine swap motor mount and transmission adaptors, BEFORE the shifters.

We're just progressing...but we are a dying breed. I'll enjoy it and believe me I try and pass it on when ever I can.

Off of soap box now....

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2007 F-150 "Harley-Davidson", SuperCrew
2004 Thunderbird
1968 Cougar, 347 stroker, dual AFB's
1986 LTD