Features Your Car Time Going Forward: A Poll Of Sorts

I'm 73 and retired 4 years or so. Personally the virus hasn't affected me that much but did take my brother in law 6 months ago. I didn't get as much car time as I wanted the last year or two cause life got in the way. Moving, health and such. Having said that I am the eternal optimist and hope to spend more time with the toys in the coming year. As for spending more money on them, maybe not. I am a little disappointed to see the price dip in automotive investments but maybe this will encourage new young enthusiasts.

 

At seventy-one, time is getting shorter for me and I have two rides to finish. As I try to spend more time on them, the pace still slows but I keep soldiering on. A Jackson Browne song bounces around in my head as I think about the tasks ahead.

But the angels are older
They can see that the sun's setting fast
They look over my shoulder
At the vision of paradise contained in the light of the past
And they lay down behind me
To sleep beside the road till the morning has come
Where they know they will find me
With my maps and my faith in the distance
Moving farther on

 

That's why this place works for me, I'm exactly the same way. Lucky my girl like cars, we drive all over looking for parts (and just plain driving at night) finding new old stuff/areas I've never been to or seen before.

Ok, you guys are scarring the shit out of me.....your going to make me into a hoarder (more of one).

I didn't have any time off last year, just no swap meets. Ca. closed almost everything down at one point (not political), so with everything opening now there might be more driving. Still the same amount of building time. As others said, I'm not a car show person or buying lots of new parts (tires, rubber parts, bushings...) person. But with several cars waiting to be built, I still need vendors for years to come.

 

I should have more time to play with cars, I have work to do on the house but whenever there is money or parts I intend to work in the shop.

 

I would think that the traditional hot rod craze would have energized the younger crowds. You have events like TROG etc. that help to revitalize the early wooden spoke eras. I would have bet money that the brass era stuff would have died out, due to the guys that loved them dying off.

 

Ryan, you nailed it with the ability of a business to change on the fly and adapt to survive. As an example, were they able to capitalize on internet orders, without lengthy delays in delivery?

Also, consider how much capital in reserve a business has ("blood money") to survive lean periods. Unfortunately some businesses live like some people do-"week to week". Fixed overhead can have a lot to do with that.
The juxtaposition of 2 identical company's; Business A owns their building and has paid off all of their machinery and vehicles. Business B, has an expensive lease, payments on machinery and their vehicles so their high overhead and slim profit margin gets them in deep water quickly when business slows or they lose a major account. When shit hit the fan last March, we saw a local major restaurant chain go belly up in about 2 months. 30+ year business. Nobody realized they were revvin on the red line and real close to a catastrophe.

 

I'm a 1957 model and I heard that same sentiment in the mid 70s. There was a brief period where you couldn't give away a brass car. Diehards didn't give em up but their market was all but melted. As we entered the early 80s there was a revival of sorts in brass cars (for other readers pretty much anything before about 1915). Started seeing them everywhere again, and some were insanely well restored, and we all know how popular events like the London to Brighton have become as well as other major happenings. Everything has a life cycle, a "best by" date for cars if your exam uses the market as one of the tests. As to what makes a come back a real come back? Kids. If you were raised in cars you're going to naturally focus on what you were exposed to. There's an estimate for a (cough-cough) HEMI car that's like 5 million dollars. I'd rather have a collection of cars for that $$$$$$$$ myself as would most other folks, but what that does do is fire up the crowd. It's awareness for "us" just like when we'd seen one of our icons bring long $$$$$ recently then get restored to it's original glory. I was put behind the wheel of a 34 Packard at age 14. Like the idle of a Model A at full retard, the blubber of a dual exhaust flatty, or the subtle explosive note of a 700 cubic inch 6 in a big brass car, that drive and silence and ease of handling was like nothing else. I was exposed at a tender and impressionable age and 50 years later I feel the same thing.

I'm not one of those philanthropic do-good types that goes out of my way but if there's a chance I let the youth experience whatever I can. 2 years ago an 18 yr old kid said the 47 Caddy conv I was driving was the "sickest" cars he'd ever seen. He walked away but came back again and I asked him if he wanted to sit behind the wheel as Mrs Jocko and I sipped our coffee on a picnic table. "No thanks but is it ok if I take some pictures?" 18. There was hope in that imprompto moment. I'm seeing participants at concours events a dozen years my junior at least. Not as a rule but there. Some folks in our "focus group" call some of the youth getting in on this stuff hipsters. Who cares the motivation, everyone learns. Besides exposure and being raised in it what else keeps things alive? Simple, the number of people. When I heard "...nobody wants..." and "...not worth anything..." back in the 70s we were probably 200,000,000 citizens in the US. Now we're approaching what, 325,000,000? More? 7.5 BILLION worldwide. So there's another touch for this, what's the census counts now? I applaud your position on treading slowly about social/political aspects. Can I be shop talk about it? Fuck that shit, what does it have to do with the best condensors needed for a Mallory? Focus on the right facets and ignore the flaws. I'll try to get shots of the folks around Amelia this year. Lots of events to pick from and I'll do my best for us, and I'd bet the 1st cup of coffee whenever we do meet some day it won't be all grey hair and canes.

 

Personally I think some of the issues with business right now is that some of them are out of touch with the core market as well as changes in their operations that could reduce costs. I love small family businesses and we all love traditionally built cars - but things need to change with the times. People have embraced the internet, online shops, online ordering, modern production methods that can ultimately reduces costs even on custom and bespoke parts. Just because you've made part XYZ the same way for the last 40 years in your small family business doesn't mean that you can still be profitable doing it that way today.

