Old Car Perspective

Old Car Perspective

When I grew up, I was surrounded by old cars. My parents had nothing newer than me. Chevy Trucks, Nova’s, a Ford Galaxie, all made before I was born. As I grew up and became interested in cars, the old car bug was already set in me. My parents still had older cars, which I thought was cool. I knew I would join the party. It was the early 80’s when I bought my first truck, a 50 Ford with a Flathead V8. I was the only kid at my High school running a flathead! After a while I sold it and bought the 56 Chevy Cameo that I still have today.

As I got older I had added a few other old Chevys to the mix including a 58 Cameo and a 56 Chevy Panel truck. With them, it began to seem like I needed to have more of a driver and didn’t want to drive a Cameo daily, I stepped up to what I considered a ‘new’ rig, a 77 GMC Blazer. This was the early 90’s and with the perspective I have had in my head, it was new. I never really thought of it as an old truck.

Skipping ahead almost 20 years, my daily driver is now a 91 GMC Jimmy. With comfort, power everything, fuel injection, and the fact that it is in great shape, I really thought I was driving a new truck. Again to my mindset, it is a new truck. However that thought changed when my daughter, now 18, made a comment about “The old truck I drive.” That is when it hit me. It was made before she was born, like the cars my parents had that were old cars to me, this was an old car to her.

That fact really made me think. Where I had looked at a 62 Chevy II with its classic lines, and thought that is a cool old car, how could my daughter feel that way about my Jimmy? I don’t think she can. To her it may be old, but classic? I just can’t see that. I know it has to be my age, and the direction that cars and trucks have gone in, but it feels strange.

When it comes down to it, if the Jimmy looks old to her, how does she see my 56 Chevy wagon?