My take on this...……………..

I'm 60, youngest of 4, two brothers, 1 sister. I grew up in a rural area outside of a few small towns and a little further out, a medium sized town. My earliest recognition having to do with cars was you had to have one to get anything or meet anybody. Shortly after that cars, specifically muscle and hot rods were completely intertwined with youth culture and lifestyle.

This was in the mid-to late 60's and it seemed that everything youth-oriented centered around cars because you had to have one to go anywhere, hang out with your friends. Further, they not only represented freedom but teenage social status. So much so the most popular guy in high school in the late 70's was not the quarterback, but the guy with the fastest car. Then past the high school age kids were the twenty somethings had their social 'tiers' with again the guy with the fastest car being the most popular.

Most everyone street raced, worked on their cars AND went to one of the two local 1/8 mile tracks to race and hang out on the weekends. I mean EVERYONE.

There were many local hang-outs one in particular for my older brother was Tastee-T-Freeze in the 60's to early 70's. I distinctly remember one of the few times my older brother would let me ride with him to hang out there I was maybe 8 years old. The joint had a large lot in the back where most of the car guys would hang out. Some how or another my brother said I could already drive pretty good talking with the guys hanging out drinking a few beers.

So a guy in the group asks me if I thought I could handle a big-block Chevelle? Of course I said 'yeah'. I sit in his lap, take the steering wheel and he says he'll work the rest (it was a 4-speed) next thing he points it down the parking lot, revs it high and out comes the clutch.
the car immediately lurches sideways, I turn into it, starts to go the other way, I turn into that (he never let out of it) straighten it up and by then we were at the end of the parking lot. It was a HUGE rush!

So we turned around, with me steering and drove back to all them grinning and cheering! When I got out the guy said to everybody, this kids' got it goin ON!

From that point on until I die; I will forever be a car guy. It's deeply engrained in my DNA. I still do restorations, buy / sell / fix. It's what I love even though at times I get burned out.

I used to be jealous of all the guys with Motronic and their ubiquitous Steve Wong chips, whilst dicking with my CIS 911. :D Made my WUR into an adjustable unit, and tuned it by "feel" which matched up pretty well with a Gunson sniffer in the end. Happy days.

Priorities change. Shortly after I acquired the 911, naturally I got into autocrossing then track days. It was quickly evident that I wasn't very good at driving competitively; let's say I was never going to podium even in a regional event. I never really enjoyed going fast anyway. Learning how to apply the theory of driving fast in practice was fun, and helps me in my day job, but not fun in a competitive sense. My wife never enjoyed being in a car driven fast. My current "car" focus on the campervan is enjoyable for both of us. We get to travel, still share amazing driving roads with GT3 and the like, stop whenever and wherever we want, and plenty of room for the dog too. Whoever said driving a slow car fast is more fun was right - 65hp is plenty! So yes, priorities change.

You might have noticed the whole #vanlife thing is quite big with millennials right now. Both my wife and I are in the older end of the millennial generation, but we feel we have nothing in common with the typical "snowflake" types. Our friends will say we're both old souls. That's why I hang out here with you lot! But being able to wrench on cars definitely is a benefit, when you're taking a 120k+ mile, cheap GM-built (Vauxhall) van on long trips. In fact, I wouldn't even attempt it if I didn't know how to fix it on the go, just in case. In that sense, I would still consider myself a car guy and that allows us to do things we otherwise wouldn't/shouldn't. What portion of
owners of fully restored/decked out VW buses still know how to work on them, I wonder?

Also agree on picking my battles. CAN I drop the gearbox and do the clutch job on the van on jackstands? Yes. DO I want to do it? No. But then it would cost more than half of the van's current value to farm it out to a professional. So I just drive around with a slipping clutch for now...

What are some examples of "snowflake" behaviors that your old soul can't relate to?

You know what's really funny - I design F1 cars. But in the context of this thread, in my mind I never connected that and being a car guy together. I would rather say I'm a car guy because I work on my cars, don't leave good-enough alone, and I like to fix things. Actually, it's all of those things plus my experiences and connections through Porsche ownership at key moments that got me here. So one could say, I am what I am because I'm a car guy. But again, I wouldn't instinctively make that connection for some reason. Even in this industry, very few people actually live and breathe it in my opinion. For many, it's a job - maybe in a slightly different sense than "just a job", but a job nonetheless. Is this a sign that I succeeded in keeping my day job and hobby separate? In any case, it's comforting to know that what you do don't have to define who you are, and being a car guy is more of a mental state.

