My Generation
A Moment of
Reflection on the State of the Automobile & the Enthusiast
by Rick Tavel © 12-21-12 All
rights reserved
As car enthusiasts let’s take a few moments to reflect on
the state of the automobile and what has become an avocation for most of us as
we close out 2012 and enter 2013.
Simply, we find ourselves surrounded by the fastest, best handling and most
technically advanced performance cars ever produced. No doubt about it. For those of you whining over the “muscle
car” era of the sixties and early seventies get over it, you’re showing your
age! If you don’t know it, this is the
real “muscle car” era and we should all realize it and be thankful for it.
If you are not convinced,
show me one car from the sixties that can outperform a Corvette ZR1, a Z06 or a Camaro
ZL1. And if you still aren’t convinced
how great things are as we closeout 2012, think back to the late seventies and
eighties and the only cars available to us then. You do remember how Lee Iacocca saved
Chrysler with the “K car” and the minivans don’t you? Exciting times. I don’t think so. You must remember when the “hottest”
performance cars’ speedometers topped out at 85 MPH and a car with 200 HP was
considered to be a performance car?
Looking back, yes even to the “muscle car” era of the sixties, was there
any production car produced that could compare in performance and build quality
to the performance car of the last few years?
If there was, I‘d like to know what it is. Simply
put we are witnessing the greatest performance era of the automobile, bar none. And for that I can say “Lucky me!”
If that isn’t enough, we also find ourselves inundated,
almost overcome with car-related activities of every type. This past summer in Michigan I commented to
another “car guy”, during a Friday night gathering of FBody owners on Woodward
Avenue, that I could participate in a “cruise” event every night of the week
throughout the summer if I wanted. In
addition to nightly cruises there were car shows and special events
weekly. Some of them, major events such
as two of the largest, lengthy and legendary auto events in the country, The
Woodward Dream Cruise and Flint’s Back to the Bricks® Car show and the supporting
events which go on ten days prior to the official date. It is almost
inconceivable but these two events run concurrently, only an hour’s drive
between the two, and together they draw over a million people! A million people turned out to either watch
or be a part of the events in some form or other.
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| Back to the Bricks 2012 |
Michigan does not have a lock on the number and quality of
auto-related activities going on. Every
major metropolitan area has numerous events and activities available for the
enthusiast throughout the weather-friendly months. If you don’t believe that then just go into
any regional section of a forum and check out events. I recently put together a “Snowbird Calendar of Cruises and Events for
Corvette Clubs in Arizona”. Just
like in Michigan, I can find a cruise event to go to almost every night between
October and May. On Saturdays I can make
it an “all day Corvette marathon”; Corvettes and Caffeine® starting at 8 in
the morning until about 11, then a Corvette club luncheon from 11:30 until 1:30
and then off to the Scottsdale Pavillions
for the oldest cruise-in in the country from 3 until about 9 or 10 at
night.
Like Phoenix, in every metro market you’ll find an event
that you can enjoy and participate in: car shows, cruise-ins, autocrosses,
races, rallies, drive and dines, tech lectures, parades, power tours, and the
list goes on. One of the Corvette Clubs
in Phoenix has the motto, “If you’re not having fun it’s not our fault!” and
that pretty much sums it up and applies to what events are available in most
metro markets. Never have there been so
many events for the automobile fanatic.
And once again I say, “Lucky me!”
Even when you can’t get your car out of the garage because the
snow is too deep, don’t despair! There
are other auto-related venues you can enjoy without leaving the comfort of your
home. The most obvious is TV. There are some of you old enough to remember
when there were no automobile or motorsports programs on TV. Hard to imagine, but in the fifties the only
TV coverage pertaining to automobiles were the advertisements for the “Big
Three” US auto manufacturers. Except
for some local TV coverage around Indianapolis during the Indianapolis 500
there was no racing of any type to be found on TV. Automobile racing and motorsports didn’t debut
on TV until the sixties. No NASCAR, no Formula 1, no American LeMans, no Indy
car (USAC), no SCCA Runoffs, no Dirt Track racing, no Drag Racing. You get the point.
It was not until the early sixties that auto racing made its
debut on national TV. I remember my
excitement when I found out that the Grand
Prix of Monaco was actually going to be shown on network TV in 1962. For the first time in my twelve years I was
able to see a Formula 1 car actually racing.
Before that I could only read about, look at pictures, and dream of them. It wasn’t until the seventies before national
TV networks realized the motorsports “golden goose” had just started to lay the
“golden egg” of TV coverage.
