" people who can afford as many electric toys as they want
people who can’t make a payment on a 2004 F-150"
Truer words etc., etc.....
I'm sure this is how we got to the fake patina situation that seriously grinds my grids .
I remember being loudly berated for showing up in old beaters I'd just begun to resurrect, now the stupid kids all clamor to buy my battered and rusty old VW I'm embarrassed to drive but I can't afford a $35,000.00 incorrectly restored one.....
As you stated : it's all about the _driving_ for me, I'll never feel young again but I certainly remember 1972 clearly when I'm driving it and wondering why all the others are parked in enclosed, temperature controlled garages .
They miss the entire point of being a gear / petrol head : IT'S THE DRIVING STUPID .
You've very effectively summed up my feelings about this sort of thing. I've often wondered if it's my 'join me on the picket line brother Baruth' working class back ground, my inverse snobbery of always being outside the tent pissing in, or just sheer inability to relate to people who have never struggled to make the rent.
Years ago when I was a student at the Royal College of Art (seriously, I was already living the dream and never did I expect someone like me could go there. My talent got me in and luckily a scholarship paid most of the fees. I moved back in with my mother while I attended) we had two projects that let me peek behind the velvet rope. One involved the RAC Club in Piccadilly (jacket and tie, no ladies) and the other was Salon Prive at Blenheim Palace. I drank their champagne and ate their lobster, and I'm sure I popped a few monocles looking as I did like a fucking goth rock star.
Who is also taking his Mondial QV to Radwood UK tomorrow. At least I'll be there in something with some credibility, rather than something that has suddenly become worthy of consideration just because of when it was made.
Aug 19, 2022·edited Aug 19, 2022Liked by Jack Baruth
All this stuff seems so joyless. But most any hobby gets that way, I suppose, at the extreme ends of it.
The point about multiple tiers and exclusivity I think is a perfect example of the "not quite as rich as I want" class. Because really the ultimate form is to be the person driving the Bugatti with the $10mm restoration up the lawn, and everyone else is a relative piker. So they can't quite get to that level, but they can make sure that their level is fully acknowledged and there are people to look down upon.
It simply gobsmacks me that seemingly intelligent people can act so dumbly, but then I look around the tech world and see _the exact same thing_ everywhere, at every level. It's like an idiocy fractal.
My exposure to the "higher" end of the auto industry is TV. 30 years ago those shows were on TNN and squarely aimed at the hobbyist. They featured real down-home personalities who not only talked-the-talk but walked-the-walk in that they had real skills and the ability to teach regular people. Today, the shows I see are for the most part either half-hour long ads or hour-long reality based shows where master craftsmen build six figure cars that I will never be able to afford. Sometimes these are interrupted by days worth of live auction coverage where people pay exorbitant sums of money for things my buddies and I used to find and buy broken down and unloved in back alleys or side yards. Maybe that's just the nature of things...
As I have aged, I have begun to suspect that I wasn't supposed to be here this long. I think that I and the vast majority of the rest of the working class were always intended to be worked into the ground on farms or blasted to bits on some distant battlefield. We were supposed to be ephemeral and the rich were always supposed to inherit the best of our stuff. Maybe that's why people today never really grow up - if they're just going to take all our best stuff anyhow, why not just live out our lives in a prepubescent fantasy land where we all have superpowers? But then I wonder which is better, a rich never-ending fantasy life or dying in some ditch?
This article completely summarizes why I quit reading car mags about 10 years ago... I long ago realized the divide between the 'drivers' and the 'owners' and my entry in the air-cooled world by happenstance and a low price only solidified it. I just can't relate to those who barely drive their cars, wax poetic about their detail regimens, pay for photoshoots and eagerly anticipate the next appreciation justified sale. Also, having lived in LA for half a decade, I came to realize that a lot of those guys (like the outlaw) have no problem hiring no hablan ingles to do all of their paint and body and then act like they're driving a Jackson Pollock-and demand Pollock like prices on the sale.
@Jack, don't know when I'll get to Ohio, but I'd love to take you up on the offer at some point. If you're ever in the Bay Area and want to abuse a decent aircooled 911, lmk.
The lizard people reducing or eliminating the mobility of lower income Americans through their EV money grab is the absolute worst thing about EVs. There will be no 10 or 20 year old EVs available for these Americans to drive due to obsolete technology and prohibitive battery replacement cost.
Everything you need to know about our masters is encapsulated in California essentially mandating electric cars while simultaneously suffering brownouts. Sleeper remains the only film about the future that seems remotely plausible.
Aug 19, 2022·edited Aug 19, 2022Liked by Jack Baruth
I have attended two Rennspeed events at Laguna-Seca because I live in the Bay Area, I own a 993, and I felt I should see some of the history for myself. The first time was fun, but it felt like walking through a museum, not being among enthusiasts. I was disappointed the second time I went because it was all the same cars, all the same people, all the same everything down to the vendors, underscoring the idea that it is a museum.
