Vintage Vibes

When it comes to cars, there are certain metrics for certain makes and models that determine whether they are considered Vintage or not. But what does the term vintage mean to you? Is it that essence of nostalgia that the car evokes, or maybe it just means something that’s old and outdated? I’d propose that it’s a bit of a generational perspective, old souls notwithstanding. To me, it’s that feeling of quality. I often find myself saying “you know, the good old days when things were made to last, not like now when they’re made to deteriorate so you’ll have to upgrade sooner than later”

There are all sorts of things that can be considered vintage. Electronics, Games, and Clothes, can all be considered old enough to be granted the label of vintage. But beyond age, there’s that immeasurable characteristic that begets the term, Vintage…because let's face it..that lawnmower in your uncle's garage that just smells and hasn’t run since 1999 isn’t Vintage, that’s just old. For the purposes of this conversation, we’ll focus on the automobile. This won’t get technical or anything, so don’t worry. I’m more focused on harnessing that vibe that vintage automobiles evoke within car nuts like me. I’m not the typical “car nut”, if there is such a thing, I don’t have the attention span or patience to rattle off horsepower/torque specs or itemize tiny engine parts in the garage every weekend. I’m the guy that loves that sound, that top gear rev on a winding canyon road, that chunky grumble just after ignition. That overall oomph you get when you experience a vintage automobile. Today, modern cars are seemingly so focused on comfort and convenience that kids might never have the satisfaction of hearing, and in some cases feeling, the solid “ca-thunk” of a car door closing just right on the latch and that metal latching sound that let you know the door was closed and the adventure was about to begin.

Beyond the car door though, is that sense of being one with the chassis. That feeling you got as a kid in the back seat, that almost always cradled you in just the right way where you had to crane your neck up and around the headrest to see where you were going in such a hurry, and the inevitable jolt to the right and/or left on those windy country roads. For me those combined to try and figure out if that would be the day that mom would finally fly off into the farm’s field that kept rising along the horizon around that one hard left on North Oaks Road. The old 1985 E30 was nimble and quick, but who knows how good those tires are…oh well, enjoy the ride and high-five your mom when you get to school an hour before the other kids show up on that big yellow junker the driver keeps rounding off the gears on. Ah yes, to me that whole sensory overload is what I’d consider Vintage to be. But that could still be said for any kid, who has a parent or parents with an adrenaline addiction, and a fast car, right? Well tell me this, would a 2022 (insert exciting road legal rally car here) have that road noise, that rumble that grew and grew through the metal (and some other unknown materials to me at the time I'm sure) chassis that you could feel in your seat as the center of gravity sucked lower and lower to the road? That light frost on the hard glass windows that kept building up around the vents in the dash, and let's not forget that faint smell of gas mixed with the faint smell of burning catalytic converter cooking just beneath our feet. Yeah, now that’s REALLY vintage.

Whatever your experience is/was with a Vintage Automobile, and obviously I’m being very specific to a genre/decade of automobile and not even mentioning the vintage that older folks might associate with cars like the old Chevy Bel-Airs, or the Pontiac GTO, or even the Model-T clunkers that first roamed our newly widened (or sometimes not) horse & buggy trails in America. Those are an entirely different conversation to the fortunate folks that have those memories. I’m instead particularly biased to either the monster trucks my dad had or the rally-cars-made-for-the-street that my mom had. That vibe is forever vintage to me.