It’s the topic we’ve all been talking about around the shops we visit and at car shows we attend.
Specifically, how through-the-ceiling gas costs have (or have not) affected our hobby. I’ve been to a handful of big national car events this summer, and to be honest, it’s hard to see a difference. You’ve got to figure that many rodders know that building, driving, and showing a hot rod or custom is not a cheap hobby to begin with. If you’re somebody who can pump six figures into a car you own just for fun, you’re probably not somebody who’s going to flinch when gas goes up another 25 cents a gallon.
What about spectators? I’ve never walked around and asked them, but my hunch is that the vast majority of car show spectators are local folks, who don’t have to drive more than a couple of hours to get to an event. For them, a visit to a nearby hot rod show might be the low-buck alternative to a weeklong road trip to a faraway theme park.
The guys taking the biggest hit are the vendors. They’re sending their huge diesel-guzzling rigs thousands of miles weekend after weekend. How many intake manifolds or steering columns or car polish kits or silkscreened T-shirts do these guys have to sell just to break even at the end of the weekend?
The other hard-hit victims are the grassroots hot rodders—the guys building on a budget, who actually drive their cars, sometimes daily, as transportation to and from the job and to the shows or the races on the weekends. If your sole means of transportation is a 3,000-pound ’50 Merc with an eight-cylinder OHV engine, you might as well have your paycheck transferred directly to the oil company of your choice.
Those are just my opinions. Let’s hear some hard facts from you guys. Have you stopped or changed a build-up because of the cost of fuel? Have you cancelled a road trip because you can’t afford the gas? Let us know.