MyStarCollectorCar

THE CRAZY WAY CAR GUYS THINK

Jerry Admin

Mainstream society will never understand the car hobby.

That’s not a shot at mainstream society—it’s a simple observation.

There are several reasons why–but the path to understanding why mainstream society doesn’t understand the car hobby is found in a list of what car guys worry about.

The first thing car guys worry about is finding the right vehicle.

Shopping for an old car isn’t like flipping through your local buy and sell in a search for a good used Honda Accord. The biggest reason is math.

They’re still making millions of Honda Accords, but they’re not making millions of ’69 Camaros—one of the most common vehicles you’ll see at a car show. It’s all about numbers.   

Also, bear in mind how car guys analyze a car. Many of them will call a seller even though the car or truck in question is a mess—very few Honda Accord buyers will look at one with a stuck engine and enough rust to cover lower Manhattan.

That’s because most car guys believe they can save anything with four—or more wheels. Car guys believe that because many of them can bring a project back from the cliff—I’ve seen hundreds of examples at car shows.   

Mainstream society will never understand how or why car guys want to save every old car they see. In their world, the family car is simply a mechanism to get from Point A to Point B, and when it’s miled-out, it goes to another owner or the local wrecking yard.

Here’s the fine line between car guys and mainstream society. Today’s car guys don’t care much about the current family sedan either, but tomorrow’s car guys will. That’s because that old SUV built early in the 21st century will be a fond memory for the next generation of car guys.

Next-Gen car guys will find a beat-up Kia minivan that looks just like the one they rode in with their mom 25 years earlier and suddenly there’s a project in the garage. The new-age car guys will face the same resistance their dad or granddad faced from a skeptical bride, but they’ll be united across generations with the same built-in DNA to save a project car.   

Time is not on the side of car guys, because now cars get recycled faster than an election promise but that doesn’t slow down the hunt.

The hunt is almost as important as the car itself so that’s another concern for car guys. Ask any big game hunter about a trophy elk and 90% of the story will be about how tough it was to track it over hills and through some brutal bush country. Plugging the elk will only be 10% of the tale.

Car guys are the same way, because a long, painful search for an old car is a badge of honor in the hobby. Conversely, so is a smoking deal that lands in their lap because then you have the “I wasn’t even looking at the time” plotline.  That’s gold too because either way you’re a hero to fellow car guys.

The last item on the car guy concern list is the timeline.

There are only two timelines car guys love—the long one and the short one. In other words, if you took 3 decades to finish a project you get respect for your perseverance.

If you did it over one winter, you get respect for your incredible time management.

If you finished the project over a few years in a reasonable amount of time you get the “that sounds about right” observation. It’s the minimum amount of respect you can get for a car guy timeline.

There are many other examples in the crazy-way-car-guys-think files, so I’ll come back again to this topic because mainstream society needs the education.             

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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