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I\u2019ve been knee-deep in Camaro-mania this month. On May 16, I drove a 2015 Z28 \u2014 the marque\u2019s most capable cyborg ever \u2014 to Belle Isle to join 1,000 pony car owners from 38 states and Canada in baptizing Chevy\u2019s latest blockbuster: The sixth-generation Camaro. The faithful crushing the stage around me roared when GM vice president Mark Reuss took the wraps off, calling it \u201cwicked fast.\u201d They gasped at its plush interior. Heck, if Reuss had auctioned the owner\u2019s manual it would have fetched a king\u2019s ransom.<\/p>\n
This passion transcends Camaro. From the Dodge Challenger Hellcat to the Ford Focus ST to the Corvette Z06, Americans have never enjoyed so much auto performance. Forget the \u201960s, Dodge CEO and Chief Motorhead Tim Kuniskis calls today \u201cthe Golden Era of the Muscle Car.\u201d<\/p>\n
How then, to square this rapture with the current media narrative that \u2014 to quote the New York Times\u2019 Elizabeth Rosenthal \u2014 \u201cAmerica\u2019s love affair with its vehicles seems to be cooling\u201d?<\/p>\n
From media to liberal academia to conservative P.J. O\u2019Rourke, a consensus has hardened that we have reached \u201cpeak auto.\u201d According to a pickup bed-load of statistics, the long trend of Americans driving more miles each year has stalled since 2007. We are telecommuting, sick of traffic, fearful of global warming, preoccupied with iPhones.<\/p>\n
We are soooo over the automobile. Nonsense, I say.<\/p>\n
But first, let\u2019s give the statistics their due. Adjusted for U.S. population growth, the number of miles driven peaked in 2005 and has declined by 9 percent since, according to a study by investment research firm Advisor Perspectives. A recession-driven hiccup? University of Michigan professor Michael Sivak thinks not, citing demographic trends indicating a drop in driver licenses sought by 16-to-39-year-olds.<\/p>\n
\u201cRates of car ownership per household … started to come down two to three years before the downturn,\u201d Sivak told the Times. \u201cI think that means something more fundamental is going on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sivak\u2019s research dovetails with sociologists\u2019 observations of our brave, new digital world \u2014 and millennials in particular. You know the bullet points:<\/p>\n
\u25a0\u00a0The Internet has enabled telecommuting.<\/p>\n
\u25a0\u00a0Millennials would rather chat with friends online than cruise to Woodward and hang out.<\/p>\n
\u25a0\u00a0Walkable inner cities are hip.<\/p>\n
\u25a0\u00a0Smartphones are the new status symbol. Who needs cool wheels when an iPhone 6 says so much about you?<\/p>\n
But these statistics are gnats on the windshield of America\u2019s big, honking car culture.<\/p>\n
In the 1900s, we were liberated by Henry Ford\u2019s Model T. Historian Daniel J. Boorstin called the automobile the \u201cgreat equalizer\u201d of the 20th century because it enabled the poor man to travel where only rich men could go before. Post-WWII Detroit fed the imagination of an exploding middle class with affordable sports cars and chrome-caked sedans. The century\u2019s end opened the floodgates to a world of cars from Hondas to BMWs to Volvos to Hyundais. Last year, Americans bought a near-record 16.94 million vehicles, the most since a recession so deep it bankrupted GM and Chrysler.<\/p>\n
Americans have more choices of models \u2014 more than 130 \u2014 and many more nameplates. In the last four years, Fiats and Alfa Romeos have appeared in corner showrooms while America has birthed its first successful auto startup \u2014 Tesla \u2014 in decades.<\/p>\n
Is the love affair over? The car permeates every corner of American culture affecting every age group.<\/p>\n
Clubs for enthusiasts \u2014 Camaro, Dodge, Porsche, BMW, Viper and more \u2014 are nationwide. The Woodward Dream Cruise, just two decades old, attracts more than 1 million visitors a year. Car programs dominate cable TV. The Barrett-Jackson auction is practically its own channel.<\/p>\n
Only football and baseball are more popular than NASCAR racing, according to Harris polling.<\/p>\n
