This was a pointless rant. Please do not read any further. Suffice it to say that I love traditional rods and customs.
I agree....I hear guys at work telling how to clay bar the finish and take their new Mustangs to shows for trophys,but that's all they can do!!
It's not just cars. Hire a plumber, a roofer, a drywaller, etc. In some situations I would hire some of those guys but only if I had to. My dad grew up on a farm and you did it yourself or a neighbour might help. Otherwise it just didn't get done. He taught me that and I taught my son. My wife watched her father and when he'd ask for a coffee while doing a job she told him to get it and tell her what should could do on the project. My mom though was a "hire an expert" after my dad died. Money done the toilet lots of times. My daughter has helped on doing her brakes, oil change, and I expect her to learn more. My students don't seem to have any workshop area in their homes to do class projects in. We as a society are losing the can do attitude and the sense of accomplishment that follows. Or maybe I'm just cheap!
My neighbors always wait to see what is next in my garage. They come help when it is time to lift a body or even just push a car up the drive.Their boys all wear hot rod shirts from all the nationals and other shows we attend. Lucky for us, as it is also an extra security when they watch over the house for us. When the boys next door were very young, they used to come into the garage and pass wrenches and help out. Now they are teens they do less, but still watch closely. I consider myself one of the lucky few...............
They don't complain when I run an unruffled car in the driveway so I guess I'll give them a pass for not "knowing"
There seems to be less and less hands on , get your hands dirty , figure something out ........it's like a lot of , especially younger people , just don't have the passion to want to do the things that you guys do with your cars . I build model railroads as another hobby and I'm sure the neighbours chuckle over " the old guy playing with trains " . No , I build everything . T
Hell, me being the pied piper I am, several of my nieghbors have ended up owning vintage cars because of the fun they see going on at my place! I do keep my front yard perfect and my house mantained at all times so they don't have to look at my crap though. Just don't look over my fence...
My neighbors are great. I live in the sticks, all the houses are on 5+acre tracts. The neighbor on one side isn't a car guy but he still gets it. He's become a close friend in the 19yrs I've lived here. The neighbor on the other side is an old Chinese couple that own 2 houses and are only here 3 or 4 weekends a year. I spend 20min a week cutting their lawn because it's the neighborly thing to do. They send me a $200 check every month because they don't feel right having their lawn cut for free. They also didn't bitch when I had a motocross track in my side yard 50ft from their front door. I'm one of the lucky ones and I don't ever forget that.
i thought this was going to be one of those threads about "do your neighbors get mad about all the noise" ..."..not about what my neighbors opinons about me are" LOL!!! ...geez,,who give a fuck what your neighbors think......
My only nebighors are my mom and dad . Dad gets it ( he used to have a hot rod 57 Chevy ) - Mom considers it my artistic expression so I guess she gets it to.
They didn't mind the cars, but I think some of them cringed when we got into old jet boats. I just finished putting my wife's together. Some loved it, some weren't too happy. Specially the freakin' Subaru and Prius driving crowd. http://s268.photobucket.com/albums/.../?action=view¤t=VID_20120911_144111.mp4
I hear ya on the younger guy bit especially, but if it puts your mind at ease - there's definitely some of us out here. I'm 26 and probably what a lot of people would see as the typical "doesn't know how to do shit person" - I'm a physicist and write computer code, not someone you'd typically see getting their hands dirty I suppose. But after spending 12 hours a day at the office in front of a computer, nothing gives me more satisfaction than working on something with my hands. I suppose I owe a lot of that to my dad, who is a very much "do it right, and do it yourself" type guy. School may have taught me a lot of things, but handing tools to dad at age 5, and never getting bored of it has taught me a hell of a lot more, and whether it's rebuilding a car, framing a house, or cookin' dinner - it's damn sure gonna be me doing it. I definitely get some raised eyebrows from the neighbors though, and like you say - especially the younger ones; it's a bit of a bummer to be honest, and I wonder if people in 20 years are even gonna know how to wipe their own asses, but I digress.
Well... to be fair, you could put all that shit in a horse drawn carriage if you were so inclined - it's just that it's not exactly a priority
Far share of car show participants "didnt build that". They bought it like that. Ha ! Funny to here some of them brag and throw out buzz words about their motor except they dont even know what brand motor oil they have in it. Pretty pathetic
Every time my uncle comes over he has to comment "Why don't you get rid of all these old cars?" I think he'd say the same to Jay Leno too so i've always just nodded and shrugged.
Reminds me of something I saw a few years ago - I'm thinking probably around 2003 or something, right around the time of the Woodward cruise. Saw an old Barracuda (if memory serves) on the side of the road with a nice oil slick underneath it, so I pulled over to see what was up. Turns out the fucking numpty that owned it didn't have a clue about cars and took it to a Jiffy Lube for an oil change - they conveniently drained 11 quarts of oil out of the 426, and then topped up the torqueflight with nice fresh 10W30
I am the one loner in the neighborhood that works on older cars in my garage. There is a guy up around the corner that has a Pontiac Tempest that I have talked to once. There is an elderly gentlemen that used to walk by and he would walk up and talk shop with me, but I haven't seen him in a few months. Other than that, I do know not who my neighbors are, their names, or what they do. I introduced myself to them when I first moved in. Other than that, everyone around here seems snobby!
The guy below us has 15 cars sitting and I just made "friends " with the guy around the block that has a sweet shop and old cars out the yin yang and he builds old cars for other folks too.Nice guy.
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