The real fun was in the parking lot. Substack comments do not allow the posting of photos, so I will instead describe my favorite car from the two events.
I found it parked on the gravel near the pond just over the footbridge at Laguna-Seca: a 356-C that looked like it had been pulled out of a lake. The paint was at one time white, but had long since faded and tarnished to something more like the color of snow at the edge of a busy road. It had great swaths of rusty bare metal on each rear quarter, a hood and nose mottled by what looked like greasy fingerprints, and a roof spayed primer gray. The chrome trim was all there, but heavily pitted and pockmarked with rust. Every window frame was ringed with oxidation. The interior was in roughly the same shape, with mis-matched panels, threadbare carpet, a lopsided glovebox door, and no radio.
Taped to the roof was an enormous heart cut out of a brown paper bag with DREAMS DO COME TRUE!!! written in Sharpie with flowers drawn all around it. The woman (I have to assume it was a woman) who owns that car clearly dreamed of one day owning a 356, and that was the only one she could afford. She loves it in a way the guy with the 930 TAG Turbo, or the 718 with provenance, or any of the other six- or seven-figure garage queens never will and she drives it with a joy those people will never feel.
I saw that car four years ago, and it is the only one from the two Rennsports I've attended that I recall with any clarity. I don't think I'll ever forget it. I hope the owner is out there somewhere driving it at something approaching redline with the windows open, the sun shining, a big smile on her face.
I try to stick to cars shows that have burnout contests and/or start at midnight. Keeps the wrong kind of people away. Though I'll always hold a special place in my heart for the silver-haired captain of industry in his then-new SL600, blonde seatcover beside him, who rolled into the lot at 1:30 AM and wanted to run anyone for a grand. A twin-turbo LS Firebird (not super common back then) outran him; he left graciously.
"The twisted magic of “Car Week” is that it takes everything we love about the automobile and inverts it.
Start with this: Why were you obsessed with cars as a young person?"
Excitement, noise, the prospect of freedom to go where I pleased provided I was back home at a reasonable hour.
"How much of it had to do with mobility and freedom?"
How very on the nose!
I find the themes of inversion common these days: taking what car hobbyists loved and changing it to upside down world; take our cultured politeness and turn it into a weapon against us; taking our dumb video games and turning them into cutscene simulators.
I know they're coming for my newfound motorcycling from the top with government mandated electrification. Destroying the soul of motorcycling (yes, it is amusing to wind a motor above 12k) just as they are coming for the cars. It's supposedly in the name of the planet, but they never seem interested in actually solving problems and they definitely don't seem to be a fan of humanity in it's filthy masses.
The twist of the knife is that EV buyers tend to minimize their driving. Everyone I know with a Tesla works from their home office. Everyone delivering their sandwiches is doing so with a rental escooter or econobox.
I guess I’m going to be the only one here to say that these events serve a useful purpose: preserving our automotive history.
Don’t get me wrong. I know full well that many if not most collectors collect for the thrill of owning, not driving. And the thrill of owning something that other people don’t own - usually their so-called peers. A dick measuring competition by any other name.
(I once saw a mind-bending collection for The Robb Report that no one else had ever seen. All I felt was sad.)
But these cars cost a fortune to restore and maintain, and the average person can’t afford to do it. Whatever reason the rich may have for doing it, they are doing us all a favor. IMHO
deciding and then going to and running in the first historics in '74 with my favoritebyamillionmiles girlfriend is a treasured memory. $10 for a pass to that 1-day event. i ran the first 5, 9 outta the first 10, and most of 'em till i lost my leg in '11. the early days were wonderful; steve and debbie earle were responsible for so much of it. the quail has changed tremendously by the last time we had a car there--'19. had 3 cars at pebble; never for judging. but heck if people wanna do these kinds of things--it's their $$. highline cars are just a jewel show these days
The only thing more boring than a supercar is an electric supercar. I never cared about the original Countach, let alone the reproduction, and the last Ferrari I gave a damn about was the 308 GTS - which likely had more to do with Christie Brinkley flying down the highway blasting the Pointer Sisters than the car itself.
Thinking about the sort of odious, worthless-yet-wealthy people that actually buy this crap is a bucket of cold water for whatever remains of your childhood bedroom poster fantasies.
It was one thing when these concours events were for the insufferably rich to get together and show off amongst themselves - and maybe some barely-sufferable David E. Davis-type would write an article I wouldn't read in the back of an auto rag, pre internet. Now that's it's become part of the neverending influencer circle-jerk that masquerades as western culture, it's much harder to ignore. All the fakeness and pretense just further erodes my ability to care about any car at all anymore.
" people who can afford as many electric toys as they want
people who can’t make a payment on a 2004 F-150"
Truer words etc., etc.....