Today there are at least two cable TV networks devoted to
nothing but the automobile. In addition
every major race is also broadcast on either network or cable TV. If you have cable, dish or direct TV you can
watch several automobile programs any given hour of the day. Every conceivable type of motorsports is
covered from mud racing to rock crawling.
It is hard to find an hour of the day during the racing season when you
can’t find something on TV about NASCAR.
Today every major event in Formula 1, Indy Car, NHRA plus a plethora of
European and Australian racing is covered in depth.
In addition to the motorsports coverage, over the past
decade TV has discovered that there is a huge market for reality based
automobile and motorcycle programs. “American Chopper” just ended their ten
year run. We can watch Chip Foose
building another “Riddler Award” car, or Wayne Carini chasing another classic
car and losing money on his latest auction recommendation. We can watch Ryan on “West Coast Customs” build a custom Camaro for Rascal Flatts. SPEED®,
formerly Speedvision®, discovered covering the Barrett Jackson® auctions on
national TV was also big business. Then
Velocity® TV jumped on the bandwagon broadcasting Mecum® auctions. Now each of their several auction events is
covered in depth. Mecum’s Kissimmee
auction and Barrett-Jackson’s Scottsdale auction will each be televised over
forty hours, many of those hours broadcast “live”. Never before has there been so much coverage
of automobile events of every type. And
as an enthusiast I say, “Lucky me!”
But of course, if you are reading this you know that we have
another source of automobile entertainment, the internet. This is the largest source of every type of
automobile information available. It
would be impossible to go into all of the different type of sites and information
available to us 24/7. It will suffice to
say, you can virtually find out any type of information you need on your car, or
any car for that matter, from “how to” technical information to production
information and specs. History,
production information, and specifications for virtually any production car
ever produced are available at a moment’s request. There are sites to decipher a VIN and even
report how rare or unique a particular car may be. You want to know how many C5, Speedway White
with Red/Black interior, Z06’s were produced, you can quickly find out that
there were only 137 produced and only in 2001.
You want to know the right performance cam to install in your LS2, the best
clutch set up for racing, how to install twin turbos on your LT4 or anything at
all, it is all there, a click away. You can watch thousands of “UTube®” videos on absolutely any and
everything auto related. And finally let’s
not forget the “forums”, where you can share automotive ideas and thoughts with
others of similar interests. And as an automobile aficionado I say, “Lucky
me!”
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| 2013 SRT Viper |
As the checkered flag comes down on 2012 you have to be
aware that performance is alive and well, like never before. The ZR1 Corvette, like the one that just beat
the Viper at Laguna Seca is only one of several testaments to that. Throughout the automotive industry outstanding
performance cars are being built and each year the bar gets raised a little
higher. Certainly the new Viper is a
contender and Ford’s new GT500 looks like it will be some serious competition
to the new Corvette as well. No longer
when someone in a Mustang pulls up next to us can we take it for granted that
they will be sucking our exhaust fumes.
And all this is not only okay, it’s great! It signifies just what I have been saying: the performance automobile is thriving like
never before.
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| Rendering of 2015 Mustang GT500 |
Just a few years after the entire US auto industry almost went
“belly up”, we have been rewarded with cars that were almost unimaginable
thirty years ago. Who could conceive
that we would be driving street legal production Corvettes that could top 170
MPH? And when GM declared bankruptcy who
of us did not worry that we may never be able to drive another new Corvette,
much less an entire new generation of Corvettes. The very fact that through the most adverse
times in the company’s history, the engineers and designers at GM were able to
not only keep the dream alive but to produce an entire new generation of
Corvettes touted to be the best ever. That remains to be seen. There are several “naysayers” out there
criticizing the C7 which the pundits
have never even seen, much less driven, but my bet is that GM will deliver us
the best Corvette ever, in every respect.
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| C&D Corvette C7 Rendering |
Regardless though, whether the C7 first year car has 450 HP
or 475 HP, we still live in the most exciting times in automotive history. We not only have the best cars, we have more
venues to enjoy them, more exposure to motorsports and activities of all types. We have more information at our fingertips to
fix, upgrade, customize, restore and simply enjoy our cars. As the green flag is waved for the start of
2013, the Golden Age of the Automobile
is upon us and the hobby.
That’s something I would have not thought possible twenty five
or even five years ago. We are living
it, a part of it. And as an enthusiast I
can say, “I’m damn lucky!”
Here is the link to the Published version of the story.
A Moment of Reflection on the State of the Automobile and the Enthusiast
