What's the real problem with Millennials?

"Stapleface-Now Hyphenated!" (patrickgruden)
12/13/2013 at 23:23 • Filed to: None

My father was never really a car guy. But, nonetheless he did have some interesting cars while I was growing up. One of the cars I remember fondly was his 1984 Grand Prix. Even though I was young, I thought that was a pretty cool car.

His was brown, but you get the idea.

This is when it hit me. Maybe the reason that Millennials are so disinterested in cars is because of what they grew up with. Those of us born in the 70's and before grew up in the back of big station wagons. And most of those were pretty interesting. And even if your family didn't have a station wagon, chances are they had a big old boat of a car that you could fit a baseball team inside.

I realize that society changes, and our needs for vehicles has changed as well. But I think we were just becoming accustomed to boring vehicles. I think there a couple different factors that could be the reasoning behind the feigning interest of this new generation of drivers.

Look at the best selling passenger vehicles for the last ten years. They're all one form of beige or another. Nothing that stirs the soul. When this is what you are exposed to as a child, where's the incentive for being a "car guy" (or gal). While the Camry might be a totally acceptable transportation device, I don't think I've ever heard anyone opining for the day when they can finally get that Camry they always wanted.

Another factor I think to blame is the vehicle manufacturers themselves. Can anyone think of a mainstream car in the last 20 years that was exciting? I really can't. Sure, you have fringe manufacturers, but they don't sell in volume.

Finally, maybe the reason that Millennials don't take an active interest is because they just weren't brought up in a car culture. With the advent of computer aided electronics in most vehicles, few people ever wrench on their own cars anymore. Most of them are too complex that the average Joe might not even know where to start.

So maybe we have it all wrong when it comes to the Millennials. Maybe they haven't let the car culture down, maybe the car culture let them down.

DISCUSSION (21)

Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire > Stapleface-Now Hyphenated!
12/13/2013 at 23:26

It's been explained many times before, the problem is, LACK OF MONEY.

Dubblewhopper > Stapleface-Now Hyphenated!
12/13/2013 at 23:27

Thank God I was born in 1972. Those were the days....

Kinja'd!!!

Velocity- Peuguette Connoisseur > Stapleface-Now Hyphenated!
12/13/2013 at 23:30

Actually

most people on oppo

are "millennials"

like me

Brian Silvestro > Stapleface-Now Hyphenated!
12/13/2013 at 23:31

This is why I'm going to drive nothing but exciting cars when I have my future children. It's not about forcing them into it, it's about tricking and/or brainwashing them.

Laird Andrew Neby Bradleigh > Stapleface-Now Hyphenated!
12/13/2013 at 23:36

I may be older than many, and younger than a lot... Heck, I might even be Legion.. ANYWHO. I grew up in a Deux Chevaux, a VW beetle, a Datsun Cherry and an Opel Kadett... Never aff aff aff aff affected me at all... I'm normal ok... yeah??

Axial > Stapleface-Now Hyphenated!
12/14/2013 at 00:10

Cars today are the best they have ever been. That is a fact.

They have also been pasteurized, homogonized, safety-fied, and formulized into a mass of barely distinguishable black and silver suppositories on our roads. Also a fact.

Tell the NHTSA and the European equivalents to STFU for a little bit, and we might get some wild cars again.

Lets Just Drive > Stapleface-Now Hyphenated!
12/14/2013 at 00:13

If I may offer my observations...

... adding that I think you've touched on a very important aspect of why millennials are generally perceived as being disinterested in cars:

Economics -

When I was a young lad turning driving age, gas was expensive. It was expensive in the parlance of the times, but it wasn't prohibitive. In terms of scale, it wasn't so far out of proportion that I looked at my parents and elders and thought, "If only gas were as cheap as then..."

Sure, my tanks were often "filled" with ten or twenty dollars at a time, but I was still able to afford to deliver pizza's in my 5.0 and make money at the end of the day. Good luck doing that today! Even in a fuel friendly car, it's virtually impossible to make it as a Pizza Guy now and I know this; every large/chain pizza place has their own fleet now.

The economics just aren't there. From insurance to gas to the price of the car itself, just running a beater is comparatively more expensive than it was even ten to twenty years ago.

