MyStarCollectorCar

CAR GUY CAMPS

Jerry Admin

Car guys live in a complicated world that’s far more than welding sheet metal and rebuilding engines.

Those are the basics, but beyond that there are many layers to the old iron universe.

Here are a few of them.

I’ve talked about camps in the car hobby—Chevy guy camps, Ford guy camps and Mopar guy camps, but those are just a few. There are other camps.

For example, there are old truck camps. Old truck guys like the look of an old workhorse pickup more than the look of a classic convertible.

There’s something about an old truck that launches you back to a time when trucks were strictly for work. They didn’t have the limousine feel of a new truck—they were all about hauling stuff. Drive an old truck and you not only go back in time—you get instant credibility in the Clint Eastwood code of tough guys.

Sports cars are another camp in the car hobby. Sports car guys live in a polar-opposite world to truck guys because a sports car is built to handle fast turns—not transport cement blocks.

An old F-100 truck only appeals to sports car guys when it shows up with a tow bar after the old Triumph or Porsche dies on the side of the road. Beyond that, an old Ford truck is just another relic to pass on the road to sports car guys.

Ride height is another big camp for car guys.

Some guys like to slam old or new cars on the ground to make them handle better. They see nothing wrong with ripping off the odd oil pan or muffler if that helps the car (or truck) take an off ramp faster.

Other guys like to adjust the height up so high you’ll need an oxygen mask to drive it.

99% of the time you’ll see this done to trucks, but the occasional car gets elevated too. The factory height guys have been disappearing since the first guy built a Model T speedster.

Decades are another camp venue for car guys.

For example, some guys prefer the 1920s camp, but those guys are getting rarer than guys who were on the beach at D-Day.

Other guys like the 1950s camp.

This is another camp that’s losing numbers every day because kids don’t get as excited about a ’59 Ford in 2025 as they did in 1961. 

The same rule applies to every era in the car hobby, and right now the 1980s and 90s camps are exploding in numbers. 

There’s another growing camp in the car hobby—the air conditioning  guys.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re 25 or 75—most people like A/C in their cars. That’s why you can look inside the cab of a street rod and see an aftermarket air conditioning under the dash in most of them.   

Tires are definitely a car guy camp issue. Some guys like stock bias-ply tires on their old classic.

These guys are known as either daredevils or guys who never drive their cars. If you’ve ever changed lanes on a rutted 4-lane highway while running bias tires under an old car with a tired steering box, you’ll come over to the radial tire camp…by the time you hit the next town.

These are just a few of the car guy camps—like I said, it’s a multi-layered world.

That’s why you should look for a list of more camps in a future MyStar article. 

Jerry Sutherland

By: Jerry Sutherland

Jerry Sutherland is a veteran automotive writer with a primary focus on the collector car hobby. His work has been published in many outlets and publications, including the National Post, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, Ottawa Citizen, Montreal Gazette, Saskatoon StarPhoenix, Regina Leader-Post,  Vancouver Sun and The Truth About Cars. He is also a regular contributor to Auto Roundup Publications.

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