If Captain is around, I'd love to hear his thoughts!

"Sense of entitlement" should sum it up? I don't #vanlife to have 1 million followers on Instagram either.

Won, your van is pretty cool. Is it just bed & storage, or do you have a small galley, too? #vanlife http://forums.pelicanparts.com/support/smileys/wat6.gif

My wife & I have a MB Sprinter-based RV, which we are anxious to use once this CV thing has sufficiently abated.

If I can wrap up my current house project in the next day or two, I’m going to try resuming my 5-speed tranny refresh for the 280Z. Keep on wrenching. :)

Funny how we all think alike . I still love what I do, and there is rarely a time in my life, where I do not have at least one side car/truck project going for myself personally, but I also, get burnt out .
There is really nut much rewarding about working on modern cars . Nothing to tune, nothing to adjust . I get excited these days, when I get to install a clutch, or water pump , or repair/replace an auto trans etc. Most everything other than service work , is replacing some clink o module , or plastic do hickey that has failed .
I stated earlier in this thread that I am no longer a car guy, but that is a lie. I am all car guy 50 hours to feed my family , and most everything else in my life is about making time for my next project .
As much as I love porsche cars, and sports cars, I have learned that sometimes, low budget projects are far more simple, rewarding, and more pleasurable . It's nice to not have to come up with 20 k to make 200 hp.
I really want to get back into motorsports at some point, but I keep thinking about kids college, retiring, living debt free, and it makes me really hesitant . Even autocrossing seems to have gotten exponentially more expensive to compete .

I once wrote a post on the Bullitt Mustang board about a time warp thing...taking the Bullitt back to my high school, circa 1958. Having a conversation with Leroy, the owner of a new '58 'Vette, considered the coolest car in school...trying to explain what's under the hood. Also, the car itself, since the first Mustang was years away...

The fantasy ended with he making the challenge, we agreeing to meet on airport road at eight o'clock. But I didn't show. Instead, I was out at the motor-vu with his girlfriend Gloria...

Back then, I was very much a wannabe car guy without a car. Today? Well...I yam what I yam. Lots of changes in attitudes and cars over the last 60 years...

I cannot relate to rodding a car with, “software.”
I’ve hotroded a few VWs and 356s. To me it isn’t real if you haven’t taken it apart and gotten oil on your hands.
There is a smell (no - an “aroma”) to a freshly rebuilt air cooled engine when you first start it up. It’s the smell of cleaning solvents and assembly lubes burning off. To me, it’s the aroma of accomplishment. You’ve gotten your hands right down into the guts of your car, done everything right, and this is your reward.
It is one of life’s hard earned joys. I can’t imagine getting the same satisfaction from pushing some buttons to flush a prom or whatever.

Yupperz to dat.

LOL, stop reading all that snowflake click-bait nonsense
Try getting out there and meeting car guys who are not your age.

Do, you really think these snowflakes don't turn wrenches?
They swap out suspensions, turbos, intercoolers, wheels, coilovers, and engines like their underwear.
They also swap out intakes, exhaust, and flash tune the cars as part of the overall build process.

Many years ago, I saw an ad for 2004 Subaru WRX STI.
https://i.imgur.com/9WR59j1.jpg

Yeah, $21K for an Impreza? But it's had basically every performance part swapped out for an aftermarket improvement. I don't even know what half that **** is. According to that dyno sheet it makes 362hp.

Years ago I had an illuminating conversation with a young co-worker. Kid was just out of the army, and was really into his Honda (I forget what it was, maybe an Accord.) He and I chatted about all the mods he did to it, including some ludicrous audio system with multiple DVD screens in the headrests. I commented that I didn't understand why anyone would spend $15K+ plus modding an econo car to make it faster, when they could take that money and buy a used sports car that was already fast. His take was that it was cooler to mod a car to make it faster than a sports car (I didn't get into whether a ricer car could actually be "faster" than a dedicated sports car, but that wasn't the point. In his mind, something like a 363hp Accord is faster than a 300hp 911.) The idea is that "built > bought." As in, only old people buy a fast car, cool people build one.