Society -

Society has always taken a fairly negative view of the gear head and the street racer but never has that attitude been so negative as it is now.

The laws tend to be structured in such a way that enjoying your car, your drive, is the best way to make sure it's taken away from you. From CAFE to crappy, the rules are so narrow that you stand out in anything other than beige. And it's a lot like smoking - stay with me here - in that cigarette smokers are the new "okay to hate" group. Vehicles that don't sip gas put you in the same category. The lady in the CRV with the Starbucks coffee cups gets to look down on the guy in the Mustang because, "You polluter, you!" And then she'll toss her recyclable cup in the garbage because she's thinking Green. The Prius-Smug attitude abounds.

Products -

You want a fun car? It can be had. The problem is, you have to search through a mountain of shit to find a diamond of goodness. And then, they come with premiums and taxes and all the shit that bounces right back up against the Economics argument.

The problem with the "Millennials don't like cars" argument isn't so much that they're not taking an interest and more about the fact that there's not much to take an interest in any more and even if you do, you have to fight against wrongful assumptions, economic pressures and the boringness of beige.

Great post, though! I completely agree!

Birddog > Stapleface-Now Hyphenated!
12/14/2013 at 00:15

I'm a "Gen X". We used to be a problem for the Auto Industry.
Dad was a car guy but after I was cut out he got smart and put family before fun. I pulled him back into cars for a while but...
All that cash could have been used better.
Maybe "millennials" are a return to responsibility.

(There's a Silver over Grey T-top GP much like that one not far from me that I need in my life.)

Jayhawk Jake > Stapleface-Now Hyphenated!
12/14/2013 at 01:25

Money is the problem.

It's not complicated, the question doesn't need to be asked again and again, young people don't buy cars because of money.

Jobs aren't easy to come by. Everything is expensive these days. Most young people can't afford a new car.

I don't think millennialist aren't interested in cars, they just can't afford them.

PetarVN, GLI Guy, now with stupid power > Stapleface-Now Hyphenated!
12/14/2013 at 01:55

If only every parent got their kid a fun, safe car, like a Focus (WITH A MANUAL) society would be a much better place!

Burrito de EJ25 > Axial
12/14/2013 at 02:11

I always laugh when people make these wild claims. WHEN I GREW UP ALL THE CARS SOLD WERE UNIQUE SNOWFLAKES BECAUSE NAZI COMMIE OBAMA WASNT THERE TO KEEP US ALL FROM DYING IN MINOR FENDER BENDERS LIKE THE FOUNDING FATHERS INTENDED US TO!

No, honey. Cars of any generation past the Model T all kinda' looked like their peers in their respective generation. Take the rose tinted glasses off and have a closer look.

promoted by the color red > Stapleface-Now Hyphenated!
12/14/2013 at 02:53

"With the advent of computer aided electronics in most vehicles, few people ever wrench on their own cars anymore. Most of them are too complex that the average Joe might not even know where to start."

The same argument could be made of fuel injection and emissions and yet we still had the import tuner movement in the '90s and people today with 1000HP Vipers and Ford GTs.

Yes, modern cars are "complicated" but then again, I don't think you want to live in an era of Model Ts. Give a man (or woman) a car and s/he'll find a way to make it go fast.

Axial > Burrito de EJ25
12/14/2013 at 03:04

It's not about them being unique snowflakes. It's about the the shapes that were prevalent at the time being inherently more interesting than the soap-bar shape today that started in the 90s and hasn't died off since.

It also has nothing to do with Obama. Take the politics and leave them at the door.

oldirtybootz > Stapleface-Now Hyphenated!
12/14/2013 at 08:22

How exciting are you expecting a mainstream car to be? There have been plenty of exiciting mainstream cars. Miata, Mustang, F-Body, Toyobaru, Chrysler LXs, GM Zetas, Genesis Coupe, etc.. My Dart is the fuel economy special, but the Fiat 1.4 is a sonorous little engine and when paired to the 6MT it's a fun little car. It feels exotic compared to its competitors. Even my Focus, which was about as exciting as a Corolla, kept me fairly entertained and it gave me the freedom to go wherever I wanted.