I'm sure this is how we got to the fake patina situation that seriously grinds my grids .
I remember being loudly berated for showing up in old beaters I'd just begun to resurrect, now the stupid kids all clamor to buy my battered and rusty old VW I'm embarrassed to drive but I can't afford a $35,000.00 incorrectly restored one.....
As you stated : it's all about the _driving_ for me, I'll never feel young again but I certainly remember 1972 clearly when I'm driving it and wondering why all the others are parked in enclosed, temperature controlled garages .
They miss the entire point of being a gear / petrol head : IT'S THE DRIVING STUPID .
-Nate
You've very effectively summed up my feelings about this sort of thing. I've often wondered if it's my 'join me on the picket line brother Baruth' working class back ground, my inverse snobbery of always being outside the tent pissing in, or just sheer inability to relate to people who have never struggled to make the rent.
Years ago when I was a student at the Royal College of Art (seriously, I was already living the dream and never did I expect someone like me could go there. My talent got me in and luckily a scholarship paid most of the fees. I moved back in with my mother while I attended) we had two projects that let me peek behind the velvet rope. One involved the RAC Club in Piccadilly (jacket and tie, no ladies) and the other was Salon Prive at Blenheim Palace. I drank their champagne and ate their lobster, and I'm sure I popped a few monocles looking as I did like a fucking goth rock star.
Who is also taking his Mondial QV to Radwood UK tomorrow. At least I'll be there in something with some credibility, rather than something that has suddenly become worthy of consideration just because of when it was made.
All this stuff seems so joyless. But most any hobby gets that way, I suppose, at the extreme ends of it.
The point about multiple tiers and exclusivity I think is a perfect example of the "not quite as rich as I want" class. Because really the ultimate form is to be the person driving the Bugatti with the $10mm restoration up the lawn, and everyone else is a relative piker. So they can't quite get to that level, but they can make sure that their level is fully acknowledged and there are people to look down upon.
It simply gobsmacks me that seemingly intelligent people can act so dumbly, but then I look around the tech world and see _the exact same thing_ everywhere, at every level. It's like an idiocy fractal.
My exposure to the "higher" end of the auto industry is TV. 30 years ago those shows were on TNN and squarely aimed at the hobbyist. They featured real down-home personalities who not only talked-the-talk but walked-the-walk in that they had real skills and the ability to teach regular people. Today, the shows I see are for the most part either half-hour long ads or hour-long reality based shows where master craftsmen build six figure cars that I will never be able to afford. Sometimes these are interrupted by days worth of live auction coverage where people pay exorbitant sums of money for things my buddies and I used to find and buy broken down and unloved in back alleys or side yards. Maybe that's just the nature of things...
As I have aged, I have begun to suspect that I wasn't supposed to be here this long. I think that I and the vast majority of the rest of the working class were always intended to be worked into the ground on farms or blasted to bits on some distant battlefield. We were supposed to be ephemeral and the rich were always supposed to inherit the best of our stuff. Maybe that's why people today never really grow up - if they're just going to take all our best stuff anyhow, why not just live out our lives in a prepubescent fantasy land where we all have superpowers? But then I wonder which is better, a rich never-ending fantasy life or dying in some ditch?
This article completely summarizes why I quit reading car mags about 10 years ago... I long ago realized the divide between the 'drivers' and the 'owners' and my entry in the air-cooled world by happenstance and a low price only solidified it. I just can't relate to those who barely drive their cars, wax poetic about their detail regimens, pay for photoshoots and eagerly anticipate the next appreciation justified sale. Also, having lived in LA for half a decade, I came to realize that a lot of those guys (like the outlaw) have no problem hiring no hablan ingles to do all of their paint and body and then act like they're driving a Jackson Pollock-and demand Pollock like prices on the sale.
@Jack, don't know when I'll get to Ohio, but I'd love to take you up on the offer at some point. If you're ever in the Bay Area and want to abuse a decent aircooled 911, lmk.
The lizard people reducing or eliminating the mobility of lower income Americans through their EV money grab is the absolute worst thing about EVs. There will be no 10 or 20 year old EVs available for these Americans to drive due to obsolete technology and prohibitive battery replacement cost.
Mobility is freedom.
Everything you need to know about our masters is encapsulated in California essentially mandating electric cars while simultaneously suffering brownouts. Sleeper remains the only film about the future that seems remotely plausible.
I have attended two Rennspeed events at Laguna-Seca because I live in the Bay Area, I own a 993, and I felt I should see some of the history for myself. The first time was fun, but it felt like walking through a museum, not being among enthusiasts. I was disappointed the second time I went because it was all the same cars, all the same people, all the same everything down to the vendors, underscoring the idea that it is a museum.
