• When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

Decline of Car Culture in America (video)

Interesting. I attended a presentation on the same topic by a retired Penn State history professor last month. He made the exact same points on the change in youth culture. I don't think the message bodes well for our future, glad I lived the era I did, driving a GTX for the first time at age 16.
 
Its great to see a point backed up with some data for once.
 
Good video. Most of what she says is what I've thought for years.


Edit:

Oh, and I'd eat that.
 
Last edited:
Our government has had a long, steady
pull on a kids' attitude concerning
cars.
With nearly all vehicles looking pretty
much the same. It used to be easy
to decern one make from the other,
but today I find myself looking for
identifying emblems or badges.
CAFE and NHTSA have transformed
individual designs to conform to
a rigid set of rules concerning safety
and mileage, along with many
technological niceities. They also
frown on transforming your car into
something that reflects personal
styles.
Thanks for posting.
 
It seems the big guys have been trying to take our hobby since around 1970. To be honest I think part of it is when some gloomy people with no life see someone else enjoying themselves and having fun they become jealous and come of with ideas to take what makes you happy away. That is part of it and the other part comes down to corporate excessive greed. Corporate long range plan is for us is to not own anything and rent transportation off the big guys as well as renting our lodging off the big guys. Of course when you take away dreams and aspirations from people their work ethic and productivity declines as well and we're starting to see those results.
 
Great video! Some really eye-opening surveys in there. 8 hours of screen time for teenagers is a really scary statistic. We've lost most of future generations, I fear. As car enthusiasts we should try to mentor at least one young person.
 
That was a good video. The bland folks are taking over. Very little creativity or uniqueness. It's like bland food with no spices. Quite a few years ago I was a volunteer during the Chrysler restructuring. I put my 2 cents in here & there, but something really got me P.O.'d. I posted a question about color availability for Dodge Challengers. It used to be, if you wanted to special order a color that was made by Chrysler for a Chrysler product, you could order it for extra money. Well, I posed the question of wanting to order a 6-cylinder Dodge Challenger in B-5 blue. Not only did they not answer at all, I found out from a moderator, much later, that you could only get B-5 if you ordered the $45,000-dollar high performance model. This was on pretty much the same car, but it was less than half of the price. Since the cars were pretty much, body wise, exactly the same & the color was available on that very line, it made no sense to me. There were a few other things that made me question their attitude toward customer service in general. It was almost like they really didn't care about anyone who didn't have a fat wallet! Kinda of like they wanted to discourage people from purchasing Chrysler products.
 
I'm sure they said the same thing when the horse was kicked to the curb. Cars started out for people with money and then the masses. First cars were mostly black, then years later more colors were added. There are these statistics that keep coming up, so them and time has changed the way we do business. Yes, we grew up in that window of time when things started to pop on all fronts and innovation led to change. Adams right , I'm glad I lived the era I did and for more reasons than just my car. As far as getting rid of cars, not till we figure out how to cross this country. They've been working on high speed rail in California for how long and it cost how much and it's still not half way there. The car era has come and gone, the way we know it. We've grown into a very practical society led by kids that just don't see things as we did. College is proportionally more expensive as are most things that guide their lives and the car has come full circle. Now cars are getting stupid expensive and the colors are limited, again. To them, it's just expensive transportation. I own one toy and have exchanged them when I get bored over the years for a very good reason, it's our hobby, not theirs...... Now lets see how many boats, guns and fishing poles they have.....Time waits for no one.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top