It is a wistful experience to attend our area car shows or cruise nights and note how much they resemble AARP meetings.
Almost by definition, most of the cars are old, with just a sprinkling of recent model year muscle such as Corvettes or Dodge Hemis, Mustangs or Camaros. But the drivers tend toward the antique classification, too.
This is not just a local phenomenon. I watch those national car auctions on television, or via computer livestream, every chance I get.
And often the shots of the buyers are jarring. There’s something incongruous about an elderly gent plopped atop a mobility scooter, bidding fervently for an early 1970’s hemi-powered unit from Mopar, or even one of Dodge’s more recent horsepower monsters that go by Hellcat or Demon.
One thinks to oneself it’s like the dog that chases a car. What’s he going to do with it when he catches it?
I’m thinking in the case of the old guy buying the Hemi there won’t be a scooter rack hung on the back of that fire-breathing rocketship, but instead the muscle car will be put in a plastic climate control bubble within one of those spectacular car-holding edifices known as Garage Mahals.
‘Tis an investment, don’t you know, with the added benefit of providing a chance to recall past glories.
The differing car climate of today was evident in the wake of watching the movie “Ford v Ferrari,” which I’d preserved on the DVR during one of those free movie previews on my satellite TV service, but never got around to viewing.
As a youthful fan of cars in the mid-1960s and an avowed Ford guy, particularly the Mustang, I recall the joy I felt when the Ford GT-40s (so named because they stood a mere 40inches tall at the roof line) stuck it to Ferrari at Le Mans, finishing 1-2-3 in 1966 and then winning the 24-hour race there the next three years, too.
This was chronicled by the movie, with the usual Hollywood massaging of the storyline.
Ford also was doing well in other forms of motorsport in the mid-1960s and early 1970s, ranging from drag racing to NASCAR. And in 1968 Ford Cosworth V8 engines began a run of 155 Formula One victories over the next 12 years.
Those Fix Or Repair Daily, or Found On Road Dead taunts could be answered with First On Race Day.
Benefiting from a heavy dose of Carroll Shelby spice, the Shelby Mustangs began to dominate SCCA road racing. Shelby’s Cobra sports cars, also Ford powered, were big winners, too, on road courses and the dragstrip.
Eventually, Mustangs ruled the TransAm Series, which became serious factory racing as U.S. auto manufacturers tried to apply the win-on-Sunday, sell-on-Monday mantra to their pony car offerings.
Hell, if you turned on the AM radio in your car in the 1960s or 1970s you were likely to hear musical odes to vehicular transportation. Songs were sung about Hot Rod Lincolns, Little Deuce Coupes, GTOs, Cobras, Mustangs (Sally) and Chevy 409’s.
I’ve yet to hear a tune about the magic of a Tesla, or SUV of any manufacture. Vehicles these days fall more into the appliance category than lifestyle statement.
This means that the car culture, like so many traditional aspects of our heritage, is dying a slow death.
As the elderly hobby car owners such as me die off, so will the interest in the cars that we recall fondly, treat reverently if we own one or two, or more, and smile in appreciation of any time we see one pass on the street.
Sam Ross Jr's site 