America is experiencing a racetrack building boom as love-struck Americans even want to spend weekends with their four-wheeled pets. Virginia International Raceway, Monticello in New York, Autobahn outside Chicago, Spring Mountain in Vegas and more have sprouted since the century\u2019s turn.<\/p>\n
Sure, the Dream Cruise is mostly populated by boomers trying to recapture their youth, but younger generations are also consuming all things auto. \u201cFast and Furious 7\u201d \u2014 a car flick marketed to youth \u2014 just surpassed \u201cAvatar\u201d as the fastest movie to make $1 billion at the box office.<\/p>\n
\u201cMad Max: Fury Road\u201d \u2014 a two-hour orgasm of road thrills \u2014 has trumped box office receipts of the expected summer blockbuster, \u201cThe Avengers: Age of Ultron,\u201d since its May 15 release. The Pixar kid-friendly \u201cCars\u201d franchise has grossed nearly a half billion. My 20-something children share YouTube episodes of motorhead phenomenon \u201cTop Gear,\u201d the Guinness Book world record-holder for most-watched factual program.<\/p>\n
The oracles of \u201cpeak auto\u201d largely hail from the ivory towers of academia or coastal media journals where traffic is dreadful (see Los \u201cCar-mageddon\u201d Angeles) and Big Government elites have ulterior motives for the car\u2019s demise.<\/p>\n
Writing for TPM.com, Nona Willis Aronowitz embraces \u201cpeak auto\u201d as just desserts for automakers who have sold America a sexist, climate-destroying \u201cball and chain.\u201d The current rebound in sales, she says, is Detroit\u2019s last gasp as \u201ccar companies are squeezing out what\u2019s left of masculine paradigms, banking on our need to tap into a less complicated past.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reporting on the decline in miles traveled, Times reporter Rosenthal cheers that \u201cit will have beneficial implications for carbon emissions and the environment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Such sentiments are echoed in Washington, D.C., which in 2009 mandated doubling fuel economy\u00a0\u2014\u00a0a regulatory assault unseen since 1974 mpg laws that slowed \u201960s-era muscle cars and affected a drop-off in miles driven.<\/p>\n
That was too much for Libertarian author O\u2019Rourke. \u201cWe\u2019ve lost our love for cars,\u201d he wrote in 2009. \u201cMeanwhile, the pointy-headed busybodies have been exacting their revenge.\u201d<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t look now, P.J., but automakers\u2019 \u2014 and their customers\u2019 \u2014 response to Washington\u2019s diktat are perhaps the best evidence of America\u2019s unsinkable auto love affair.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s offerings are the most powerful, the most athletic, the most innovative products. Ever. Take Tesla\u2019s Model S 85D. The tree-huggers\u2019 favorite electric vehicle is also the envy of motorheads everywhere \u2014 it will out-drag a Corvette C7.<\/p>\n
Or the brawny Mustang. It is now sold to women and men in equal measure \u2014 car lovers all.<\/p>\n
And then there is the connected car. A KPMG study released last year found young drivers don\u2019t believe \u201ctexting is getting in the way of their driving,\u201d they believe \u201cdriving is getting in the way of their texting.\u201d With features like 4G making, say, an entry-level Chevy Trax a rolling smartphone, cars have never been more youth-friendly.<\/p>\n
The love affair rolls on.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019ve been knee-deep in Camaro-mania this month. On May 16, I drove a 2015 Z28 \u2014 the marque\u2019s most capable cyborg ever \u2014 to Belle Isle to join 1,000 pony car owners from 38 states and Canada in baptizing Chevy\u2019s latest blockbuster: The sixth-generation Camaro. The faithful crushing the stage around me roared when GM […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,87],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16602"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16602"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16603,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16602\/revisions\/16603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}