What? They Don’t Want My Money

Old schmold! This is what we were never supposed to be, gray headed.
Perusing USA Today’s website recently, I stumbled upon an item in the Money section (that proves one’s age, when the financial pages hold more allure than the racy features). It reported, in an eye-appealing video, that the marketing crowd at General Motors is targeting the 2014 Chevrolet Corvette to younger lads than the crowd who had hitherto been stepping forward with fat checkbooks.
Yes, you know maturity is upon you when even the chaps selling cars don’t want you anymore. Hey, I can understand the dynamics of car selling. What the gear heads from Detroit are really saying is “We need a farm league who will fall in love with the 2014 Z51, be willing to drop maybe $58,800 for one instead of dropping that loot on a Porsche Boxster or a like-powered Beemer.” It costs a lot to go VAAAROOOM!
To say the Corvette brand is a bit long in the tooth is like admitting you still like Beach Boys’ tunes, but can’t keep up with those “California Girls” of today. The ’Vette is entering its seventh generation, and it takes more to entice a young, dark-haired man of the modern age than it did his grandpop.
Today’s ride calls upon all the nice things upper-class chaps are used to having at their fingertips, all adorned in real leather and race car trappings.
Close as I ever came to a ’Vette was at the Philadelphia Car Show. I got in one then had a heck of a time getting out. I think I fell on the floor in an ungraceful exit. Thankfully, it wasn’t in my price range anyway, but it was, after all, the motoring epitome of what moved this great nation along Route 66 and beyond.
America’s affair with the ’Vette was whetted in the Big Apple at the 1953 New York Auto Show. Production of the car started June 30, 1953 in Flint, Mich. Never for the budget-watching penny pinchers of that era, the first Corvette rolled off the line with a whopping sticker price of $3,498. Considering my folks bought their house in Court House a year earlier for about $5,000, one can see how pricey the new set of wheels was, and it has continued in that upper strata for the well-heeled motorist. Do some of them still wear leather gloves when they drive?
But it’s time for a new generation of drivers itching to grip that smaller steering wheel and tramp down on the pedal and leave that humble Toyota Prius in rear view mirror. Drivers who were raised, not on Wheaties (Breakfast of Champions) or Corn Flakes, but on breakfast burritos and Egg McMuffins are sure to lose their hearts. They are the buying guys who played their first computer games on an Atari and tried, unsuccessfully, to beat PacMan at his own game. Be ready, young men, Detroit wants you.
Graduated now, maybe with hefty student loans still dragging them down, but maybe with a bit of a wild side that needs an outlet, those gents are the ones that GM has in its crosshairs as owners of the ‘Vette.
Maybe they have a steeper hill to drive than we think. Recently, I read an article, the truthfulness of which I cannot attest, that stated many younger folks have no desire to drive. Gad-zooks, Batman! Could that be true? Many young men (especially) are disenfranchised with owning any car and driving it around, showing off their class to the world atop four wheels in a racy designed car.
I can appreciate that sentiment. With gasoline at $3.50 a gallon (and being called cheap!), car insurance that still eats up a good chunk of a paycheck, then all the other joy that goes with ownership, car washing and more, the younger folks are standing back. Maybe bicycles and skateboards hold more appeal than a fast car. But wouldn’t that put a crimp in the marketing campaign if, some fine day down the line, young Americans shunned car keys in favor of (oh no!) public transportation?
This summer, more than any other I can recall, it seems there are more cars on the local roads than ever, even on Sunday. Construction on Garden State Parkway might account for some of the bumper-to-bumper lines that routinely park outside the Herald office in Rio Grande, but I am doubtful. A ride home from Cumberland County a few Thursday evenings ago made me wonder if I drove the wrong roads. This is sleepy little Cape May County. Traffic was incredibly heavy. Travel time from Point A to Point B is 15 minutes or less in winter. There are times this summer when that time easily doubles.
In late July, it took almost 15 minutes to get from Route 9 to Garden State Parkway on Crest Haven Road, due to traffic signal timing and extremely heavy congestion due to a “non-beach” day. The trip normally is done in under a minute.
It made me wonder what it’s like in busy metropolitan areas, like New York and Atlanta, where traffic is bad all the time. What good is a fast car, like a Corvette or say a Thunderbird, in a traffic jam? You can look around and enjoy the leather, but leather doesn’t get your body from office to home or vice versa.
Still, if the summer sun is casting ever-longer shadows, that means that showrooms around the land are spiffing up the display areas and stocking up on all those alluring slick brochures that show the shiny latest and greatest in yellows and reds on open roads, even in center city settings. (How do they do that?)
Young men, (don’t despair, lasses, they’ll take your money too) be prepared to be courted, targeted, cajoled and enticed to a sparkling set of wheels so clean even the tires are still shiny black. You’ve been warned it’s coming, so look away, look away to a Trek or a Jamis or a Fuji or a Specialized two wheeler that you make go fast, not the engine. Feel the breeze in your face, breathe fresh air, wear a helmet. The choice is all yours. What’ll it be?