Re: {Chrysler 300} Youth and 300's

Much of this is basic math. People want the cool car they saw when they were 16-17 years of age and couldn't afford. 40 years later, after they've paid off their mortgage and the kid's college, they can revisit their youth in their 50's. If you were 18 in 1960 and wanted a 300F that was unobtainable, you turned 58 in 2000, so that's when you would have purchased one. You are now 80 and your kids are talking to you about giving up your keys and your license (if you're even still alive). No one beats Father Time. A 2006 SRT-8 Magnum or 300 is now a 14 year old car, which is why you see them at cruise nights now being driven by guys in their late 30's or early 40's. Time marches on.

I'm also involved in the 'vintage' electronics hobby, and the stereos of the 80's and the early video games and computers are more collectible than the AM/Short Wave wooden table models of the 1930's. There has been a resurgence of vinyl LPs and tube stereos of the 60's, but no one is trying to outlaw the use of vacuum tubes like the people who are passing laws against internal combustion engines.

Collectors of early televisions have no stations to pull in on their rabbit ears anymore, as all transmission is now digital and encrypted. The same will be happening soon to both AM and FM, and you'll need a 'subscription' to a streaming service to listen to the 'radio' in your car. I thought/hoped I'd be gone before it all happened, but since I'm 67 and it's already underway, I'm going to wind up being the Model T or Stanley Steamer guy with the battery operated farm radio that only gets AM and SW at the rate things are going. But, as long as I can still get dino juice, I'll keep driving my 300's.

On Sat, Aug 27, 2022 at 4:35 PM 'mark love' via Chrysler 300 Club International <chrysler-300-club-international@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Points well taken and appreciated. But if not for your dedication and tutelage, what might they have turned to? A pilot’s son is a pilot because of his father. A military man. A doctor. A clergyman. (No stereotypes, sexist remarks nor pronoun screw ups intended). To have a real family-raising connection with my 55, I would have been born in the mid 1940’s. That makes me almost 80 today My hat goes off and my heart goes out to those octogenarians who still can or even want to climb under a rocker then roll out and try to get back up on their feet again 30 or 40 times a day. Too many of them, us, are culling the herd; content to live vicariously through others. Observing price waves against advancing demographics shows how time ages out older car buyers; evidence enough. Someone ought to chart the correlation between the rate of decline of prices for 60-65 year old classics against the mortality rate of of 80-85 over time. Bet they both decline down and to the right in lock step. Ten years ago the 50’s classic cars were ‘hot’. Now they’re much harder to find buyers for and prices, OVERALL, are trending down. We all look for glimmers of hope that our hobby is on the rise. I’m still hoping. Mark

Sent from my iPhone

On Aug 27, 2022, at 1:25 PM, Ryan Hill <ryan_hillc300@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Mark, while I generally agree with what you are saying....I don't think it's all doom and gloom regarding our car hobby, not yet anyway. There are still young gearheads out there as well as kids who appreciate history and things that are truly vintage. My two girls, now 11 and 8 yrs old love my '65 300 and my '37 Ford hotrod. They point out every cool car they see on the road (none of which are ever newer than 1980) and can't wait to show a new friend what's in the garage, including our 1959 vintage mahogany runabout. There are still kids and young people at car shows and kids turning wrenches, I just think in smaller numbers.

What I've noticed, most kids who get a look in my garage don't care much......nor do 'their' parents. In most cases our adult friends will walk right past without so much as a glance; guess what their kids think of old cars. The kids that care are the kids who are growing up around parents, grand parents, and role models that care and take the time to teach them. All we can do is continue to educate the ones that are willing to listen with the wisdom we've picked up throughout our lives. If your grandkids are sitting on a stool watching you work, I'd say that's a pretty good start.

The other thing to consider is the cost of entry into this 'hobby' now. When I turned 15 in 1985, I was given our old family car....a 1965 Chrysler 300 2 dr/ht. It was worth about $500 and didn't run well. I rebuilt the heads in auto shop and went through the mechanicals for less than $500 in parts. Drove the car a few years, learned some things, and kept buying and building old Mopars as a result.

