Is It a Bad Time to Be a Young Car Enthusiast?

Nearly 20 years ago, I was in high school and riding to Thunderhill Raceway Park with Bruce Trenery, a vintage car dealer. During our trip, he articulated his predictions for the future of enthusiasm for cars. In addition to his concerns about the regulatory environment, he was most disquieted by his perception that young people just weren’t interested in cars any more. As a young person who was (and remains) immensely passionate about cars, I was initially put off that the latter idea could even be possible, but after reflecting on the interests of my contemporaries, it alarmed me because I could see a lot of truth to it.

While car enthusiasm today isn’t ubiquitous the way it might have been in the era of Grease or when the Beach Boys released “409,” Trenery’s foreboding apprehension remains mercifully unfulfilled. In fact, I have been delighted to observe what almost feels like a resurgence in passion for cars among young people in the past two decades. Attending events today, especially more approachable ones like Radwood, I’m always struck by the number of obviously enthusiastic teenagers and twenty-somethings, especially given that the cars concerned are often older than they are.

The emergence of social media has doubtless played a big role in spreading enthusiasm: The dynamic and sensory nature of cars (i.e. they move, they’re shiny, and they make loud noises) means that they lend themselves perfectly to the mediums of photo and video. Teenaged “spotters” wandering events, camera in hand, become the purveyors of beautiful media that portrays our cars in fresh, original ways. While it is gratifying for us to look at pretty images, the rise of spotters does something essential for young people, too—it gives them a meaningful way to interact with cars (and often their owners, too) that they couldn’t otherwise do, regardless of whether that’s in person or on their phones.

That’s particularly fortunate since the barriers to entering this space as a participant—that is, as a car owner rather than an observer—are higher than they have been since at least the end of World War II. This is tragic but incontrovertible based on three interrelated factors, all of which converge to make things tough for young enthusiasts. These are, in order from broadest to most granular: 1) macroeconomic shifts 2) their consequences on the new car market 3) the resulting impact on secondhand enthusiast cars ranging from lightly used late model cars to full-fledged classics.

The core of the macroeconomics discussion as relates to young people is disposable income. Simply put, young folks have a lot less of it than youths did in previous decades. This is the result of too many things to discuss in detail here, but the rising costs of real estate, education, and healthcare at rates that exceed the growth of wages are major drivers. These affect people of all ages of course, but for young people who do not yet own any real estate to help their net worth grow, and for whom the ever-increasing cost of education (and the near necessity of student debt) is greater and a larger share of their liabilities, these economic realities are far more restrictive. This means that even if car prices were stable (they’re not), young folks would be less able to participate in the market because they simply don’t have the disposable income to enter it.

Real wages have been stagnating for decades and the consequences of this long-standing trend have been manifesting themselves in the new car market since at least the 1990s. In short, as people have less disposable income, they buy fewer fun cars and manufacturers respond by killing them off because they sell poorly.

Let’s take a journey back 30 years to 1994, when there was a whole host of enthusiast cars available at both entry and higher price points. Effectively the entire sport compact genre, including: Honda Prelude and Del Sol, Nissan Sentra SE-R and 240 SX, Toyota MR2 and Celica, the Mitsubishi Eclipse (and Eagle Talon and Plymouth Laser) and 3000 GT (and Dodge Stealth), the Ford Probe, the Mazda MX-3 and MX-6. Go back another 20 or 30 years and the story is similar: Fiat 124, Alfa Spider, Datsun Roadster, Triumph TR, MGB, and big Healeys. This to say nothing of pony cars and muscle cars from the ‘60s and early ‘70s.

Today, these cars and their ilk are nearly gone from manufacturer lineups. There are precious few reasonably priced sporting survivors: the Mini (which recently lost its manual for the US market, as has Volkswagen’s GTI), the Subaru WRX, the Mazda MX-5, and the Toyota GT-86 (and BRZ), which is most realistically the spiritual descendent of the 240SX. This is not part of some draconian plot on the part of manufacturers to deprive us of driving enjoyment and modernity in the same package, but rather their response to market forces. One needs only look at MX-5 sales in 1991 (63,000 units) vs 2018 (27,000 units) to see that consumers aren’t buying sporting cars the way they once could, despite today’s Miata costing less than it did in 1991 when adjusted for inflation and there being fewer other enthusiast choices at comparable prices now.

This lack of appealing new affordable options for the driving enthusiast has predictably disheartening consequences for secondhand cars of the same ethos, whether they’re four years old or 40 years old. The decreasing sales of these cars when new in recent years means that supply for used options is tight and thus depreciation is low. This, coupled with the fact that 30-year-old cars are pretty usable in modern traffic, means that more and more enthusiasts are turning to Radwood era (1980-99) cars.

In 1994, driving a 30-year-old enthusiast car meant giving up a lot of usability and performance. You’d have to deal with carburetors, marginal brakes, tires, suspension, and acceleration, catastrophic rust, poor weather sealing and ventilation, and a host of other unpleasantries that we don’t generally have to contend with in a 30-year-old car today. Similarly, cars of the Radwood era are easier to live with than more modern ones, albeit for completely different reasons. They’re much simpler than newer cars, lacking most of the sensors and computers that handle everything from HVAC to the powertrain to radar cruise control. Even something as simple as replacing headlights has been completely transformed: compare the 5.25” and 7” sealed beams in a BMW E30 or NA Miata to a $1500 Xenon assembly in a car from 10 years ago.

The result is that cars of this era are sought not only by Generation X and millennials who lusted after them in their youths, but by Generation Z too, who are pushed toward them by the dearth of affordable and appealing newer options and pulled toward them by the intrinsically appealing characteristics such as the experience of interacting with them and the variety of options, along with their simplicity and accordingly sensible running costs. The tragic result of this growing demand is that cars of this era have appreciated in value, making it even more difficult for young folks to buy into the market.

The silver lining (for us car nuts anyway) is that car enthusiasm is still very much alive and well, even if it takes a bit more diligence. For young enthusiasts, there are many interesting options at reasonable prices if they’re willing to go off the beaten path a bit. Mainstream enthusiast cars like M3s and air-cooled 911s are prohibitively expensive, but plenty of other options do still exist like non-M BMW E36s, early Boxsters, or several generations of the Mustang. For those less concerned about sporting intent, a host of other Radwood attendees remain attainable, from a Toyota Century to the world’s cleanest 1989 Oldsmobile Toronado Trofeo. 

This may be feeble consolation in the face of larger economic forces, and young enthusiasts approach the hobby through different literal and figurative vehicles than in years past, but there’s no question that they remain highly engaged. I for one am delighted to see their passion and look forward to seeing how the resilience of the human spirit inspires them to express that passion in ways that generations before them never considered.

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