Anniversaries can be both good and bad. An anniversary of a person's passing can be both, depending on the lasting impressions left on those who knew them. Even car culture has anniversaries, and it has been passing some milestones lately, particularly the indoor car shows that have gone beyond the half-century mark in age.
You have to admit, 50 years of anything seems like a long time, especially when we're talking about cars. In fact, very few cars, save for the lowly VW Beetle, ever stayed the same for that amount of time. (No letters, please. We're aware of its yearly "updates," but the shape basically stayed the same.)
There have been a few car shows that have reached their golden anniversaries, and some, such as the Grand National Roadster Show, the Detroit Autorama, and the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, are all racing toward their 60th anniversaries. In the next couple of years there will be a whole slew of indoor car shows that will be celebrating their 50th anniversaries, too.
It's great when someone is remembered for their life after they've passed on-it shows they really made their mark on other people's lives. We just passed the 25-year mark of John Lennon's death, and it's been 50 years without James Dean (forever linked to the Porsche 550 he was driving at the time). People gathered in New York where Lennon lived and sang songs in remembrance, but we weren't aware of any song-singing at the stretch of highway Dean lost his life on, though there were many people at the site to commemorate his passing that fateful day five decades ago.
Anniversaries sometimes make you look inward to re-evaluate the life you've lead. Since car shows are getting older, one has the opportunity to sit back and think about what they were like "way back when" and where they're going. Participation at these events around the country is key to keeping the hobby and industry alive, but it seems a lot of these kit shows are getting smaller and smaller every year.
The price of gasoline, which has doubled in the last two years, might have kept a few people home, but is $3.25-per-gallon really going to keep someone on the sofa during prime summer-driving time instead of out at a local (or maybe not-so-local) car show or replicar run?
Or has the graying of the hobby affected the turnout at these events? Probably not, as it seems the gray-haired gents at these shows are the ones always running around organizing things. We see their names listed throughout the kit car club newsletters we receive each month, so we know they're active and interested in having the hobby expand.
But you do have to wonder if a 40-year-old in 2013 will really care about having a Cobra, or a Diablo, or a Porsche 550 parked in their garage alongside their daily driver. Will government regulations being discussed today by lawmakers prevent anyone from registering or enjoying the kit car of their choice in just a few short years?
This January issue marks the start of KIT CAR's 25th year in business. The magazine has seen its share of ups and downs, from a late '80s heyday to slower periods, and the types of cars featured therein have changed an awful lot, too.
Probably the biggest change over the past 25 years has come in the form of build quality, as more and more people are investing the time (and money) to build a high-quality kit or replicar. Advancements such as computer-aided milling allow someone to scan in a drawing or scale model, and then pop out a steel die to stamp a new part. This is now available to anyone who can log onto the Internet, and the possibilities seem endless.
The only problem is that people have to participate in order for everything to advance. Participate at local and national events (by the way the 2006 Run & Gun is scheduled for October 5-7), participate in Web site forums, check what is happening in your state to outlaw your hobby, and then join a club and make a difference. Who knows? If you're good at it, maybe someone will write a song about you 50 years after you're dead!