The future of Hot Rodding/Muscle cars ect?

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drtybttr

drtybttr

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I'm sure this isn't a new thought to anyone, but does anyone ever wonder where this hobby, passion, profession will be in say 20 years? It doesn't seem like the car show/swap meet crowd is getting any younger. You also see far more prius's than old American iron on the road on a day to day bases. I see more and more high dollar restoration than daily driver, beaters here locally. I personally don't think hot rodding will die, but just look at where we were 20 years ago. Quite a bit has change, i.e. parts available, costs, economy and so on. Will we be all about originality, overdrive transmissions, fuel injection and later model motors? Obviously theres no right and wrong answer and no one really knows but its something else to ponder. What do you think our future holds?
 
a prius has no soul
neither does my passat but i didnt buy that car for the same reasons i will get a duster later
when i do get the duster it will be treated different then the passat now
keeping it fully original will not be at the top of my list
having a car that has a certain feel to it will
and i think thats at the heart of hotrodding
 
I think there is still a lot of enthusiasm with the young folks. They are different for sure and have some different tastes but still appreciate hot old (and new) cars. What will likely be a bigger change to the hobby is government regulation. It might be tough getting 700 hp from a solar powered Chevy "sun car"....
 
I have thought about this and it seems to me that the new age mucle cars are way to complex for the average "builder" and that will limit the amount of restored 2012 cars in 20 years.I think the trend will turn towards original un altered cars and finding them will be harder.Much like today except the cost of all the computer and wiring will keep the average joe away.
 
mopar410 said:
............. seems to me that the new age mucle cars are way to complex for the average "builder" and that will limit the amount of restored 2012 cars in 20 years................. the cost of all the computer and wiring will keep the average joe away.
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"We'll see." Fuel injection sure as heck has not slowed down anybody, there are plenty of rods, engine swaps, etc using modern injection and electronics. I'm constantly amazed at "some build" I run into on the www, often when searching for other things. I recently joined the "Binder Planet" because of their pages on fuel injection. Seems to me there's lots more interest in turbos, etc, than there was "when I was a kid."
 
67Dart273 said:
"We'll see." Fuel injection sure as heck has not slowed down anybody, there are plenty of rods, engine swaps, etc using modern injection and electronics. I'm constantly amazed at "some build" I run into on the www, often when searching for other things. I recently joined the "Binder Planet" because of their pages on fuel injection. Seems to me there's lots more interest in turbos, etc, than there was "when I was a kid."
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I agree with what your saying but I was directing my comments more towards the new cars having so much to them just to run that it may deter many from grabbing an old 2012 challenger and bringing it back so to speak.
 
i think that as guys on the wrong side of 60,like me keep disappearing the hobby will continue to soften.
 
I think the cycle will continue. I see alot of new gen chargers and challengers on the street. Most as a driver but at the end of service life will be striped down and converted to hot rods. Look in the aftermarket hotrod parts guys catalogs, they are full of new gen hotrod parts. All the aftermarket parts guys are banking on the cycle continuing. Lets face it testosterone is going to be around alot longer than I will.
 
Its up to the Younguns like me. We just gotta save as many as we can and not give them up. Cars are not unlimited. Prices will keep going up too.

Hell, we may have cars that drive themselves by then.
 
I am 23 I am all about hot rodding. I cant afford a sweet superbee or dart so I run an 80s ram truck. I built a 446 for it, and a 727 all work done myself. I have another 440 in the shed as well as a 383. They will see the road again some day. They can do whatever they want to the price of gas. Ill make moonshine to run them if I have to.
 
Here in S. California one of the largest auto swap meets on the west coast is held at the Pomona fair grounds about 10 times a year. While it is still a well attended event, The attendance has fallen for both buyers and sellers for years and continues to fall to this day. Add in fuel cost continuing to rise and the future doesn't look real promising. The next twenty years may get interesting, at least in regards to the old dinosaurs we like around here.:D
 
My two cents is that most of the Mopar muscle hobby is made up from guys that were old enough to buy them new, guys who remember them when they were kids and kids whose dads owned them. There is some new gen guys in there but I think the hobby will get softer as the older guys died off. If you think otherwise ponder this. The model A's are mostly owned by the same group of guys I mentioned above. As the old guys that learned to drive on them because they grew up in the thirty or so are old guys. When you see these cars at meets or parades it is the old guys who own and drive them. Very few young guys in that mix. Muscle cars will somewhat follow that trend as the younger gen. Will like tbe newer muscle cars like the new challengers and mustangs to drive and fix up. The Dusters and Darts, Road Runners will seem somewhat like model a's to that gen. Of kids. Oh, there will still be a following, just smaller and smaller..
 
Hot Rodding and Muscle will live on, take this for example.

My best friend was an import guy who has a Mazda RX-7. He took one ride with me in my '74 Duster and not only was he scared to death, but he wanted a piece of this mopar power to call his own :D

He looked around but didn't find anything, and then one night he calls me and wants to know if I want to hang out, drink some beer and help him tune up and change the oil in his RX-7 :D We're standing there in his dimly lit garage/shack and I look under the hood and I said "You know a Chrysler Small Block would fit right in there." :eek:ops:

A week later he pulls down my driveway in the car, gets out and throws me the keys and says "Wanna take this beast for a spin before we small block it?" :D I made some phone calls to some friends, got him a great deal on a running 318/727 combo (That we immediately tore down, upgraded and rebuilt) and proceeded to drop that in his car in my shop.
 