I'm 22, so like many Opponauts I'm one of those "car hating millenials", and I did indeed grow up with soms boring cars in real life. After my mom sold her 91 Camaro RS, we had an extended drought of cool cars at my house. It wasn't until 6th grade and my dad bought a 69 Camaro that I really got into cars. I don't know if I would have been into cars had he not bought it, but given how car crazy I am now I'm going to guess that it would have been a matter of time.

Us youngins also had racing video games that exposed us to cars we'd never seen or heard of. Even if mom was driving a 2000 Escort and dad was driving a 1996 Aspire, I could plug in Gran Turismo and drive GT-Rs and Corvettes. I always felt that playing racing games make me want to drive in real life even more.

I'm honestly tired of hearing how millenials don't like cars. This isn't the 60s or 70s, NO ONE is into cars any more. America as a whole isn't interested in cars like it used to be. But to say millenials hate cars is frankly ridiculous. I don't know a single person my age who wasn't dying to get their license and start driving. The reality is that we can't afford it. If I had to pay my parents rent I wouldn't be driving the Dart, but probably some crap can 92 Tempo or something.

Burrito de EJ25 > Axial
12/14/2013 at 13:21

It was a joke, and vehicle design has changed drastically since the 90s. If you can't see that then I'm really sorry.

Axial > Burrito de EJ25
12/14/2013 at 15:09

Oh it's changed. They took the jellybean and added in some creases, LEDs, and larger wheels and vents. But they have nothing on the likes of cars from the 40s and 50s as far as being intricate goes. Why? Because there's only one optimum shape for aerodynamic efficiency on Earth and, with the exception of a few, most consumer cars are attempting to get as close to it as they can with their intended functions in mind.

So like I said: cars are better now than they have ever been, but they're also far less interesting to look at than they used to be.

Burrito de EJ25 > Axial
12/14/2013 at 17:24

Well, I can't argue with you on that. Design preference is subjective. All I can say is that I disagree.

Axial > Burrito de EJ25
12/14/2013 at 17:49

Fair enough.

ihm96 > Stapleface-Now Hyphenated!
12/15/2013 at 14:57

I don't see older generations driving around with cool cars. Its not millennials its everyone in america except for the people like us on Oppo

Stef Schrader > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire
12/16/2013 at 22:00

This.

Yeah, some of it's self-inflicted in my case because racecar, but I'd really rather have a 911 by now. Really, really. I'm pretty sure I could afford one if I didn't have student loans punching me in the balls every month.

And I'm lucky—I found a job after college. That even took a while because of how crappy the economy is. No one wants to hire a recent grad when there are jobless guys with experience out there they could hire instead.

We're all broke. No wonder beige suppositories are such causes for excitement. A lot of folks my age are really just glad if the stupid thing runs reliably for a change and doesn't cost a ton of cash to keep going.

marshknute > Stapleface-Now Hyphenated!
12/16/2013 at 23:25

It has nothing to do with the inflated cost of modern cars thanks to safety/emissions regulations.

It has nothing to do with inflated insurance costs.

It has nothing to do with Global Warming or social pressures.

It has nothing to do with apathy.

Want to know the real answer? Here it is: nowadays, you don't need a car. That's it. It's that simple.

Just 10 years ago, if a young person wanted to talk to a friend, go shopping, or do a research assignment, they had to get in a car and go to their friend's house, or to the store, or to the library. Now, you grab the iPhone off of your bedside table and text your friend, or order something off of Amazon, or do a Google search.

Modern telecommunications have comprehensively demoted the automobile from a necessity, to a luxury. The few times that a car would come in handy are far too seldom to justify the cost of buying, insuring, parking, maintaining, and fueling a car.

Looking at every person in my year of my major at college, only 7 of 80 kids has a car. 3 live locally and use their parent's extra car. 2 come from rich families and drive brand new cars. The remaining 2, my roommate and me, are car enthusiasts. We are the only 2 who bought a car with our own money, and we did so with no considerations towards utilitarian demands.

The only Millenials who own cars nowadays drive hand-me-down family cars, brand new cars from their rich parents, or enthusiast cars bought with their own hard-earned money. Every demographic that would have owned a car 20 years ago, now has no logical incentive for buying one.