Somehow it seems the editor line on speedhunters seems to be how should be blindly admired and how there will always be people hating it. Well, you are all a bunch of whiners and I think we all understood.

The thing is, you have decided to propose a commenting system on your website. So basically you are asking for opinions. You can't do that while at the same time ask people to always agree with yours. Or else rename your website to govsanctionnedspeedhunters.kp (For those that didn't care to check .kp is the tld for North Korea).

Life and the world would be boring if everybody had the same opinion on all kinds of subjects and if we were forced to feign agreeing to anything.

As long as the discussion stay civil I have no issue with people not liking stance, drift, whatever.

Excellent article Matt, a very important message that I have been echoing in my own automotive outlets. The sad fact is that owning a gas burning car and the simple act of driving that car will most likely be outlawed in a shorter amount of time most will realize. In a granny state, the driver is the lowest common denominator and public enemy number one in the eyes of legislators. If we as a group are blinded by hating on each other to see the common troubles, our lifestyle is doomed.

I like to relate car hating to racism. The hate comes from a lack of exposure, if haters actually inspected the cars they hate so much and talked to (not typed about) the owners that built/restored/bought them, they would most likely find a person very similar to themselves. You can still dislike the genre, but still respect the work done and similar passion displayed by our supposed competition. Like Matt said, we got a fight coming, and we will all be stronger united and will likely lose the privileges we are already losing by bickering at ourselves.

We gotta make a change
It's time for us as a people to start makin' some changes.
Let's change the way we eat, let's change the way we live
And let's change the way we treat each other.
You see the old way wasn't working so it's on us to do
What we gotta do, to survive

Take some of the disdain (or hate as you say) as feedback. For real speed one tests, takes feedback, modifies, tests and so forth. If one can't take opinion and dissect it and use some of it as feedback then they will indeed end up misguided. Show some emotional resilience and let people comment, even if they "hate". Or would you rather "everyone gets a medal and everyone is a winner" such that no one is offended?

A shrinking, fractured car community?

Not my experience at all. There's so much to be excited about as new technology upgrades older cars. Fresh enthusiasm from younger enthusiasts that want their 'classic modern' to reflect their personality as efficiently as their intuitive multi-media. We embrace technology and innovation seamlessly within our lives, cars are no different. Just the way we express ourselves as individuals. There will always be a car community and there will always be those with mild to aggresive personal opinion. Even the default haters have a place in our scene.

Our needs as individuals will counter 'beige box' normality every time.

Hate is entertaiment tho', thus a dab of it hurts no one. We need a sort of Jerry Springer in car community lol

a "can't we all get along" post on Speedhunters?!

i think we're wearing the rose-tinted glasses here. i've written a bit of a tome here, but let me raise two interrelated counterpoints to a few ideas in this piece:

1. fear and loathing from the general public
living in CA i'm very familiar with absurd smog laws, but it's hard to argue that some sort of program to make new cars cleaner and keep old cars clean isn't valuable. the skies over American cities today are much, much cleaner than they were 30-40 years ago and the vast majority of that has come from emissions control programs. look at the skies over New Delhi, Beijing, any crowded European city packed with diesels, etc and it becomes clear that the American emissions control program has paid off in spades. yes, there are other factors that weigh into this, and there are tons of rules that don't make sense. but regulating cleaner cars, as part of a larger environmental protection program, has been a huge boon to our environment and health. i can't in good conscience say that it'd be better to have 9000hp cars with no catalytic converters running on leaded gas - which i would like very much - than to have clean skies, fewer kids with asthma, and lower carbon emissions.

the question then becomes what amount of efficiency and emissions regulation is too much. it's easy to say "we're already there, [rule xyz] is absurd" - but that's what we would have said when they took the lead out of gasoline, mandated catalytic converters, etc. hybrids, electrics, buzzy little turbo fours, and the like seem like too much now, but the fuel economy of newer cars has been getting better and better.

on top of that they've been getting safer and safer. you can look up the numbers for yourself. the average car today is about as safe, in terms of deaths per mile driven, as the safest car (Lexus ES300, Volvo 850) twenty years ago. the average car twenty years ago was dramatically safer than the average car twenty years before that. tens of thousands of people die on the road every year, but per mile driven the deaths are dropping steadily and have been for years.

the point i'm making is, all this stuff works. cars are less damaging to our planet and society than they were before. which leads me to my second point....


