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How Do You Define Automotive Passion?
This story first appeared in the November/December 2024 issue of Hagerty Drivers Club magazine. Join the club to receive our award-winning magazine and enjoy insider access to automotive events, discounts, roadside assistance, and more.
It has always been hard to describe our shared affection (or perhaps “affliction”) for cool, older cars. For instance, I’ve never referred to myself as a car “hobbyist” because the term seems insubstantial. Car guy? Petrolhead? Gearhead? Jeez!
Are we “car collectors,” then? I don’t think that’s the right term, either. Many people have just one special car, not several, and if you only own one of something, are you really collecting it? Imagine a stamp collection with one stamp or a coin collection with one nickel. But that one car really stands for something!
How about the term “car enthusiasts”? That one gets used a lot. But is that what we are? Being an enthusiast means to be “filled with spirit.” Nothing wrong with being filled with spirit, right? But again, it’s not strong enough. It suggests a casual relationship to cars and driving, which doesn’t accurately describe most car people I know. They’re positively nuts about cars and have been that way their whole lives. We need a term that captures that passion, but one has escaped me so far. Maybe it doesn’t exist.
And how about the cars themselves? Are they antique cars, classic cars, vintage cars, collector cars, or just plain old fun cars? When I joined the family business full time in the 1990s, insurance regulators used the term “antique” for any car older than 25 years and “classic” for any car newer than 25 years. Now those words make me shiver. Some of the cars I own are, in fact, old—antique, even. The oldest, for instance, is a 1903 Knox with actual oil lamps for headlights that I drive annually—very slowly—in the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run. It has a top speed of about 25 mph with a good tailwind. As cars go, it’s definitely antique, but I don’t let it sit on a shelf and gather dust. In my view, even very old or expensive cars are meant to be driven. It’s their purpose in life. We all need a purpose. And sometimes, 25 mph is plenty fast.
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Semantics aside, all this matters in the context of how dramatically our car world has grown and changed in recent decades. To paraphrase the Oldsmobile commercial: “It’s not your father’s hobby anymore.” Not even close. Back in the ’70s and ’80s, according to my friend Dave Kinney, publisher of the Hagerty Price Guide, 85 to 90 percent of the collectible cars out there were domestic brands from the early 1960s and older.
Contrast that with today’s market. Domestic cars, muscle cars in particular, are still and always will be a significant slice of the classic car pie. The rest consists of cars, trucks, and motorcycles of all makes, nationalities, and prices. Cars, SUVs, and pickup trucks from the ’80s and ’90s are hugely popular now, as are Japanese makes, supercars, restomods, and more. Car preferences are staggeringly diverse compared with the past. That’s a great thing.
The demographics of the car world have changed dramatically as well. Earlier this year, Hagerty commissioned a survey of 2000 American adults to gauge their feelings about cars. Nearly half were interested in owning a special car, but interest from Gen Z respondents was significantly greater at 60 percent, compared with 31 percent for baby boomers. That’s an amazing generational change. Do you know how young members of Gen Z are? They were born between 1997 and 2012!
The car world is a big tent activity now, with wide and varied tastes. And to keep the momentum going, we need a better shared vocabulary to help us talk about the hobby now and into the future with younger and diverse audiences. Younger generations, in particular, aren’t going to be energized by fusty terms like “collector cars” or “enthusiast vehicles.”
So what words should we use? I would love to hear your thoughts on that.
Until next time, keep on driving.
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I find passion in the auto hobby to be when it infiltrates your every day life in a number of way.
I was a car fan from the time I was born. I was always attracted to the car hobby.
Today it is much of my life. I work in the racing industry. Most of my friends are car people and it is my hobby and fun.
I don’t drink, smoke of fish. I do car things.
As I went along I had car mentors and I learned from them and today they come to me on the latest tech and I try to help them.
I love the cars, the history and the various aspects from production to racing to car shows.
Anymore I try to preserve some of the history of the cars I own as if we don’t much will be lost. Not all that we read and see on the web is accurate and we need to get the truth out in some cases.
It also helps to have a great wife that lets this passion go on. Family is always first but but helps to have their support.
Passion is doing what you love!
It doesn’t even have to an ‘old’ car. I didn’t own a car for 36 years (NYC resident). My first word was car. And now my pedestrian 2015 Fit EX is the love of my automotive life.
I’ll be 70 in weeks, and I hope to be spreading my love to another car companion…Miata?
…to be an ‘old’ car…
I would say automotive passion is the joy of driving then again it can mean other things for other people
Fun cars. Some people collect them. Some people work on them. Some modify them. Some keep them as original as possible. Some people drive them. Some daily them. Some people only use them on weekend and occasional drives. Some people baby them. Some people autocross, drag race, and track day their cars.
The common theme is having fun with it. You can define your fun, but not mine.
By getting really worked up about cars I don’t like and those who don’t see eye to eye with me.
Nobody is offering you a word that covers the feeling that we share. Maybe we’ll have to find a good writer who can make up a word for us. Does anybody have Larry Webster’s number? I say we put him on this task.
Definitely an enthusiast. While I have my preferences I am interested in everything, even the “junk” so long as it has some fun or character going for it. I’m not one mark/make/point of production focused I like stuff from everywhere.
My father never was a car guy or even a backyard mechanic. My older brothers gave me the sickness. It’s uncurable and no vaccine available. Luckily I’m in remission as my project car is 90% done.
Evolving mobility afficionados … covers all modes of transportation – 2 – 4 wheels and whatever comes next. 😉 Maybe we abbreviate and say I’m an “EMA”!!!
Please discuss amongst yourselves … LOL
I’m a life long “Car Guy” (“Car Geek” to be more inclusive?) who lives by the motto “life is too short to drive boring cars.” I’m not a collector, and appreciate all things on wheels, old to new, but do have Automotive ADHD. This affliction expresses itself as the tendency to buy used driver quality (mostly Porsche, BMW, and recently an Aston Martin), drive and sort them out, then sell in a couple years to move onto the next. Some sales have been net positive, some negative, but on average I’ve been able to experience fun cars at little to no net cost. Gear Head, and the UK variant, Petrol Head could also be appropriate, but those terms leave out electric vehicles (don’t own today but may in the future).
We are car zealots!
When you’re on a long drive, off the freeway and you realize you’ve been driving for two hours with the radio off and you hadn’t noticed
I have been involved with cars since the 70s, driving, building, racing, showing, restoring during that time. I refer to it as mad car disease…..still at it and enjoying almost every minute of it!!
Good article. I was conceived in Dad’s ’34 Chevy Hot Rod sometime in 1956. Mom went into labor with me while they were at a car show in the old coliseum in Houston on January 26, 1957, and on the way to St. Joseph Hospital Dad got into a drag race 2 blocks from there. Mom told me Dad had me under his hot rod at 3 months old. From there my life was always about cars, cars, and cars. All my siblings, 8, are car crazy. I have no name for that but we are just mentally diseased when it comes to cool cars. The Hartmans go back to the late 1800s building custom carriages, wedding carriages, hacks, and buggies. Willie Hartmann built 50 custom cars in the late 1930s out of Switzerland, including the Hartmann 1937 Cadillac custom. So with that, I am not sure the proper moniker but as long as I can remember Dad always told us that cars are in our genes. All of us boys share the same middle name…Carvan, so we were doomed since the beginning. We have 3 generations of custom pinstipers and car builders in the family which is about as close as you can get to the cool car mindset. I am teaching my young grandson and granddaughter (3 & 5) about the custom car life and so far they like it. We are responsible for teaching this later generation about the real vroom (ICE) and how every car should reflect our unique personality.
I am a “car lover.” 🙂