What is the cool young car person thing anymore?

Yes, I am apparently older now. Not a terrible thing but.... Went with my college age gear head sons to Caffeine and Octane in Atlanta today. And it is really a wonderfully diverse bunch of stuff. HUGE turnout. tons of young folks. Huge turnout of bikes today too.       But i have been head scratching all day attempting to determine where the trends are for the younger gear person.    One aha for me is that my Foxbody Mustangs are tres passe. Another is that every other person in Georgia must be wildly wealthy as the "exotics" were everywhere and nearly boring.       

Around her in the wilds of Vermont it's bro-dozers sporting obscenely high offset dub wheels with moose mirrors pulling a ghost trailer. Or clapped out Altimas, WRXs/any Subaru, and 4th gen Golfs. They have no idea what to make of my 87 16V 2 liter Scirocco.

From what I commonly see on the street it's still stancebro/hellaflush.

Absurdly lowering the ride height and crazy camber still seem to be popular.

Drifting as well. 350Z/G35 has taken the place of the 240SX.

I feel bad for the youngsters on the RX-7 boards trying to live out their Initial D dreams. Old farts have to temper that and remind them all the articles about them being cheap cars are from 10+ years ago.

In reply to vwcorvette (Forum Supporter) :

What the devil is a ghost trailer?

I think this means I'm officially an old in the car world.  

Puddy46 said:

In reply to vwcorvette (Forum Supporter) :

What the devil is a ghost trailer?

I think this means I'm officially an old in the car world.  

It's a truck with a squatted back end. Looks like it's pulling a really heavy trailer.

In reply to Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) :

Ahhh, I gotcha.  I always called that a Carolina squat.

In reply to Puddy46 :

Big old mirrors for pulling a trailer but there is no trailer?

I hear grid life and radwood get great turn out. I went to hyperfest this past year with some other mid/late 30 year olds and we definitely felt old in some of those crowds.

On the lower side, the urban dirt bike & quad scene has been bad locally in RVA, packs of 50-100 rolling through the city a couple late teens/20 somethings killed in wrecks.

I don't go to many car meets outside of the local Datsun meet up.

When I bought the Foxbody I figured I may go to a couple cars and coffee type events. I am always cautious about these because it's a different vibe than track events.

I went to a local cars and coffee last Sunday. There was a pretty good mix of vehicles and owner ages. There were lots of LS swapped things, including a 2010ish BMW. Several Subarus, and a really well done twin turbo CTS-V. My favorite was this Mercedes diesel swapped Toyota, owned and built by a 21 y/o guy. There was an early 90s Toyota pickup with a 2J swap too.

This IROC was owned by a 16 year old girl who had just received it as a birthday present. My ratty CJ5 always attracts an inordinate amount of attention at these things. 
 

My JDM iron usually draws a crowd. Parking the Evo and the Mirage together usually will bring some gear heads out of the crowd. Most have no clue what the mirage is as it's de-badged.  

Honestly I see the car culture as being pretty healthy overall. Way too many corvettes. So sick of the C8 already. Seeing a cool C7 will catch my eye. They all seemed to disappear overnight. But overall, I'm still just seeing cool cars.Not much has changed. Seems like hella-flush has skipped my region. Maybe it's the ehh roads. 

johndej said:

I hear grid life and radwood get great turn out. I went to hyperfest this past year with some other mid/late 30 year olds and we definitely felt old in some of those crowds.

I thought Radwood was attended by mainly the 30+ crowd, people 17 year olds would call old.

I went to a JDM show this summer in a Chicago suburb and it was all young guys - 350Z's, BMW's, Infiniti's, Lexus, Civics, WRX's.......Camaros and Mustangs. 

lots of lowered cars, loud exhaust, heavy decals, most looked to have a lot of money invested into them.  Some had heavy engine mods too. 
 

My 20yo neighbor daily drives a ratty track-prepped NC Miata with the 2.5 swap, with no AC here in GA. The other 21yo neighbor kid is fixing up a late 70s F250 farm truck. One of their other friends waves at me from his chinese Grom knockoff when I'm in the garage 

The kids are alright.

