Are car enthusiasts a dying breed?
Discussion
When I were a lad just about every boy I knew had at least an interest in cars, and often a real enthusiasm.
However my son, despite having been brought up to some extent in a "petrolhead"ish way has no particular interest whatsoever. Which is fair enough, but neither of my partner's teenage boys have any interest in cars, and neither do any of their friends as far as I can see.
Indeed her oldest is 17 and hasn't shown a flicker of interest in even learning to drive, the whole car/driving thing seems to have no appeal whatsoever.
As I say, fair enough, it's not for me to dictate what they should or shouldn't be interested in, and they have plenty of other activities, from the inevitable computer games (bloody Minecraft!
) to Judo and other stuff so this absolutely isn't a criticism of them or "youth of today, blah blah".
It just seems really odd to me that, compared with myself and my friends and acquaintances at that age that were mostly obsessed with cars and could not wait to get behind the wheel, there seems to be a complete sea change in attitudes to all things motoring.
And on a broader scale, does this mean that in time, when these guys are the middle aged consumers of new cars, performance varients, GTI's, VXR's, etc, or even performance models like Porsche 911's will die out through lack of demand?
After all, if all these guys want is comfort and convenience and they're buying cars like "white goods", there isn't going to be much of a market for models that cost more, ride harder, and in the case of sports cars, have less space, just so that they have additional performance abilities that are of zero interest.
However my son, despite having been brought up to some extent in a "petrolhead"ish way has no particular interest whatsoever. Which is fair enough, but neither of my partner's teenage boys have any interest in cars, and neither do any of their friends as far as I can see.
Indeed her oldest is 17 and hasn't shown a flicker of interest in even learning to drive, the whole car/driving thing seems to have no appeal whatsoever.
As I say, fair enough, it's not for me to dictate what they should or shouldn't be interested in, and they have plenty of other activities, from the inevitable computer games (bloody Minecraft!
) to Judo and other stuff so this absolutely isn't a criticism of them or "youth of today, blah blah".It just seems really odd to me that, compared with myself and my friends and acquaintances at that age that were mostly obsessed with cars and could not wait to get behind the wheel, there seems to be a complete sea change in attitudes to all things motoring.
And on a broader scale, does this mean that in time, when these guys are the middle aged consumers of new cars, performance varients, GTI's, VXR's, etc, or even performance models like Porsche 911's will die out through lack of demand?
After all, if all these guys want is comfort and convenience and they're buying cars like "white goods", there isn't going to be much of a market for models that cost more, ride harder, and in the case of sports cars, have less space, just so that they have additional performance abilities that are of zero interest.
Mastodon2 said:
I had no more than a passing interest in cars until I learned to drive, once I actually got behind the wheel that totally changed!
From then on, everything from the performance, the design, engineering, ergonomics etc has been of massive interest to me. I suppose I never saw them as much more than boxes to get around in (exotica excluded) until I had a go myself.
Hmm.. that's an interesting take. Certainly my partner views cars as "white goods" and her ex drives a Dodge Journey (nuff said?) so they haven't had much positive motoring influence in their lives. Maybe that'll change once they start driving themselves.From then on, everything from the performance, the design, engineering, ergonomics etc has been of massive interest to me. I suppose I never saw them as much more than boxes to get around in (exotica excluded) until I had a go myself.
psgcarey said:
I'm not so convinced it's all about the cost.
When I was 17-18 (41 now) we were all desperate to learn to drive cars to have freedom and go and see our mates. We all wanted to have the coolest "banger" so got interested.
These days you have the social networking sites, games consoles, mobile phones with unlimited minutes and texts etc... which seem to be more important to the teens, and allow them to keep in touch more easily, so cars are taking a back seat.
I'm inclined to agree with you. When I was at school we were mad on cars at 13 with no clue as to potential costs, good or bad.When I was 17-18 (41 now) we were all desperate to learn to drive cars to have freedom and go and see our mates. We all wanted to have the coolest "banger" so got interested.
These days you have the social networking sites, games consoles, mobile phones with unlimited minutes and texts etc... which seem to be more important to the teens, and allow them to keep in touch more easily, so cars are taking a back seat.
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