Wonder what Normal people think is an Old Car?

[Carnut]

Essentially growing up driving my Model A Coupe and regularly driving my 40 Ford for the past 30 yrs or so, I've lately been wondering how they appear to  'Normal' folks.

Guess I'm so used to my 40 and now a days seeing so many 'soap bar' cars, I wonder if 'Normal' folks even notice how old my 40 actually is since it's kinda 'soap bar' looking in it's own right.

I may be suffereing from Fat Fender insecurity or something since selling my Model A a couple years ago.

I have no problems with driving my 61 Chrysler, everyone considers it to be the 'Bat Mobile' when they see it driving around.

[UGLY OLDS]

Most of the people I work with think my '89 GMC is old...To them a 70's car is from the dark ages & they would not know where to begin to look for a problem nor are they interested in learning how to repair "components" ....Slap on a new part &  it "goes away"-$$$ .....  

[Flipper]

Last year my dad bought a couple of 1952 Mercedes 220 sedans.  I was talking about them at work an one of the guys says he knows where an old mercedes was for sale........I go look at it and it is a mid-80's car.

[58 Yeoman]

On June 15th this year, they will unearth a 1957 Plymouth at Tulsa, OK centennial celebrattion.  It was buried in 1957 in a vault, to be dug up this year.  Local paper had an article on it, but they don't have it online.

Will be interesting to see what condition it will be in.

[phat46]

There was a guy at work a couple years ago that told me that he and his dad were "restoring" a truck.......turns out it is a late '70's Chevy  
What amazes me is that little kids, like under six years old, know that my '46 Chevy is "different"; I have seen them stop and point at it as i drive by. Makes me wonder  how they know that it's not "normal" to see a car that old .....

[kb426]

In 1976 I was driving my 38 chevy to work. A guy who was in his 40's asked me why I bought that white elephant. When I drive the 53 chevy pickup, it always gets lots of attention. BUT, it's bright red with torque thrust 2's on it. My thought is: if the paint and chrome is bright, people will notice it but the non-car people will never understand it. i can explain my feelings with the car hobby but most people think I'm either nuts or waisting my time when I should be working making more money to spend on ?

[Okiedokie]

www.buriedcar.com is the site for the buried Plymouth. Kind of ironic that they ceased production Plymouths isn't it. My Dad watched them bury the car and all through his "growing older" years he has joked that he wants to live long enough to see them retrieve it. He is 88 now and he and I will be there to watch it be unearthed. Right here in my hometown. Neat stuff.

[alchevy]

It's amazing the different looks you get when driving an "old" car. When I drive my '40 Chevy around some folks will give you thumbs up and others will have a confused look on their faces and others don't even notice that it's a "old" car and others just stand there with their jaws wide open. The other day a car passed me on the interstate and a passenger gave me 2 thumbs up. One day I was driving it home from an indoor car show and this truck passed me and then slowed down and let me pass. I guess he wanted to see all around my car.

[slocrow]

First, define, "Normal people". I remember when I was 16/17, a 32 Ford was an old car. Most pre war stuff was in that "old" category. Now, some 50 plus years later I'm guessing that a 80's vintage is relatively that same old car.
Remember, to a 25 year old, a 80's car is a lifetime ago...Frank

[enjenjo]

I think most people would define an old car as one built before they were born.

[Uncle Bob]

Fun topic.

As we old car nuts gather round the camp fire, it may be hard to imagine what a small sized slice of the overall societal pizza we are.  I think most of those "normal" people view our affinity for "old cars" as quite quaint.  They don't understand quite why we pursue this thing, but listening to the "civilians" at street side "shows" I get the sense they enjoy the novelty.  It could be interesting what the future holds for our group as the youngsters today who are being propagandized about human caused global warming become the majority.  

I'll bet many of us have heard the uninformed refer to just about any "square" bodied car (say pre-'35) as a Model A.  Stories abound about the comment "My Uncle had a car....................just like that one", though on further discussion his idea of "just like that one" compares a 4 door '53 Chev to your '36 Ford 5 window coupe.   Still, not much harm in that, just subject matter ignorance.

Ugly Olds' reference happened to me two days ago.  Ran an ad to dispose of my recently deceased FIL car.  In addition to a price I also mentioned I would consider trading for any old hot rod "stuff".  First inquiry offered to trade a recently "restored hot rod truck".  Turns out it was an '89 Chevy pickemup.  Really a pretty truck, recent repaint, built 383 stroker, and so on, but as I told the young man...............it's hard for me to think of an '89 as either old or hot rod.   It's all relative I guess.

[t-vicky]

I remember in the mid 60s driving my mother somewhere and coming up on a model A.  My mom said whats that doing with an antique tag, its just a model A.
I took a trip with the carnut in his 40 Ford.  I loved the look on a guys face  when he ask what kind of car is that? Carnut said,  its an orginal PT cruiser.  He belived every word.

[donsrods]

To show that the "normal" folks don't really get what we are all about, I was standing next to a really nice '50 Merc at a show onetime.  It had a for sale sign on the window, stating the price was $ 30,000.00.  A well dressed man and woman in their 40's walked up and looked at it, and she said " $30,000.00.......wouldn't you do better putting your money in a CD or something?"  and he said " yeah, the guy is dreaming.....you could buy a nice SUV for that same kind of money."

It was all I could do to hold my tongue.    


Don

[oldmanolds]

Last year a couple of kids came up to my wife and I at a local car show.We started talking about the kind of cars kids are into now and the money spent on them.The young man had a Honda 2000 (I think)with gull wing doors,tv's,a kick * stereo,turbo and nitrous.He said that he had around 40 grand in that car!Hell when I was his age I couldn't buy a cheap VW...anyway the fact is he loved our "OLD" car and was truly interested in it.I guess that driving a old car with lots of history is quite a conversation starter.Some of the old folks where my mother is a resident love for me to cruise up in it.Most people like the old cars. The others that like to run their mouths off about them are just jealous.My 2 cents

[ChevyGirlRox]

It is funny this was brought up...
Over the past few weeks people have been telling me that "there is a kid in the local auto shop program building a flathead car". So everytime I hear it, I say ok, ponder why everyone thinks I need to know, then move on.  Finally the curiousity was killing me and I decided to go down at lunch today to check it out.  Turns out it is a class project and they are building a Flathead powered '32 two door sedan.  It just so happened that one of the guys I work with drove his '37 (for lack of better terms) 'rat rod' to work today so we drove it down to the school.  When the kids started looking at his truck someone said "wow, that truck looks really old!" It took everything in me not to say "Ya, it is really old, like 70 years old!"

People, even automotive people as mentioned in the story above, have no context of cars over 10 years old.  It never ceases to amaze me when I hear a middle aged man mis-identify a car that was made within his lifetime! I work in a vintage car related field and talk to a lot of both car people and non-car people.  We only work with cars that are 1970 and older.  You should hear the things people say when they call me with their woes on their '78 T-birds and I tell them that it is too new for us to work with.  

Old to me is pre-brass era, now that is old.  Good thing I don't think that way about men too.....