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Classic Cars What Will Be a Future Classic?
588 messages, Last post on Sep 06, 2009 at 3:54 PM
You are in the Classic Cars Forum. Your Host is mr_shiftright
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I think whether cars such as the niche-market K-car derivatives that were mentioned in previous messages should be considered classics depends, to a great extent, on definition. I'm okay with not calling them classics, if they don't meet the restrictive "Concours de Elegance" criteria that these cars must possess. I believe that they should be included in car shows of collectible automobiles, however, which is more inclusive. Ordinary folks, with ordinary budgets, who happen to own low cost, yet interesting and fun-to-look-at cars, shouldn't be excluded from old car shows. Hemmings and "Collectible Automobiles" magazine feature a lot of the cars that ordinary people drove, back in the day, along with the rare and exclusive ones.
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Replying to: hpmctorque (Dec 27, 2008 3:14 pm) What on earth could be the allure of a lot full of cars that people used only as transportation modules to get from one place to another. What are we? A nation of "everyone is special"? That rather destroys the idea of merit, doesn't it? The term "classics", applied to that old junk, just demeans the term in my opinion, for truly interesting, beautiful, rare cars with perhaps interesting engineering, etc. or dominating performance. And on top of all that, a car show full of Lebarons seems almost...forgive me...a pathetic moment... 
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Replying to: Mr_Shiftright (Dec 27, 2008 4:34 pm) Well preserved everyday cars and oddballs are "special interest" cars. They lack high level design or performance pedigrees that make a car a legitimate classic, but can still have charm, looks, and fun potential galore. |
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I'm not sure we disagree. I may not have expressed myself clearly. I'm suggesting that there's room for more than one type of old car show, as in different strokes for different folks. One type is represented by the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, and another is the major regional car shows such as the ones held in Carlisle, PA. Still another, more similar to Carlisle, is the large local type, such as is held in Rockville, MD every October. There are still others, that feature one company's products (eg. old Ford Motor Company cars), or even one brand (eg old Chevy's), or one country's cars. Now, I believe that shows such as the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance should remain as they are. Of course, it's understood that no K-car (horror of horrors) or X-car (heaven forbid) would ever be displayed at Pebble beach. Maybe they wouldn't even allow one in the parking lot, and that would be okay, if those were the rules. Although I've never had the pleasure of attending this show, I imagine that it draws a pretty exclusive audience, most of whom own high priced wheels as daily drivers. Other shows, such as those held in Carlisle and Rockville, are more inclusive, and display everything from old Ferraris, Rolls Royces and Mercedes, to old cars that ordinary people bought and drove, for work and pleasure, and ultimately junked. I say there's nothing wrong with these shows, even if they happen to include a sprinkling of low budget collectibles. I would hope that the entrants would have some unusual, rare, or interesting characteristics, though (read no 4-door Reliants or Tempos, thank you, but maybe one LeBaron Mark Cross T & C Convert, Fiero, or T-Bird Turbo Coupe. I think part of our difference, or appearance of difference, my rest with the definition of "classic." Maybe the cars I mentioned above are not classics, by the official definition. I'm okay with calling them something else. It would be offensive to someone who owns one, and thinks it's somewhat special, to call them junk, though, since one man's junk is another man's treasure. The term "collectible" strikes me as a more inclusive, and politically appropriate term. |
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You must have gotten your message in just as I was about to send mine, fintail. "Special interest" would work for me too. This discussion has always included special interest and collectible cars (these may be synonymous), in addition to classics. It would be good if we could agree on terminology. |
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Replying to: hpmctorque (Dec 27, 2008 8:47 pm) But you'd get no argument from me if you want to have a local "old used car" show. I wouldn't even use the term "special interest" because it's not about the OWNER'S "special interest"---it's about other people's special interest, if they have any or not. And "collectible" implies that more than a handful of people scattered throughout the 50 states is collecting and restoring a certain car. Just "gathering" up old minivans, to let them rot in your backyard, doesn't make an old "minivan" collectible. If you think you'll find more than 1 person out of 10,000 who will stop and look at a lotful of Plymouth minivans, well good luck  I think that the careless assigning of terminology absolutely ruins the meaning forever, so I am quick to defend against what, in my opinion, is the destruction of useful terms and re-making them into vague, meaningless, parodies of their former glorious selves. 
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Replying to: hpmctorque (Dec 27, 2008 8:47 pm) I could see something as odd as a 1986 5-speed turbo minivan being "special interest", especially in another decade or so. K-cars and the like, nothing more than a historical footnote. In 2008 not many people get excited about a slant-6 1963 Dart sedan...in 2026 I doubt many will wax poetic about a 1981 K-car.
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Replying to: fintail (Dec 28, 2008 10:24 am) I guess a house cat with two heads is more interesting than a house cat with one head. But it will never be a panther. I suppose that in the year 2041 people will be about as excited with a 1981 K-car as they are now about a stripped down, base model 1948 Chevrolet 4-door sedan. It'll sit on the back row, the owner will tell you how his grandma drove it for 60 years, whether you want to hear it or not, and he'll have 20X times the money in it than the car is worth. There may be a certain pleasure for the owner of that car in all of this, but there is also a kind of obliviousness that I might not actually wish to acknowledge, much less reward. People also collect modern teddy bears, but I'm not going to a teddy bear show. |
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Replying to: fezo (Dec 27, 2008 2:37 pm) Also, if they recessed the headlights a bit, and gave the fenders a forward slant like a '58 Dodge or Plymouth, it would've made the car downright attractive. Well, to me, at least! All things considered though, even as ugly as it was, there were bigger factors in Edsel's failure than just its styling. First off, it was launched in a recession year, and competed in the already overcrowded middle-priced market. They were also over-engined and over-powered...which would have been great in 1957. By 1958 though, people were starting to think economy. The smallest engine the '58 Edsel offered was a 361 V-8 with 303 hp. Edsel's Ranger series priced a little below the Dodge Coronet V-8 and Pontiac Chieftain...the cheapest models of their respective series. Yet the Coronet V-8 was just a 325 V-8 with 245 hp, while the Chieftain had a 270 hp 370 V-8 (240 with the manual shift). I'm sure with that much power, the Edsels were guzzlers. I've also heard that the '58 Edsels were poorly assembled and unreliable. They didn't have dedicated assembly lines...rather the cheaper models were put together on a sped up Ford assembly line, while the bigger ones were on a sped up Mercury assembly line. As a result, they were slapped together extra fast and rushed out the door. So I guess if the car was less offensively styled and failed, it would be largely forgotten today, sort of like the 1957 Hudsons and big Nashes, or the non-Hawk Studes and Packardbakers from 1958. In a twisted sort of way, the ugly styling probably helped ensure the '58 Edsel's survival rate years later.
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Classic Cars What Will Be a Future Classic?
