Quote:
Originally Posted by NJ Torque
I understand Brian's question and the reasoning behind it.
I think of it this way... All cars were once new. Whats the difference on a new Corvette/Mustang (in your case, Charger) but in 40 years if your car is all stock/original its wonderful/what cars shows are made up of now.
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I'll take this particular aspect. Any car still in production is not special. And car show winners cars should be special.
All else being equal (level of detail, etc) its usually it's hard to watch a 201x anything win over lets say an equally pristine special or interesting older car. Lets use a simple 2nd gen fuelie corvette as an example - not even a BBC car or any crazy variation, but not a plain jane either. Getting past the effort it takes to restore and maintain one, and the cost, the 2g vette is a flat out hall of fame car. and for good reason, it's one of the best looking American cars ever designed inside & out, a design that has not been diminished over the years. And it's been saved/restored/preserved. A brand new anything is a rookie and there lots of them. IMO the new car has not earned it's stripes that are generally earned over time, regardless of dyno numbers and all the current oohs and aahhhs. It's still a common car at this point, albeit the top of the common car food chain.
I also recognize that people are infatuated with new & shiny. I went to a cruise night last year and there were a lot of nice cars, new and old. I saw lots of huddles around some newer cars, the zaino stickered euro-car of the day and some others. But many people likely missed the Ida built Caddy in the lot. By 100% or more this was the best car in the lot hands down, zero argument if you actually stopped and looked at it. It probably took more time to build than the 30 newest cars in the lot took to be built combined. It was a masterpiece. Judges get swayed in similar fashion. This wasn't a judged show, just a theoretical example to highlight a point, but if it were and that car lost to a 2015 Shelby whatever, i'd want to punch the judges in the throat and revoke their man cards. I'd think the same if BLS's Firebird lost an award to a new HC, for the same reason.
It is hard to make any generalized statement because there are so many variables that impact my thought process. is it a show or a regular cruise, a club show, what is the primary target of the show, what was the award (best late model, best of show, etc). Semi-regular cruise nights, take Howell for instance, will not give an award to the same cars every week, they try to spread it around, keep people coming That's fine, no problem. And to the person who is there only one week the choices may be mind boggling, but you need to see the bigger picture.
I don't even bring cost into play as I know restoring such a car is easily more money than buying a new hellcat (as a simply topical example). I also recognize that many guys can write a check for a restoration, so that dilutes the buying a new car discussion a bit. So eh, stay away from the cost argument, and the "he just bought it" argument, and even the 'its easy' argument. Keep the focus on the cars.