The "get off my lawn" side of me is hoping the burble tune fad goes away soon. All those people have neighbors that must hate them.

But overall I agree the kids are alright. The breaker that I recently sourced some used parts from had a gang of car enthusiasts working in their building to support their hobby - a row of modified cars lined up outside. 

Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) said:

Puddy46 said:

In reply to vwcorvette (Forum Supporter) :

What the devil is a ghost trailer?

I think this means I'm officially an old in the car world.  

It's a truck with a squatted back end. Looks like it's pulling a really heavy trailer.

Actually, a ghost trailer is when the towing mirrors are out/extended and there's no trailer behind the truck. Hence a ghost trailer. Has nothing to do with the Carolina squat.

Is it the tastes of young people or the marketing?

So to confirm;

Ghost trailer:

Carolina squat:

We just dropped our son off at U. Maine Orono.  He is the treasurer of the car club.  The club is a good mix of cars, mostly what kids can afford.  They seem to be more into older cars that they have built themselves.  The like the expensive cars for sure, but there is a def vibe of "built not bought."    More tuner type cars than muscle,  for sure a few lifted trucks.

What shocked me was the sketchy car the SAE guys have.  They have a new engineering building and the 3d printer is beyond state of the art. However the SAE guys have a single place race car with a chain drive.  I was told it is years old and it's been nothing but trouble.  It only had a few runs at the last auto cross.  I'd think someone would be throwing money or parts at them.

I'm thrilled to see the car culture thriving at his school.  I'd agree with others that there are still enthusiasts out there!

Florida scene seems to be heavily comprised of anything RWD dumped on its rails and set to drift mode, usually Nissan/Infiniti based. There's also the heaping helping of the truck scene/Jeep scene, but that seems to be a slightly older crowd due to cost. There's also the charger/challenger/sideshow crowd, that seems to be yet another different subset. Hard to pin down one group. 

vwcorvette (Forum Supporter) said:

Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) said:

Puddy46 said:

In reply to vwcorvette (Forum Supporter) :

What the devil is a ghost trailer?

I think this means I'm officially an old in the car world.  

It's a truck with a squatted back end. Looks like it's pulling a really heavy trailer.

Actually, a ghost trailer is when the towing mirrors are out/extended and there's no trailer behind the truck. Hence a ghost trailer. Has nothing to do with the Carolina squat.

"Young" guy I work with used to have a Dodge with the mirrors constantly "deployed". Said the final straw that broke him of that was when he was driving it down the beach, feeling cool in front of a group with newer/nicer diesel trucks. One of them started yelling, waving him over. He pulled up (this is just truck, on beach, mirrors out) and guy goes "hey, just thought you should know your trailer chains are dragging," and then went back to his beach day. 

My buddy said it took a couple seconds to sink in. Flipped his mirrors down when got back to his house, haha. 

j_tso said:

johndej said:

I hear grid life and radwood get great turn out. I went to hyperfest this past year with some other mid/late 30 year olds and we definitely felt old in some of those crowds.

I thought Radwood was attended by mainly the 30+ crowd, people 17 year olds would call old.

Nope, one of our summer co-ops dailies a 944, him and his buddies went to one. Other kid had an e30 and another a T100. All college guys.

In reply to thedoc :

YES!!!  My youngest just started at Georgia Southern. They have a great engineering school. More practical teaching than at Tech. He was very active in his High School TSA team and is looking to be involved with all of the different formula teams they have. They are also working on synthetic jet fuel which I think is pretty darn kool too.   

In reply to thedoc :

I don't think any are on formula SAE but know a few folks who have had accesse to the U-Maine engineering 3d printers and they are freaking wild.

For college groups obviously GA Tech has done the challenge. I've been over to Auburn's engineering school and believe they've one a few formula SAE titles along with some alternative energy automotive challenges recently. 

In reply to Tom1200 :

We recently scored one that I have wanted for a very long time. An 87 SSP coupe from Orange County Florida. Its come a long way in the few months that we have owned it. From sitting under a tree in Central Florida for at the very least 10 years to a runner and driver. Still a long way to go to its former glory but the purchase of an 87 5.0 coupe parts car recently is going to go a long way in the the hard to find bits and pieces department.