Whence This Love for Model Cars? Part 2: ECONOMIC REALITIES – Being a Gearhead is Becoming Unaffordable

As a new year begins, I feel it incumbent upon all of us to face some realities. I know it may be hard for many younger readers to believe this, but there was a time when life in America wasn’t so contentious and so difficult; when things were much more affordable than they are now, when things were just easier. Outside of the hottest and most coveted urban areas, housing was nowhere near as expensive as it now is. Interest rates were higher, but fuel and energy were cheap, things across the board cost significantly less as a percentage of the average person’s pay, and most of the goods we bought with our hard earned money were durable and lasted. Hard to believe? It really wasn’t all that long ago, dear readers! At one point when I was in my 30’s I owned 8 cars, 3 “projects” and 5 which were drivers that I kept registered and insured on a peon’s salary. Think anyone that age could do that now? Unlikely. Why is that?

The Banksters, the Globalists and the Communists have now “fixed” all that for us. When corruption runs rampant and law and order begin to deteriorate, economic stratification occurs: the conditions for a thriving middle class disappear, and you are left with the 1% and everyone else. This is one way we know we are living in the era historians refer to as a “late stage republic,” and good ol’ “Uncle Joe” seems determined to be the president who finishes off the American standard of living once and for all; he’s doing a bang-up job! In these conditions, it becomes a lot harder for someone who works for a living to graduate from model cars to real cars. I made that transition myself when I was around 28 years old, when I finally started making enough money to indulge my love for old cars and started playing with real ones.

I never owned a vintage Ferrari, but I had some damn nice 50’s and 60’s Chevrolets, a couple of Mercedes-Benzes, even a Cadillac and a Jaguar. I was able to buy these cars on a working man’s wages when they were still affordable and parts for them were still available, and I could do most of the work on them myself. Inevitably, the relentless affects of time and attrition are putting an end to those experiences: the cars of the 50’s and 60’s that I love are not available at hobbyist prices anymore, and the parts supplies for all but the most common cars are depleted now. This means that the few remaining good cars of the classic era are going to go to those who can afford them, because there is more demand than supply: a situation that’s only going to go in one direction.

One solution to that, of course, is to do what I often did; buy a rough car that needs a lot of work and rebuild it yourself. Again, there is an inevitable affect of attrition here: this was a much more appealing idea when I was in my early 30’s. Now, with an aging body and rapidly deteriorating eyesight, spending my day on my back replacing ball joints isn’t as fun as it seemed back in the day. But that’s only part of the problem; the real problems-those that will affect us all, regardless of age-are the soaring costs of real estate and energy: the space to properly store and work on cars has become unobtainable for most people now, and the price of fuel has raised the price of everything enough to make having a 1:1 scale “toy car” a much more expensive proposition than it once was. Restoration is a great idea, “Rat Rodding” is even greater, but even for the “home bilt” crowd, a lot of people are simply finding themselves shut out of the car hobby by the rising prices of not just the cars and the parts, but of everything else as well.

In such conditions, what is a young person with a passion for cars – especially classic cars- to do as they enter adulthood? Maybe someone like that might find some joy in collecting models…or racing slot cars!

Part 3 of this 5-part series is scheduled to post on Sunday Jan 7