So, I woke up this fine Monday with something on my mind, that being our world of custom cars and whether or not we are the last of a dying breed.

Now, when I say custom car culture I am speaking of a wide variety of things. This isn’t just about drag racing, it encompasses everything from drag racing, street cruisers, lowrider, lifted trucks, car audio, mini trucks, custom bikes, and so much more. My concern is that we are a dying breed of people though.

For more than 30 years I have been a part of the custom car scene. I, unlike others, didn’t grow up from a young age being interested in cars. Luckily I grew up with older friends that triggered my need for speed and vehicle customization though. The late 80’s and early 90’s were a turning point for me in being addicted to everything that was this scene. As the 90’s progressed I became more and more involved within the scene as well.

Being a kid in the 80’s and early 90’s was an amazing time for gear heads and audiophiles. You had cars on the street like Mustangs, Camaros, Trans Ams, Grand Nationals, Corvettes, and all the old school stuff at the same time. For the audiophiles, we had companies like PPI, Phoenix Gold, Rockford Fosgate, Kicker, Soundstream, JL Audio, MTX, and a host of other amazing companies.

While the late 60’s through the 70’s might be considered the “Golden Age” of hotroding and street cruising, for me the late 80’s and 90’s were really the pinnacle of the custom car scene. The technology advanced to the point that you could have a 12 second street car and that was considered pretty quick. The audio technology was such that you could bump some DJ Magic Mike loud enough to piss off people in a 3 block radius. You had lifted trucks, slammed mini trucks, lowriders with 16 switches cruising the boulevard pulling off some 3 wheel motion. The car shows were a place a beauty and respect. The drag strip was where you went after you faced off on the street from stop light to stop light.

In the summer of 1995 I believe it was, me and some friends made the 2 1/2 hour trip to Chicago and attended the first ever Chicago Lowrider Magazine Super Show. While I had obviously seen these cars in the pages of the magazines like Lowrider, Slammin’, Mini Truckin’, and more, this was my first hands on experience with that culture, or gear head culture outside of local hotrods and car audio. It was another stepping stone in my life as a gear head. The amount of craftsmanship that went into this cars, trucks, and bikes was something to behold. Whether it was the gold platting or the massive amounts of hand engraved parts, all you could do was stand back and admire it for what it was…a work of art.

Then something changed. In the early 2000’s and for some even sooner than that, we saw a shift in this world. The audiophiles were getting pushed out by the auto manufactures and their unlimited budget to create gadgets in the car. No longer were people going out and having huge stereos installed or remote starts put in. The factory system was enough for people and cars were coming standard with remote starts. The only company producing a “Hot Rod” was Ford with the Terminator in 2003 and 2004.

As the first decade of the 2000’s went on, I saw more and more people move away from street cars, hot rods, etc. and into a more “grown up” lifestyle of kids, camping, and PTA. No longer was their interest in having a 400 hp car or a boom boom stereo. They wanted to work their 9-5 Monday thru Friday, go home, and have a relaxing weekend. They didn’t want to go to car shows or the drag strip or the boulevard and cruise. Car audio manufactures were falling by the wayside in favor of GPS, Backup Cameras, Bose and Shaker systems.

Just as I thought it was at the peak of the downward slide, social media showed up! You want to talk about a nail in a coffin. For those reading that are too young to remember, long before the days of TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and even MySpace, we had forums. If you had a Mustang you were on Stangnet or Corral. If you were a Camaro owner you were on a certain site, and so on. This is where we talked tech, smack talked the shit out of each other without getting butthurt, and where we grew as a community. Facebook came along and fucked that all up though.

All of a sudden you have everyone getting into their feels when someone talks shit. You have all this shit talk labeled as “bullying”. And then you have complete censorship by big tech. A community that grew to be a strong, family (although dysfunctional), and a place where we all have a common love for customizing our cars had started to dissolve. It has become much more of a look at me community than a look at us community.

While the customizing of your ride has always been an individual need and taste, it wasn’t always about the look at me, it was about the look at us. Car clubs, which seem to be now a thing of the past, were a huge staple in the 80’s and 90’s. In fact they go back plenty of decades before that. Yes, it was a look at the individual’s build, but a lot of the time it was part of a bigger picture. It was part of the group you cruised with, rolled with, etc.

Fast forward to 2022 and what do we have? We have drag strips struggling to stay open, we have anti cruising laws, more anti car modification laws then you can shake a stick at, and don’t even get me started on all the bullshit government regulation when it comes to automobiles. No longer are kids encouraged to work on their cars, build their dreams, or cruise with their friends. They have become ostracized from society because the narrative is all EV all the time. Save the planet at all costs.

I go to the Dragstrip and car shows almost every weekend of the year, and I can tell you that the gear head culture is most certainly alive. The car show and audiophile culture is also alive (all be it a tad disorganized and highly undercovered by media). Shows like Orange Beach Invasion, Scrappin’ the Coast, LST, Slamboree, and a ton more are all great shows to attend, and I see the crowds getting bigger and bigger. The problem is the lack of respect by some of the young gear head community. Technology has made them lazy in the drag racing and custom car scene.

In years gone by you actually had to put in work to make your ride something to be proud of. You had to put in the time, be creative, and hope for the best. Now, I see young people that buy a $60k truck, toss a lift and a wrap on it with some Tonka Toy looking wheels and call it “custom”. There was very little thought or effort made. The same can be said with drag racing also. When you made 400 hp in the late 80’s and early 90’s and you cruised the blvd with your Flowmaster 40 series and dumps, people knew who the fuck you were. Now, a 16 year old can go out and buy a Mustang with 420 hp and it’s just as common as your mom’s Honda Accord. While innovation is good, at what cost?

Too many of the younger generation are getting their license later in life. They look at the automobile as just a form of transportation to get them from point A to B. They don’t bother to understand the freedom that a drivers license and a car gives you. They want quite, efficient, and tech heavy. So are we, the gear heads that value being behind the wheel, driving to a car show, the drag strip, or even just a local cruise spot, are we the last of a dying breed? Will the custom car world carry on in the future?

What are your thoughts?