Now despite that first paragraph, I'm not really here to write a self-help blog. I'm a car guy instead of a motivational speaker. I do consider myself however to be an oddball car guy, and here's why.
Go to any local cruise night or car show in your town and what do you see? Unless you got a show that says ONLY UNMODIFIED CARS ALLOWED, then youre likely to see the same thing over and over again. Endless rows of Mustangs, Camaros, Corvettes, lifted or slammed Pickups, etc. You probably have a good idea of what I'm talking about but in case you don't heres some examples:
I actually had a hard time digging those pictures up on my computer because I've gotten so bored with cars like this that I hardly photograph them anymore.
Now I should make it clear, I don't hate Camaros or Mustangs or hot rods in general. I love big block powered pavement-bashing muscle cars as much as the next guy! And I do realize that the people who build these cars do put a lot of hard work and time into customizing it to their tastes. However, I do believe this creates an issue, because of this, we are losing original cars faster than we can even find them.
Let me give you an example:
This is a 1966 Dodge Coronet 2-door sedan. Its done only 37,000 miles in its life! Under the hood is a boulevard bruising 426 cube HEMI motor. However, this car did not start out as such.
I spoke with the owner who informed me that this car actually started life as a slant-six powered car driven by an elderly lady who always kept it dry and in the garage. Even after a minor accident up front that bent up the bumper and scratched the fender she kept it locked away and out of the elements with only 37,000 on the clock!
When the current owner bought the car, he gave in to the mentality that the car community seems to have fallen into "No one will want to drive a six-cylinder coronet! Lets tear this very original car apart and shove a massive motor into it!"
I find this point of view disturbing, and I could give you many examples that would make you cringe more than this one does. I've seen ads advertising PRISTINE, near-new full size cars from the 70s as "demo derby cars." Ive seen the same full size cars have their motors torn out and shoved into some rusty old dodge dart while the immaculate body of the car is sent to scrap. Odd optioned cars like our coronet have had their character stripped out of them just to make a "tribute" car. Lots of beautiful 4 door sedans have had parts robbed from them to restore a 2-door of the same model. The list goes on and on!
The result of all this is a car show chock full of performance cars or cars that are so rodded up, you can hardly tell they're old except for their shape! Because of that, people are in disbelief when I tell them that in 1969, not EVERYONE had a Camaro SS! Few people did really! They were about as common as a new camaro is today! Or that in 1957, Chevrolet offered more cars than a fuel injected Bel Air Convertible. What is happening is that we are losing history and it is distorting people's views of the past!
And thats not all either, it gets worse especially for amateur hobbyists like myself. Have you watched a telecast of Barrett-Jackson or some other high-profile car auction? People are paying hundreds of thousands or more recently, MILLIONS of dollars for a car! Yet people are buying pristine Lincoln Continentals and Buick Electras for peanuts. The result of the buyers with endless pockets bidding on a nut-and-bolt restored 1965 Mustang is that it drives the overall price so far out of reach, that people who might want to get their hands on such a car won't be able to with their 40-hour-a-week job! I often refer to this as "Barret-Jacksonitis". Heres what I mean:
Lets say you really want to fix up a 1970 Dodge Challenger. You scour the web looking for a project challenger that you want and finally find the one for you! It's the right color, has your favorite motor and some cool options to go along with it! However, in the ad, the pictures show a car thats covered in rust and being devoured by tall grass in a field. It hasn't been started since at least the early 1980s. You were well expecting this and are ready to tackle a restoration. So you call the owner, explain your interest and meet up with him at the cars location.
After a look around the car, you decide it's the one you want. So you pop the question to the owner, "How much were you looking to get?". Now this is a Dodge Challenger, you're well aware that they're quite hot on the market and are expecting to pay 10, maybe 15 thousand for an example in rough shape. You try to catch your breath as the owner says "I'll take $150,000 for it". You can't even begin to speak, and barely manage to push out "Where'd you come up with a figure like that?"
This is where it gets ugly
The owner smiles and says "One just like it sold on one of them TV auctions for $175,000! Im giving you hell of a deal!"
So you can see, now that cars are selling for astronomical figures, everyone whos got one thinks that they have their retirement fund sitting in a barn or sinking into the yard. Which not only means that no one can buy it, but it also means that the car will continue to rot until it's basically unrestorable.
So to sum up, original and rare cars are being chopped up and made into something they aren't, car shows are becoming mindnummingly repetitive, and the price of those cars at the shows is getting further and further out of reach for the car guy with a full-time job at the office.
So all this is why I'm an oddball car guy. At car shows I flock to stuff thats different. I'll walk past a row or frame-off restored mustangs to check out an AMC rambler. I'll talk to the owner for 10-15 minutes at a time about the cars life and how its too bad we don't see more of them around.
The purpose of this blog is to introduce my thinking to the rest of the hobby. I know I can't be the only one who thinks like this! My goal is to make the underappreciated, appreciated. The weird outcasts, the gifted one of a kinds.
What I will be doing is mainly combing through classic car ads and sharing the ones that stick out to me with you as well as showing off any cool cars I find at car shows among lots of other stuff! I encourage anyone who reads the blog and thinks like I do to e-mail me anything THEY find that they consider an oddball and I'll gladly post it! I'm always glad to meet like minded folks.