I doubt many "B" engined Hondas will be around in 20 years, and there are plenty of young guys that know their way around a turbo EFI 4 banger. Hell, they cant read but they can sure tune a ricer. Who knows....Ill still probably have my /6 '65....but it may be turbo+EFI by then, or next summer at least.
 
I'm just going to throw this out there, and I'm not trying to make this a jab at anybody, because I don't know most of the people here, so a jab is essentially impossible.

Being inviting and trying to encourage new people into the hobby, and teaching them, goes a long ways.

Just throwing that out there. It isn't AS much of a problem in this hobby, but my god you should have seen when I tried to get into falconry. That was entertaining to say the least.
 
Sully1190 said:
I'm just going to throw this out there, and I'm not trying to make this a jab at anybody, because I don't know most of the people here, so a jab is essentially impossible.

Being inviting and trying to encourage new people into the hobby, and teaching them, goes a long ways.

Just throwing that out there. It isn't AS much of a problem in this hobby, but my god you should have seen when I tried to get into falconry. That was entertaining to say the least.
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Good point.

Having a good "Welcoming Committee" into the hobby goes a long way on getting people interested. When I got into the hobby, there was nothing like FABO or internet (Well there was, but that was for the rich people at the time). I just had a few family members who drove Dodge trucks and had A-Bodies that they had owned since the 70's (In my grandfather's case, he has a '71 Twister that he ordered in 1970).

Everybody else was Chevy & Ford guys who would constantly rag on mopar like it was diseased dog. But their tune would immediately change as soon as they walked up to the young kid working on a Dodge Dart in the shade of a tree. They were eager to hear what I was doing to the car (despite being ford/chevy guys), probably because they wanted to see someone else enjoy the hobby as well. And they were happy to hang around and see my other projects too, like my Suzuki ATV that I had just finished putting the top end together on.
 
I don't know all, my kids LOVE Mopars, hands down. My son wants to go to the junkyard every time I go, and we spent the entire day last Saturday digging through the junkyard. He was there for the entire deal... finding the part, going in and haggling with the old guy who owns the place, taking the parts off, just plain gettin' dirty with Dad and lovin' it!! He goes to the Mopar Nats with me every year, and comes to the WPC winter swap and works our tables with me. Heck, he made himself $50.00 last year..I put him in charge of the emblems!!

Do we even have to question Nella's love for her car?? Oops, I mean "Cudagirl"?? Just wait until tomorrow when I show her the steering wheel I cleaned up for her car, she'll flip!!!

I'm doing my part to pass it on, and I know every Mopar luvvin' Dad here on FABO is also!!! Geof
 
I'm 28. I know at least 10 guys around my age that are into hot rods. None of use have Chevys
 
I think part of the problem of what will be the middle agers hot rodding the newer cars 20-30 years from now will be the technology that is involved. Not everyone is going to be an electrical guru, computer whiz that will be needed to hop up 2010 and up cars. With the miles of wiring and electronic equipment involved in new cars I think the only people that will be able to do it are "mechanics" by trade, not the shade tree mechanic. Hopefully they will keep the awesome cars from the 50's thru the 70's alive and well!
 
The car club near us has days where everyone gets together and helps on project cars some. I think not only doing things like that, but getting the word out, restoring and saving more cars to sell, at non barret-jackson prices, and letting people know economical ways to do this; would go a long way.
 
You may need a wizard to get the most out of your car in 20 years, but the basics will be there. The. Again, with the tech. Advances in 20 years from now, it'll be just as simple as typing this message out via entering the specs of what it is into a program and hitting the enter key. PRESTO! Done.

A two part catastrophe happen to the muscle car hobby by me going back just at BJ auctions were about to hit the air waves. First, muscle car owners ragged on the kids trying to do SOMETHING to there imports Ina big way. Get a real car asshole was often heard.
Just doesn't it give ya that warm fuzzy feeling of welcome aboard and come on back next week?!?!

2: the price of the muscle cars were getting a bit high. Gold asking prices for copper metal was going on. (Later it was Gold for Aluminum after BJ auction show(s) came out,)
What kid can afford a decent car on min wage? And the. Be hounded by it?

By human nature, the kids did what we older guys did and did it well. They got cheap cars and did there best to wave there magi. Hot rodding wrench over it. And away they went never looking back at the old crusty guys who ragged on them.

And as expected, the aftermarket responded to them and did so very well helping them hot rod there cheap cars. While they NEVER be worth crap, it doesn't matter because there not even going to look at old cars. Lest they become that old **** that used to bust there balls.
 
I hope that the hobby will still be here, my son of the age of 16 loves my jeep cherokee, a rolling lifted rust bucket, but it is twenty years old and now a classic. i hope to some day go through it and fix the rust and rebuild every thing on it. okay i got off typic, hot rodding will still be here but with different cars being hot rodded. as stated in a earlier past cars fade away and new ones take there place, but they will always be some one hot rodding them.
 
The Ferds and to a lesser extent chebbies have taken on a HP war and the ferds are kicking azz. There are a lot of kids in their late 20's and early 30's buying them - probably on credit.

Mopars are still fast as witnessed by the 08 4400# 7 sec Chally at our local track. It is DD, takes long roadtrips, has 113K on the odo, and has all the creature comforts. Blown with I think 9 PSI. He is threatening to stroke it. The guy is retired, maybe in his mid 60's.

IMO what will kill old school rods like we build/drive will be the crappy gas available these days and the cost of gas as the dollar gets watered down due to the fed debt being monetized.

Also oboma has executive ordered a stoopit high ang MPG which should snuff out the HP war. Gonna be funny when his fat azz big black SUV driving supporters find out they have to drive a tata nano.
 
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