The real fun was in the parking lot. Substack comments do not allow the posting of photos, so I will instead describe my favorite car from the two events.
I found it parked on the gravel near the pond just over the footbridge at Laguna-Seca: a 356-C that looked like it had been pulled out of a lake. The paint was at one time white, but had long since faded and tarnished to something more like the color of snow at the edge of a busy road. It had great swaths of rusty bare metal on each rear quarter, a hood and nose mottled by what looked like greasy fingerprints, and a roof spayed primer gray. The chrome trim was all there, but heavily pitted and pockmarked with rust. Every window frame was ringed with oxidation. The interior was in roughly the same shape, with mis-matched panels, threadbare carpet, a lopsided glovebox door, and no radio.
Taped to the roof was an enormous heart cut out of a brown paper bag with DREAMS DO COME TRUE!!! written in Sharpie with flowers drawn all around it. The woman (I have to assume it was a woman) who owns that car clearly dreamed of one day owning a 356, and that was the only one she could afford. She loves it in a way the guy with the 930 TAG Turbo, or the 718 with provenance, or any of the other six- or seven-figure garage queens never will and she drives it with a joy those people will never feel.
I saw that car four years ago, and it is the only one from the two Rennsports I've attended that I recall with any clarity. I don't think I'll ever forget it. I hope the owner is out there somewhere driving it at something approaching redline with the windows open, the sun shining, a big smile on her face.
Never been to any of these events. I do know that "The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering" based on the title alone makes me grind my teeth
I try to stick to cars shows that have burnout contests and/or start at midnight. Keeps the wrong kind of people away. Though I'll always hold a special place in my heart for the silver-haired captain of industry in his then-new SL600, blonde seatcover beside him, who rolled into the lot at 1:30 AM and wanted to run anyone for a grand. A twin-turbo LS Firebird (not super common back then) outran him; he left graciously.
Aside from him, eat the rich.
"The twisted magic of “Car Week” is that it takes everything we love about the automobile and inverts it.
Start with this: Why were you obsessed with cars as a young person?"
Excitement, noise, the prospect of freedom to go where I pleased provided I was back home at a reasonable hour.
"How much of it had to do with mobility and freedom?"
How very on the nose!
I find the themes of inversion common these days: taking what car hobbyists loved and changing it to upside down world; take our cultured politeness and turn it into a weapon against us; taking our dumb video games and turning them into cutscene simulators.
I know they're coming for my newfound motorcycling from the top with government mandated electrification. Destroying the soul of motorcycling (yes, it is amusing to wind a motor above 12k) just as they are coming for the cars. It's supposedly in the name of the planet, but they never seem interested in actually solving problems and they definitely don't seem to be a fan of humanity in it's filthy masses.
The twist of the knife is that EV buyers tend to minimize their driving. Everyone I know with a Tesla works from their home office. Everyone delivering their sandwiches is doing so with a rental escooter or econobox.
After reading this I opened Instagram to find an auto journalist’s photo of the loaner WATCH he’s wearing to Pebble. Quite a contrast.
I guess I’m going to be the only one here to say that these events serve a useful purpose: preserving our automotive history.
Don’t get me wrong. I know full well that many if not most collectors collect for the thrill of owning, not driving. And the thrill of owning something that other people don’t own - usually their so-called peers. A dick measuring competition by any other name.
(I once saw a mind-bending collection for The Robb Report that no one else had ever seen. All I felt was sad.)
But these cars cost a fortune to restore and maintain, and the average person can’t afford to do it. Whatever reason the rich may have for doing it, they are doing us all a favor. IMHO
deciding and then going to and running in the first historics in '74 with my favoritebyamillionmiles girlfriend is a treasured memory. $10 for a pass to that 1-day event. i ran the first 5, 9 outta the first 10, and most of 'em till i lost my leg in '11. the early days were wonderful; steve and debbie earle were responsible for so much of it. the quail has changed tremendously by the last time we had a car there--'19. had 3 cars at pebble; never for judging. but heck if people wanna do these kinds of things--it's their $$. highline cars are just a jewel show these days
The only thing more boring than a supercar is an electric supercar. I never cared about the original Countach, let alone the reproduction, and the last Ferrari I gave a damn about was the 308 GTS - which likely had more to do with Christie Brinkley flying down the highway blasting the Pointer Sisters than the car itself.
Thinking about the sort of odious, worthless-yet-wealthy people that actually buy this crap is a bucket of cold water for whatever remains of your childhood bedroom poster fantasies.
It was one thing when these concours events were for the insufferably rich to get together and show off amongst themselves - and maybe some barely-sufferable David E. Davis-type would write an article I wouldn't read in the back of an auto rag, pre internet. Now that's it's become part of the neverending influencer circle-jerk that masquerades as western culture, it's much harder to ignore. All the fakeness and pretense just further erodes my ability to care about any car at all anymore.