here is the article if anyone cares
An Era More Forgettable Than Collectible
By PAUL DUCHENE
Published: December 13, 2004
EARS from now, archeologists digging through the garages of societies long gone may be baffled by a lack automotive artifacts from a period of the late 20th century. Little of the evidence that would tell the story of what Americans drove from the mid-1970's through the 1980's awaits their excavations.
Whether this is a result of so few desirable cars having been offered in the United States at that time, or a legacy of Generation X drivers who may not care enough about cars to collect and preserve them, is open to debate. Other factors, including antipollution laws and oil shortages, are certainly part of the picture.
Signs of this "lost generation" phenomenon can be seen at collector events and custom car meets. Enthusiasts from Generation X - the nearly 50 million Americans born from the mid-1960's to the late 70's - are conspicuously absent, and the cars of their formative years as young drivers, about 1975-90, are very few. Instead, the parking lots are filled with V-8-powered street rods owned by gray-haired boomers, or the low-slung Japanese compacts from the '90s and later, customized by the Generation Y "Fast and Furious" crowd with superchargers, 1,000-watt stereos and 20-inch wheels wearing tires like strips of spandex. The two groups have little in common.
Dan Cyr, a producer of big hot rod and custom car shows from Portland, Ore., can see merit on both sides of the argument.
"Chrysler was still recovering and trying to make it with K-cars and Ford had a Mustang shaped like a box with bumpers," Mr. Cyr, 62, said. "The car manufacturers were too strapped with worries about 5 m.p.h. bumpers and the fuel economy to do anything creative."
Mr. Cyr, an enthusiast since he first bought a 1940 Ford coupe for $125 in 1956, has four sons. The older two followed in his tire tracks, but the younger ones, now 34 and 38, grew up playing soccer and video games.
"They have no motor oil in their veins," he said. "One drove an old Toyota pickup and the other a Honda."
Brian Moody, road test editor for Edmunds.com, the online auto shopping Web site, recalls how disappointing it was to grow up in the 1970's.
"It seemed like all the cars were being built for my Dad," he said. "There was nothing I thought was cool."
There are generational differences at work, too. Ann Fishman, an analyst who has tracked such issues for the United States Census Bureau and now for her own company, Generational Targeted Marketing, said that Generation X was the first generation reared in homes where divorce was commonplace, and that made them self-reliant and practical, the savviest consumers yet.
"They didn't have much money and they learned to appreciate quality and value; they're like living versions of Consumer Reports," Ms. Fishman said. "Boomers thrive on spin, Gen Xers want substance."
Wolfgang Gotschke is the design manager for Ford's Special Vehicle Team, or SVT, responsible or Ford's F-150 Lightning pickup and other projects. He recalls starting in the business in 1979.
"It was a dreadful time for our profession," he said. "The new cars were terribly uninspiring, like the Ford Fairmont."
Mr. Gotschke added: "If you grew up in that time you did not get into cars, you got into music, break-dancing, skateboards, BMX bikes. Clothes became more important than cars."
He and his friends bought big 60's cars and he recalls cruising in a giant Chevy convertible. "The interest in old cars was a clear indication there was nothing new desirable enough to spend money on," he said.