It's pure fantasy to think that car culture was thing great big thing before cell phones made all the kids zombies who ride bicycles until age 30. "Youngsters" aren't into P-cars, because they can't afford them. They're into Japanese tuner cars like the WRX and Civic, because they're cheap, and there's a huge aftermarket of cheap parts and mods for them. (And they have four doors and seats for hos and bros.) Those kids are hardly afraid of getting their hands dirty wrenching; in fact, they can't stop themselves from swapping out parts and modding the crap out of them until the car becomes a monstrosity to older eyes. The Pelican audience probably has no idea this is going on, and concludes that because they don't see 19 year olds buying 911s and tuning them, they don't care about cars. The youngsters who care about cars are definitely out there, they just don't care about Porsches, or can't afford to.

An elite suburban town where old guys own "weekend Porsches" is not remotely representative sample of the 1000's tuner car kids now posting how to's on YouTube.

Also, what about pickup truck culture? It's not a thing on the coasts, but elsewhere lifting and modifying big American pickups is a huge thing.

Every generation has to leave it's own mark- muscle cars and Porsches are all Baby Boomer toys. Also, it's what they had to choose from as kids- Japanese cars.

I gotta admit, I like the STI, I just hate the crowd it attracts :(

Fun ass car to drive, flexible power, nimble and sounds cool for a 4 cyl. I'd do it again in a heartbeat once some cash frees up.

A lot of ricer culture annoys me, but you can't argue that the younger generation who mods the crap out of Subarus and the like isn't really into cars. The opposite -- they're so into cars that they spend all their time and money on them, swapping parts, tweaking this and that, an endless evolution of continual improvement to eek out more power and performance.

I guarantee that your typical Subaru boost maniac knows a hell of a lot more about the internals of his engine than a checkbook enthusiast does about his 911 garage queen.

I have more respect for an STI ricer who actually wrenches and drives his car than the Microsoft Millionaire who buys a GT3 only to commute 5 miles at 15mph and parks it in the company lot so his underlings can gawk at it on their lunch break.

Maybe. But maybe if they're interested they'll come find me.

The point remains that many older guys have zero knowledge about modern car culture.
Probably never even seen a video on Youtube

I think all you're doing now is reinforcing your own point earlier that:

Along the line of not feeling like car guys any more: I know quite a few people here who used to spend more time over on tech forums. Personally I haven't been there in years. I may have mentioned that my car is parked 3000 miles away... But I'm still here, because this forum brought together an amazing group people, all based on the simple premise that we all like a particular brand of cars and we (at least used to) like working on them. PPOT holds a wealth of real world knowledge and experience. Collectively we have answers to pretty much every question vash or anyone else might come up with. I enjoy learning and there is always something new here. The same goes for car people I meet in the real world, generally. Car people, old or young, tend to be pragmatic by definition, and that sits well with me. I used to be a 911 snob, then I learned that I'm not better than any other car person just because I prefer air-cooling or rear engine or superior German engineering. Except for my mate who owns a V8 Esprit. He chose poorly and he will never live that one down. I hang out here with old geezers because they forgot more than I know about life in general and I appreciate that. See, a proper millennial here should shout OK BOOMER and drop the microphone.

S-wood, with all due respect, there is a somewhat consensus among pretty much all generations from The Greatest Generation, Boomers, Gen X about the Millennials having a sense of entitlement.

Here is the take away for you: We are not TALKING ABOUT YOU PER SE. I don't know you, no one here knows you. Don't take everything so personally. Rather, try to understand what we are saying. Evaluate. Reflect. Nothing is more valuable than perspective. I'm trying to understand Millennials every day. There ARE some common traits - just a fact. I employ around 15 of them year round, and around 24 during the holiday season. So I have a lot of experience relating to them every single day of the year, all day long.

If you aren't a car guy now, were you ever a car guy?

Rhetorical.

I've been thinking a lot about this thread, trying to answer the question.

I think we ARE ALL CAR GUYS in varying degrees. We always have been.

I don't post anymore in the tech thread not because I am not a car guy, but rather I can't relate to the people posting, and they don't listen to what I have to say anymore. So it's for me a waste of time. I have all of the knowledge that I need to rebuild everything on my car, so from a forum standpoint, I'm out.

As for this forum, I appreciate the multi-generation multi-ethnic, and multi-socioeconomic nature of this forum. I do not like snobs, closed minded, racist, provincial hillbilly types. And they are here on this forum as well. But they are balanced out quite well by really smart guys here, who run the gamut of every type of background you can imagine. As long as the discussion is interesting, it continues for me.

+1 agreed.