Particularly in the last year, if you didn't have a solid online shop presence, you probably did not do all that well as a business, unless you had a supremely niche market with no real competition. Add in any competition that does something the same or close and you probably lost market share to those that had a superior online setup. This goes for both sales and marketing.

The market isn't dying - the demographics of the market are changing. I'm 39 years old and have grown up in several hobbies where all I hear from "old-timers" is how the hobby of "whatever" is dying.... and yet in all the years I have been active in any particular hobby... it doesn't die... it does however change. Sometimes that change is not readily apparent, but if you are a vendor/supplier, you need to be constantly looking for how its going to change and reacting to it accordingly.

 

more time without a doubt.

 

I would have done more in 2020 car related but all events were canceled. 2021 & 2021, I am focusing on getting my son Eli's car running and on the road. I will try to fit in my 31 Chevy at the same time. So for me, over the next year or two, my car time will be mostly in the garage building and ordering parts, both new and used.

As for the virus impacting my life, thankfully my wife and my work has been busy and we are still moving forward. So financially, it has not impacted us really. I am grateful as I know some are not in the same boat. For me personally, I saw the virus data released in October 2020 and figured I am going back to normal as much as possible. I still go to Brazilian jujitsu 4 times week, I hug friends and family, I shake hands with people I know and strangers. I wash my hands more and do things to boast my immune system and my physical & mental health.

 

Digging this. They want your eyeballs Boss, not your opinion..... very interesting. Of course, you have been moving the cultural needle here, in a way that perhaps no industry big shot can appreciate yet and it causes industry waves that are extremely difficult to figure out.
That’s how I’m connecting these dots anyway.

Oh, and your humility and self-deprecation is so refreshing, one of the foundation blocks to this thing.

 

Hopefully more due to being able to plan better. Almost all last year after been sent home to work it was,"we're coming back in a couple weeks" tough to start and plan a large project that way. At least now I know I won't be back until X or X days a week.

 

I guess I selected the wrong word when I used “events”. I was referring to things like the weekly lunch get together and garage night. Not anything that is formally organized.

 

More time, ive finally infected my wife with the kustom bug. It also helps that we are finacialy better off this year. I could not belive my ears when she suggested that we look for a hobby shop to work on the cars. Life is good

 

Never stopped doing those things here. Don't plan on it in the future either.

 

Was anyone there representing a company(ies) that were faltering? I'd be interested to hear how they interpreted 2020.

Just a hunch, but I would think that any US business that sources most or all of its products from overseas would have had a very hard year (actually, it was the culmination of four years of trade disruptions). On the flip side, I would think any companies that didn't experience supply chain issues throughout the year fared better. Was any of that mentioned?

 

I'm a year older than HotRodTractor and I agree with him, and I've heard the same story my whole adult life that Highlander has been getting, how it's all dying off, and yet, it never does. So I have a hard time believing any of that.



Also, this whole thing feels a little bit like "a group of companies wants our personal data about how we will be spending our time and money, but we are not allowed to know who they are and what decisions they are making with that info".

Don't get me wrong, I work in this "industry" too, and I want to see it flourish, and I get that this is all aggregate data that's being collected, but still, that thought crosses my mind.

 

More- Slowing it down at work and the last year or so has helped me decide to do more of that. Also, just one local event last year, so no real good road time. Usually about 3 long trips per year.

 

I half-assed retired last fall, more time and money than when I was working full time means more car time. If my daily driver garbage will quit breaking down then more time for all the project cars I've been accumulating for the last 40 years.

 

I answered "more" on the survey; but in reality I'll probably spend about the same amount of car time as I did last year. I retired almost 2 years and last year I was finally able to finish the '40 Ford I've owned for 51 years... ended up putting 1100 miles on it just running around this area. Then got bored over the winter and after things warmed up in the garage I started on my A roadster; have it torn down to the bare frame and will keep busy with that until next winter.

 

I have nothing but time and money set aside to finish my projects but just can’t seem to find any fabricators in the San Diego area. Frustrating, but there are worse problems to have.

 

Can I answer both? All this mess meant a job change and a move to another state, with all the buying and selling that entails. Now a possible new unexpected opportunity may mean another move - same state, 150 mile change.

Sold the unfinished project so only one to move. My shop time will be close to zero this year. But my time at events, as a spectator, will increase. And my planning and ordering parts will increase to prepare for when things settle down. With all the shortages and long lead times I figure ordering before I need is a good idea.

 

More time if the shows keep being scheduled. Everything seems more upbeat. Hot rods and Kustoms are showing growth and flea Market attendance is up.

 

i bought an empty altered. gonna do a twin engine altered. only problem i have is when contacting businesses with questions about info to buy parts, they don't return email. and they wonder why they are losing sales. another issue is they can't think outside the box.

 

I voted more because I didn't get much done in the first part of the year because we were buying and selling and moving back to the country.
Now that we're here I should have more free time.

I know that canadian sales don't have a big impact on American business but the border shut down really limited my parts shopping, when it opens up there are a few things I plan to get.

Phil

 

I have no options but to spend more time, or I'll never get my heap back on the road. It's been one step forward, two steps back redoing this thing.

 

About the same - lord willing - I can get over some lower end pain I get from throwing those trannie's around like I was still 16.

 

I've already made a longer trip to an event than I did last year. A hundred mile round trip ain't much, but that's a lot more than last year. I've got over 100k on the '34. I'm use to hitting the road a few times each year.