2. cars are fine today
it's instructive to watch the Regular Cars video on the stock Ford Falcon, before they threw a 302 in it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HNYtMTCxFI). Mr Regular has discussed elsewhere how old timers will tell him that they remember their old Falcons, share memories they have of their Falcons, etc.

but here's the thing: the Falcon was a boring, dumpy little car that nobody bought to be cool. if we think a Falcon is cool today, it's because we're far enough from its time that it's exotic, but it wasn't really an object of desire. in the pastel-hued, chrome-lined design environment of late '50s America, it didn't stand out. it's just how a you'd draw a pretty basic car if you lived in 1959. i think of his old Falcon the same as i think of a modern Hyundai Elantra: "huh, that's a good-looking little car. shame it's such a bore to drive."

so the boring cars aren't new. we remember the Mustangs and GTOs and Celicas because they were the cool ones, and their aura rubs off on the Falcons, Parisiennes, and Crowns that have survived to the present. but the ratio of cool car to blandmobile is probably the same today as it ever was. i'd wager many readers of this site are roughly my age (about 30), and we all have a passion for those cool '80s and '90s cars that grace the pages of Speedhunters. but do you miss the Toyota Paseo? who give a shit about the Mitsubishi Diamante? i love seeing an old Taurus like my family had when I was a kid, but it's pure nostalgia. the notion that cars are boring now is peak rose tinted glasses. most cars were never really very exciting.

and we're absolutely soaking in options for future classics - 450hp Mustangs and Camaros out the door for under 35k; a Miata that weighs roughly the same as the original, costs the same adjusted for inflation, but is a thousand times more refined; a 700hp family sedan that isn't even the fastest model in its lineup; 200+ hp hot hatches dripping out of our butt cheeks; lesser AMG E-Classes hitting 60 in 4.5; a large electric sedan that hits 60 in under 2; the list goes on. there are so many options for cool cars in 2019. their prices are the same as they've ever been, but their capabilities are absolutely insane.

in short, the percentage of fun cars is the same today as it's ever been, and the fun ones are way more fun now. and, to recall my first point, they're as good as they are despite all of the regulations and restrictions we complain about so bitterly.

------------

now, regarding self-driving cars. i won't argue that self-driving cars threaten our hobby as it is, maybe even threaten fun cars full stop. maybe in 50 years there won't be car enthusiasts like we have now; the future may have car enthusiasts more like today's train enthusiasts, who share our obsession for arcane and technical details but can only really participate as observers. but while 2019 me isn't interested in that, my 2069 equivalent probably won't give a shit. i love cars because i grew up watching my parents drive them, watching movie stars blast around in them, watching rappers in music videos party around them. i love having my own cars and fixing them, tinkering with them, driving them around town and the track. but it's because i'm steeped in a culture that depends on them and glorifies them. let's recall that cars didn't exist 150 years ago. if they don't exist 150 years from now, who cares? we'll all just do something different with our time.

i'm not saying we should walk away and let car culture die right now, but i can accept that it's not eternal. i see no reason to want my hobby to be passed down forever. if my kids or grandkids don't care about cars, it's not a bad thing. it's just different. (maybe it's good. their hobbies will probably be cheaper.) there are more important things than making sure my particular obsession is shared by people until the end of time. if the tides carry cars in an appliance direction and the world is cleaner, healthier, and safer as a result, i can accept that. it's not like i wouldn't have had something else to do if cars hadn't been invented by the time i was born.

anyway, too many words here. hope i could share an alternative perspective.

Best thing i´ve read in a VEERY long time! Spot on, the Swedish scene is full of these, and being an outsider is often equal to be weird or just stupid..! SPOT ON!!

I was on a bike forum that had a thread called "Hot r Not" it was probably one of the most bangin' threads on the whole message board. Over 1000 pages of posts and comments, a lot of criticism, a lot of compliments, a lot of trolling, a lot of fun. Yes, a few people got there feelings hurt but it was mostly all fun and games. Long story short, the moderators went too hard and now it's dead. Don't get your panties in a twist, a couple trolls on the internet isn't a threat to the 'community' the real threat to the community is your "community" when a bunch of dimwits get together for the 'scene' to do dumb things and ruin it for the real car guys tinkering in the garage at home or going for a drive with the homies. I remember my first time on the internet.