It's hard to ignite interest in vintage cars when the cost of getting even a basket case is so beyond the financial capabilities of most people, especially young people. We all spend a lot of time discussing the outrageous values of these cars and the costs involved in restoring and maintaining them; we can't be surprised when the large majority of young people shy away from that. I can just appreciate seeing a kid working on an old BMW or Honda in the driveway, wrenching on what they can afford....learning, instead of dropping it off at a dealership and complaining about the cost of a brake job.

I'll likely leave my 300 to my kids......what they do with it is up to them but hopefully they'll still appreciate it enough to enjoy the nostalgia.

Ryan Hill

From: 'mark love' via Chrysler 300 Club International
Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2022 6:35 AM
To: Chrysler 300 Club International
Subject: Re: {Chrysler 300} who wants a club calendar

If we think the succeeding generations will find amusement looking at old paper printed calendars, well when was the last time you heard the word â€™nostalgiaâ€™ used in a conversation among our young generation They never look back, itâ€™s all about me right now and me tomorrow.

I was in to our Canadian Automobile Association CAA (your AAA0 yesterday and a lady in front of me had a handful of route maps. I asked her if she was going â€˜round the world. She said the clerk told her that, when these maps were all spoken for, the CAA was going to stop printing them because there was no demand for them.

My wife, not long ago, suggested I take down the girly pictures and the old cig and liquor ad posters hanging up in the garage as they might be too sensitive for the grand kids when they come over to search around in the dim light for an oil stained stool to sit on while they watch me work a piece of stainless trim and ask me why itâ€™s not plastic and canâ€™t I get a new one on Amazon.

I think there better be an electronic version of the calendar, built for both a computer and phone screens. Otherwise, those generations that we think will want to know more about our letter cars may never get to know or understand our passion, much the same as they treat history.

A cynic with a beef. Yes I rely on the newer tech but itâ€™s sure changed the way we look at life.

Electronic map for me please. As we now know, the data can never be erased; it will around forever.

m

On Aug 27, 2022, at 6:30 AM, Mike Hall <b5hellcatsrt@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Printed Version is best for me. Good support for the club, and something to leave behind for the generations to come. Just so they'll know what a gas powered auto looked like that they'd heard rumors of :)

--
For archives go to http://www.forwardlook.net/300-archive/search.htm#querylang
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Chrysler 300 Club International" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to chrysler-300-club-international+unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/chrysler-300-club-international/CA%2Bt4-WAxfW_Y2BAsG2-XPmm6kyUKhZ3SsUqHJ_3h4S04QibStQ%40mail.gmail.com.

--
For archives go to http://www.forwardlook.net/300-archive/search.htm#querylang
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Chrysler 300 Club International" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to chrysler-300-club-international+unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/chrysler-300-club-international/9EDCABD0-B485-437B-BC3C-0E9B2BB753C0%40me.com.

--
For archives go to http://www.forwardlook.net/300-archive/search.htm#querylang
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Chrysler 300 Club International" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to chrysler-300-club-international+unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/chrysler-300-club-international/MW3PR16MB39329E77FFBEE6EE47054304C5749%40MW3PR16MB3932.namprd16.prod.outlook.com.

--
For archives go to http://www.forwardlook.net/300-archive/search.htm#querylang
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Chrysler 300 Club International" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to chrysler-300-club-international+unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/chrysler-300-club-international/38F36147-F924-4B8F-8DDD-74C03AAF82D7%40me.com.

--
For archives go to http://www.forwardlook.net/300-archive/search.htm#querylang
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Chrysler 300 Club International" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to chrysler-300-club-international+unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/chrysler-300-club-international/CAD%2B8cnszOsoxYuniRmyAMduf-iLED6x0TY52MeLStW%2BDiGLo9g%40mail.gmail.com.