Re: Thoughts On Recruiting The Next Generation

Posted by Jeff On 2012/1/8 18:51:31

For what it's worth.. I was 23 when I bought my '55 Patrician. I just simply fell in love with it, but that was after reading about it in Collectible Automobile the previous summer. When I saw it for the first time I knew I had to have it. My dad, who was in his early 40s and a child of the 1950s, thought I was completely mad. Huge, hulking, difficult parts to find, not a drag strip challenger. Made no difference to me.

I will be 50 this spring, and still have my Patrician, plus... other Packards. I love them all, but even I worry about the future of them and the hobby. I don't think the issue is Packards, per se, but rather that our culture has shifted. Kids are being taught that automobiles are a necessary evil, at best, and killers of the world at worst.

But hear me: every year I get older, and I find something to love about things that are ever older, whether cars, or music, or art. When I was 16 or 20, music from 1928 did nothing for me, nor did brass-era cars. But now... I think differently. It is very easy to look at ourselves as we are now, and forget what we loved when we were 16. As much as I worry, I think that the 16 year olds of today will come to appreciate the cars we cherish, if they are exposed to them and can learn from them from someone that loves them.

That is why we, at our local club, are starting a program with the local student chapter of the SAE, at UM-KC, to promote our Packards, and the hobby as a whole, to the very people that will turn to them when they are older. I encourage everyone to get their Packards out, and drive them whenever they can, and make sure they are seen as bona fide machines, and not museum pieces.