I'm not a car expert or anything, but have you noticed that alot of the cars people like to restore and show off, are like Hot Rods, Cadillacs and alot of other 1930s to early '70s models. Like in ZZ Top videos. Do you think the later ones will ever be at that state...like boxy '80s cars or the oval, semi-rounded models of the '90s? Reason being, it seems like that classic car range has ALWAYS been that way, lol.

Most '70s cars seem inbetween now for instance, like very few are new enough to still be on the road (unless you're in a poor neighborhood maybe) but they're not quite old enough to be true classics.

I'm not a car expert or anything, but have you noticed that alot of the cars people like to restore and show off, are like Hot Rods, Cadillacs and alot of other 1930s to early '70s models. Like in ZZ Top videos. Do you think the later ones will ever be at that state...like boxy '80s cars or the oval, semi-rounded models of the '90s? Reason being, it seems like that classic car range has ALWAYS been that way, lol.

Most '70s cars seem inbetween now for instance, like very few are new enough to still be on the road (unless you're in a poor neighborhood maybe) but they're not quite old enough to be true classics.


The only cars from the 80s I've seen people do any serious work on are Mustangs, and mostly the 87-93 models, not the 79-86 model range (same basic style, different nose, bigger HP). The Camaros from the 80s and 90s seem to have died out.  Occasionally you'll see some of the more exotic Japanese imports that have been tuned.  I could see the import scene that developed in the 90s keeping those cars going.  I know there's an Audi from the mid 80s that used mostly for racing that fetched big bucks now, but it's not really the kind of car that was customized or even owned by the general public.

I agree.  Muscle cars, sports cars, and higher-end luxury cars will always be restored.  From the 80's - mustangs, camaros, firebirds, monte carlos, grand nationals, mercedes, porsche.

Though IROC camaros were great in the 80's, remember how ugly they were in 1993?  We were all tired of them.  They were everywhere in the 80's.  Now it is refreshing to see one on the road.

The import scene takes small low-end cars and puts in thousands of dollars worth of upgrades.  Perhaps, they will keep the smaller cheaper cars on the road.

That's true about muscle and sports-type cars, and just more high performance ones. It seems like around the early '70s, they started making typicar cars more flimsy...for instance, like John Candy's car in the movie Uncle Buck! And that was a beater in 1989, let alone now! ;D

I'm not a car expert or anything, but have you noticed that alot of the cars people like to restore and show off, are like Hot Rods, Cadillacs and alot of other 1930s to early '70s models. Like in ZZ Top videos. Do you think the later ones will ever be at that state...like boxy '80s cars or the oval, semi-rounded models of the '90s? Reason being, it seems like that classic car range has ALWAYS been that way, lol.


Yes, some current cars will eventually become classics.  It might be harder to keep them running due to custom electronic parts that can't be easily replaced/restored, but by the time it matters, the relevant parts will have been reverse-engineered and will be available (at a price) to the people that really want them.  Problem is, nobody has any idea which cars will become classics.

In general, it's the nice, but cheap/unloved/unwanted cars that become classics.

Those 30s "Hot Rods" are perhaps the best example.  Before WW2, there was no such thing as hot rodding.  After WW2, you had a bunch of kids who'd just fought a war -- and everyone knew a guy who could could fix a state-of-the-art motor in ten minutes while being shot at (because the motor was the top-secret heart of a state-of-the-art Allied tank, or it was the top-secret heart of a half-blown-up state-of-the-art German tank, and either way he probably was being shot at while trying to fix it!).

You also had millions of people with disposable income, and with the end of war rationing, they were finally able to buy the luxury family sedans of the postwar 40s and early 50s. 

That left a lot of 20s- and 30s-era iron unloved and unwanted.  It was available for pennies on the dollar, and it eventually found its way to the aforementioned mechanical geeks and their friends, and that was the birth of hot rodding.

We saw it again in the 60s/70s horsepower wars.  Giant boats (or 400+ cubic-inch V8s) getting ten miles per gallon with a stiff tail wind... everyone tossed their 40s/50s with the tailfins and went for the boat look.  There are thousands of people cursing they day they sold that "old piece of junk" '57 Chevy, and wondering where .

The cycle repeated itself -- at 10MPG, those boats and muscle cars wound up unwanted/unloved during the Malaise Era of Jimmy Carter's fuel crisis.  And they're coming into their own as modern classics.

Take it forward to the 80s/90s/00s.  All those restrictive little 70s econoboxes?  Hateful, right?  Not so much.  There are clubs for the AMC Pacer and Gremlin, for cryin' out loud.  I recently saw a well-preserved/restored example (of which there are very few!) at a car show a while ago, and damned if I didn't stop and stare.  I remember laughing at the Gremlin back when it was new... but today, it's just plain cute.  I like it.  Spent ten minutes walking around it and taking pictures of it, because I'll probably never seen one again.

The 80s luxo-barges aren't classics, but they're available today for $1000-2000.  They're the classics of the 2010s.

The whole "big rims" thing has given 90s "bubbles" (rounded cars) and "boxes" (80s/early-90s boxy-style bodies) new life.  They're not my personal style, but I'm sure I'll come around.  They're the hot rods of this decade -- we can't get much more out of a car by tuning it, but we can sure as hell make it look distinctive.

Today's cars as future classics?  Why not?  The Subaru WRX is one hell of a machine.  There's room for the big "rice" crowd who bolt on performance-sapping aftermarket wings/air dams and the chippers/tuners/modder crowd who don't care what it looks like, they just want to get more out of their machines.  (The only difference between a chipper and a hot rodder is that the chipper uses a computer, where the hot rodder uses a wrench.)

I'm gonna go out on a limb here.  Some time in the 2020s-2030s, the Prius will be a classic.  If for no other reason than that every "car guy" who took a look at one turned up his nose in disgust.  In the late 2010s, the first-line Priuses will be available for $1-2000 (adjust up for inflation) or less.  They're already being hacked by to run on wall power as plug-in hybrids.  Google "hypermiling" -- getting more miles per gallon out of a tank of gas is no less a sport (albeit not as much fun to watch!) than getting more miles per hour over a long distance (a 500-mile race) or the quarter-mile (drag racing).

Hot rodding's not dead by a long shot.  It just changes body styles and technologies. 

And as for classics?  Pick a number between 25 and 30.  Any car older than that number of years is a classic.

I'm not a car expert or anything, but have you noticed that alot of the cars people like to restore and show off, are like Hot Rods, Cadillacs and alot of other 1930s to early '70s models. Like in ZZ Top videos. Do you think the later ones will ever be at that state...like boxy '80s cars or the oval, semi-rounded models of the '90s? Reason being, it seems like that classic car range has ALWAYS been that way, lol.

Most '70s cars seem inbetween now for instance, like very few are new enough to still be on the road (unless you're in a poor neighborhood maybe) but they're not quite old enough to be true classics.


As far as cars from the 80's-90's go, I think a good bet for a future collectible would have to be a 1991 or '92 Dodge Spirit R/T.  In its day it was the quickest 4-door sedan in the world. Not to mention that they only built 1,200 of them in '91 and 700 in '92, so they're quite rare. Plus they still had the boxy "K-Car" styling left over from the 80's, so they definitely have the whole "sleeper" thing going for them.

I'm not sure, I'm guessing that if you can find one in good condition you could probably pick it up for under 5 grand, but I could see where its rarity and performance could make it quite valuable in another 10-20 years.

http://www.fantasycars.com/sedans/column/photos/usa_spiritrt_front.jpg