Tomorrow's Jalop? Reflections on Austin Cars & Coffee

"undutchable" (undutchable) 02/10/2014 at 14:47 • Filed to: Cars & Coffee, petrolhead, Austin, Lotus, Colin Chapman, Kodak, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Tesla, Porsche, electric

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Yesterday I spent a brilliant 2.5 hours weaving through parking lots full of some of the world's most drool-worthy examples of automotive excellence. For those of you who weren't there, do yourself a favor and take a look at Lyndy Watkins' !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! from Austin Concours d'Elegance Cars & Coffee.

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The event was petrolhead nirvana. (Or gearhead nirvana, if you've only just earned your "Captain Slow" title in Top Gear Quizup). Fumes from the finest steeds of Stuttgart, Maranello, Sant'Agata, Detroit, and Tokyo came together to create a magnificent aura of automotive exhaust unrivaled on this side of a Beijing rush hour. Echoes from the operatic screams of LS7s and 2JZs filled the concert hall parking garage adjacent to the main lots. There were V8 swaps, restomods, stanced rides, off-roaders, and Miatas. If you are reading this right now, you would have fit right in.

But I came away from the afternoon a little let down. Now, you might ask me (preferably in a British accent), "Undutchable, what's wrong with you?" You might follow that with a slap. Don't worry, I don't blame you.

Well, friends, I never thought you'd ask.

Minutes after arriving at C&C with my girlfriend and our good friend Kevin (not a car guy), we made our way over toward a black 997 GT3 (just out of the frame of the picture below) which was flanked by some older 911s and Ferraris. I had already locked on the GT3 and was in full-on tunnel vision when I heard my girlfriend, to my dismay, gleefully shout, "Oh Kevin, look! There's a Tesla!"

My face went white. I glanced around to see whether anyone had overheard her misguided excitement. Surely she could smell the 50+ years of automotive greatness floating through the air courtesy of the revs of angry V8s. Surely she hadn't mistaken the soulful song of the idling Hemi for noise pollution. Surely.

As we walked toward the Tesla, I refrained from my standard "He's lucky it didn't catch fire on the way here" jokes. Being a cynic gets tiring. I thought, instead, about the next generation of petrolheads and creative destruction.

If you have a background in economics, you may be familiar with Joseph Schumpeter's idea of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . In short, Schumpeter introduced the idea that innovation destroys old markets and creates new ones. Think Kodak film and digital cameras. Think Blockbuster and Netflix. Think internal combustion engine and elec…actually, don't. Two examples should do the trick. Regardless of your views on the practicality/feasibility of electric cars, there will be a successor to our beloved fire-breathing (quite literally) internal combustion engine at some point.

The thought of a near-silent, odorless car is blasphemous to me, and I imagine to a sizable contingent of you as well. For better or worse, I've linked the beauty of the automobile with the smell of gas and the sound of explosions. But what will happen to us, save-the-manuals-shirt-wearing, occasional neckbeard-growing petrolheads when we are confronted with the future? Pick your number – 5, 10, 20, 40 years from now – when gas-powered cars lose their rumble and become museum artifacts. Are we a dying breed?

Before you sound the Jalopnik " !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! " alarms, I'm actually trying to say the opposite. Cars are changing and so must car culture. Yesterday I missed the opportunity to bring two new Jalops into the fold. Why? Because I couldn't recognize car culture when I saw it.

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For us old-school Jalops, it's shape up or ship out. Right now Tesla and other electric car makers have given us the great opportunity to impart our love for four-wheeled freedom unto legions of wide-eyed newbies. Not only that, we can continue to shape the automotive conversation well into the future. How cool is it that I get to explain to Kevin how features of the roadster's shape contribute to aerodynamic downforce? Even better, Tesla provided a historical jumping off point for me to teach my girlfriend about Lotus and Colin Chapman.

So if the car culture-creative destruction analogy holds: Kodak film is dying, and we're all photography buffs. We'd better get digital cameras before Snapchat selfies and Instagram take over.

Photo credits (in order): myself, Lyndy Watkins, Unitrends blog, WorldCarFans.com, and LOLPill.com

Follow me on Twitter! !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

catkam623 misses his 944 > undutchable 02/15/2014 at 15:39

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All hope is not lost for our fire breathing mounts I'm 16 and in the age of snapchat selfies and Instagram yet for the last 4 years I've been getting up at 5 and dragging my father out to irvine cars and coffee for the sound of roaring v8s singing v12s and screaming flat 6s the way forward is not electric for me.

undutchable > catkam623 misses his 944 02/15/2014 at 17:54

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Good on you! I wish my dad was a car guy :(

catkam623 misses his 944 > undutchable 02/15/2014 at 21:47

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He's not I'm the car nut been one since I was 9 bought a porsche 944 by myself at 15 it's currently my dd

undutchable > catkam623 misses his 944 02/15/2014 at 22:27

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Wow, I'm impressed. At 15 I was busy playing computer games all day. I've thought about buying a 944 before. I have heard that they aren't the most reliable of cars though, and can be expensive to fix. Have you had issues?

catkam623 misses his 944 > undutchable 02/15/2014 at 23:19

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Never broken down on me but as preventative I've replaced the water pump, front steering arm, have a rear axle to put in, and some other stuff. Parts are expensive so to save money I've done all the work myself I actually just wrapped the door around the front sadly which if I take to a mechanic will cost 1600 to replace. So now I have to look for a spare door that isn't in guards red otherwise known as impossible.