As some of you may know I am studying graphic design, and in my final year we see a lot of live briefs. These are published by design award bodies on behalf of companies. Basically you submit work to them in the chance you may get commended for it, looks good in portfolio etc, and those who work in the creative industry get to steal your ideas and use them. its a give take relationship within reason.
I'm doing one by the RSA about British Heritage, and how young people in the UK are not engaging with their heritage enough, and need to be encouraged. Being a classic car lover, and knowing that the 'British Patriot' is now associated with undertones of racism it seemed that British classic cars was a good start. Throughout my research however it seemed that some thought British classic cars were dying out, which in my opinion does relate to the lack of interest the younger generation have of the past in the UK. This is my musing. I research, then i write to understand what others are tying to say, while attempting to be impartial.I find this helps my train of thought. I thought i'd post my writing on this topic here in-case any of you found it interesting.
Many thanks
Yams
From light research around the topic of British Classics, there is the underlying theory that they are slowly dying out, there stands several main reasons as to why people think the classic car legacy is fading in Britain, and further afield. However due to the RSA brief being focused on British Heritage, British cars will be my main focal point of discussion.
The first article I encountered was by Daniel Strohl, published in Hemmings Motor news, titled ‘The old car hobby is dying, and money is killing it‘. In the article was suggested that it isn’t the lack of a youth interest that is killing old cars, nor is the lack of parts available for them, but the idea that classic cars are no longer purchased by ‘car enthusiasts’, but by ‘collectors’. This quote from the article sums up his idea perfectly.
‘Yet we see the love of money trump the love of old cars even at the jeans-and-a-t-shirt end of the hobby. I can't be the only one who has observed that local cruise nights and car shows have become car corrals by another name, with for sale signs in the windows of most of the vehicles in attendance. Nor can I be the only one who sees that most of the auto-themed cable TV shows focus not on the cars' styling or engineering or history, but on how much they're worth and how much money one can make by rapidly reselling them.’
I can relate to this entirely. Owning a classic car myself, showing a deep interest, and keeping a keen eye on the goings on in the classic car scene, there does seem to be a mentality of what is known as fast turnarounds. Shows like wheeler dealers and classic car rescue are among the main culprits targeted at British audiences on the television, and although the notion of ‘keeping cars on the road’ is apparently the whole reason behind them, a huge portion of these shows is dedicated to the strong underpinning idea of profitability. This was also a heavy undertone with the recent series by Philip Glenister, For the Love of Cars. Although the show did go into detail about the marques, who drove them and why they were/are iconic, the final episode was dedicated to the sale of each vehicle, where they were auctioned off to a demographic aimed at collectors for huge amounts of money. Money that most of us could only dream of having to own such beautiful cars.
Other arguments point towards the idea that the decline and failure of the British Classic car was already firmly rooted by 1959, and that the cars produced in Britain, by British working engineers, designers and builders were sub-par, and not enough effort was focused on the most lucrative car consumer market in the world at the time, North America. Although British cars were exported to North America, such as the Austin A40, Hillman minx, and others, reliability seemed to be an issue that wasn’t addressed, nailing the coffin shut on the relationship between the American Automobile consumer market and the British export market. It appears it wasn’t just the typical English weather that our cars didn’t agree with. They seemed capable of breaking down and suffering from unreliability no matter what climate they were in. This, combined with the success of the Volkswagen (beetle) definitely helped kill the British export market in the USA. This argument does make sense, but whether or not we have this to blame for our fading of British classics ‘now’ could be debatable.
And finally, the idea that classic cars just aren’t interesting to the younger generation today. The article by Ashley Halsey for drive.com educates us on this matter, where it gets straight to the point with how the youth are more ‘interested in terabytes than cubic inches’. In the article he touches on the idea that young people now have the internet, which acts as a social space, opposed to the good old days when you drove your car to socialise and share you passions. He says “younger people seem more interested in fiddling on the Internet than under the hood, and they’re finding it provides more ways to get around than ever before.” He also notes that “hot cars once were a teenage status symbol, but now four wheels matter most as a way to the shops.”
I find this argument compelling, however I personally think that a major tipping point isn’t the idea that the internet is more interesting, more the fact the internet is easier to use. I’m currently re-building an engine for my classic mini to make it go faster, and make it more reliable. I am no engineer, but I feel I do have enough mechanical skills and patience to take on the challenge. I can also build computers, the computer I’m using right now to type this on was assembled by yours truly. I am definitely no computer wizard, but putting the computer together was far easier than re-building an engine.
In my opinion people have a tendency (most of the time) to go in the direction of least resistance. Cars are getting more and more advanced (so they tell us), which is daunting when something does go wrong with them. There is also the idea that cars are not ‘human functions’. As drivers we hold our steering wheels with a sense of familiarity, however are they intuitive in the same way that to scroll down a web page on a tablet you simply swipe the desired direction? Many in our day in age, be it young or old, seem to know how to navigate the screen of an Ipad with ease, but struggle and faff about when they need to access their bonnet release.
Perhaps it is all of these reasons that classic cars are apparently dying out. Be it collectors who horde cars away like fairy-tale dragons and their treasure. The fact that British cars are simply not worth keeping alive in the eyes of some due to their unreliability and the poor decisions made by the British auto-industry fat-cats in the 50s and 60s, or the fact that we are so wrapped up with what’s coming next that we simply forget or are uninspired by the inventions of the past. Either way many would argue that their past-time is not dying out, but we’ll just have to see.