Here's to the oddballs!
-Boris
Go to any local cruise night or car show in your town and what do you see? Unless you got a show that says ONLY UNMODIFIED CARS ALLOWED, then youre likely to see the same thing over and over again. Endless rows of Mustangs, Camaros, Corvettes, lifted or slammed Pickups, etc. You probably have a good idea of what I'm talking about but in case you don't heres some examples:
I actually had a hard time digging those pictures up on my computer because I've gotten so bored with cars like this that I hardly photograph them anymore.
Now I should make it clear, I don't hate Camaros or Mustangs or hot rods in general. I love big block powered pavement-bashing muscle cars as much as the next guy! And I do realize that the people who build these cars do put a lot of hard work and time into customizing it to their tastes. However, I do believe this creates an issue, because of this, we are losing original cars faster than we can even find them.
Let me give you an example:
This is a 1966 Dodge Coronet 2-door sedan. Its done only 37,000 miles in its life! Under the hood is a boulevard bruising 426 cube HEMI motor. However, this car did not start out as such.
I spoke with the owner who informed me that this car actually started life as a slant-six powered car driven by an elderly lady who always kept it dry and in the garage. Even after a minor accident up front that bent up the bumper and scratched the fender she kept it locked away and out of the elements with only 37,000 on the clock!
When the current owner bought the car, he gave in to the mentality that the car community seems to have fallen into "No one will want to drive a six-cylinder coronet! Lets tear this very original car apart and shove a massive motor into it!"
I find this point of view disturbing, and I could give you many examples that would make you cringe more than this one does. I've seen ads advertising PRISTINE, near-new full size cars from the 70s as "demo derby cars." Ive seen the same full size cars have their motors torn out and shoved into some rusty old dodge dart while the immaculate body of the car is sent to scrap. Odd optioned cars like our coronet have had their character stripped out of them just to make a "tribute" car. Lots of beautiful 4 door sedans have had parts robbed from them to restore a 2-door of the same model. The list goes on and on!
The result of all this is a car show chock full of performance cars or cars that are so rodded up, you can hardly tell they're old except for their shape! Because of that, people are in disbelief when I tell them that in 1969, not EVERYONE had a Camaro SS! Few people did really! They were about as common as a new camaro is today! Or that in 1957, Chevrolet offered more cars than a fuel injected Bel Air Convertible. What is happening is that we are losing history and it is distorting people's views of the past!
And thats not all either, it gets worse especially for amateur hobbyists like myself. Have you watched a telecast of Barrett-Jackson or some other high-profile car auction? People are paying hundreds of thousands or more recently, MILLIONS of dollars for a car! Yet people are buying pristine Lincoln Continentals and Buick Electras for peanuts. The result of the buyers with endless pockets bidding on a nut-and-bolt restored 1965 Mustang is that it drives the overall price so far out of reach, that people who might want to get their hands on such a car won't be able to with their 40-hour-a-week job! I often refer to this as "Barret-Jacksonitis". Heres what I mean:
Lets say you really want to fix up a 1970 Dodge Challenger. You scour the web looking for a project challenger that you want and finally find the one for you! It's the right color, has your favorite motor and some cool options to go along with it! However, in the ad, the pictures show a car thats covered in rust and being devoured by tall grass in a field. It hasn't been started since at least the early 1980s. You were well expecting this and are ready to tackle a restoration. So you call the owner, explain your interest and meet up with him at the cars location.
After a look around the car, you decide it's the one you want. So you pop the question to the owner, "How much were you looking to get?". Now this is a Dodge Challenger, you're well aware that they're quite hot on the market and are expecting to pay 10, maybe 15 thousand for an example in rough shape. You try to catch your breath as the owner says "I'll take $150,000 for it". You can't even begin to speak, and barely manage to push out "Where'd you come up with a figure like that?"
This is where it gets ugly
The owner smiles and says "One just like it sold on one of them TV auctions for $175,000! Im giving you hell of a deal!"
So you can see, now that cars are selling for astronomical figures, everyone whos got one thinks that they have their retirement fund sitting in a barn or sinking into the yard. Which not only means that no one can buy it, but it also means that the car will continue to rot until it's basically unrestorable.
So to sum up, original and rare cars are being chopped up and made into something they aren't, car shows are becoming mindnummingly repetitive, and the price of those cars at the shows is getting further and further out of reach for the car guy with a full-time job at the office.
So all this is why I'm an oddball car guy. At car shows I flock to stuff thats different. I'll walk past a row or frame-off restored mustangs to check out an AMC rambler. I'll talk to the owner for 10-15 minutes at a time about the cars life and how its too bad we don't see more of them around.
The purpose of this blog is to introduce my thinking to the rest of the hobby. I know I can't be the only one who thinks like this! My goal is to make the underappreciated, appreciated. The weird outcasts, the gifted one of a kinds.
What I will be doing is mainly combing through classic car ads and sharing the ones that stick out to me with you as well as showing off any cool cars I find at car shows among lots of other stuff! I encourage anyone who reads the blog and thinks like I do to e-mail me anything THEY find that they consider an oddball and I'll gladly post it! I'm always glad to meet like minded folks.
Here's to the oddballs!
-Boris
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