Legislation that may affect you.

I had replied to your email earlier and of cousre added more questions.

Your indicated in this string that future members come from other segments of the collectors' community.

Are you saying that the interest in classic cars as defined by CCCA stems from one's first interst in say "The Hot Rod Club" ( made up name) and then as their interest progress it leads to the higher quality CCCA?

Makes allot a sense.

What's your take on CCCA being proactive in producing for educational awareness, resource information highlighting "classic cars" for the purpose of creating interest in young minds. Or classic car cards like baseball cards?

I searching for alternative solutions for funding while promising that future CCCA members seeds are planted.

Carlos

Interest in Classic Cars is usually an acquired taste. Most people start out in the old car hobby by purchasing a car like the first one they owned, or maybe like the first one they wanted to own. As their tastes mature and they are exposed to a greater variety of cars, they begin to broaden their horizons. Eventually, some people discover the cars of the Classic Era, and end up as members of CCCA.

One of the reasons we don?t have a lot of younger members is because it takes a while to develop the taste for these cars. Of course, it never hurts to start out young. My first old car adventure that I can remember, started at age 4 in my Dad?s 1918 Cadillac. Through his interest in old cars, I was exposed to a wide variety of vehicles at a young ge. Obviously, it made a lasting impression.

Many of your ideas for increasing the interest in CCCA would be great if we could implement them. The problem is we are just a group of volunteers and hobbyists who have other priorities in our lives.

Forgive my stupidity if I'm missing it, but I have been unable to locate this "legislation" area on the website.

Would it be possible to post a direct link here or let me know where to look for this new area?

Thanks.

For MBA

Judging from your questions, it is my personal opionion you may have mis-read and/or mis-understood what the Classic Car Club Of America is all about.

Most any business (or, for that matter, ANY social activity of mankind) is interested in expanding, getting more money, more members, or more power. This is natural. But it has NOTHING to do with what we are within the context of the CCCA.

Again, at the risk of repeating my prior response to you, we were formed by people who wanted to save from destruction a certain kind of car. Not the ORDINARY old cars of the 1930's...not the NICE cars of the 1930's...not the REALLY nice cars of the 1930's...but only the CLASSICS...the "best of the best", described by one of our early writers as "the arrogant elite"..."engineering exaggerations, magnificently over-done". Another writer said " I want so little out of life.....only the BEST...and there is so little of that".

Thus, the thinking of our early members, was that the "top of the line" Cadillac V-16, with its powerful motor half again as large as the normal "middle class" Cadillacs, would be a CLASSIC, whereas the ordinary eight cylinder Cadillac would not. The "top of the line" Packard Twelve, with its luxurious elegant interiors, whose BARE CHASSIS weighed more than a complete middle-class Packard, would be a classic, but the ordinary eight cylinder Packards would not.

Given that background, it is easy to see that building a large, ever-expanding membership, just for the sake of increasing revenues and raw numbers of people, was and, in my opinon, should be irrelevant to our Club.

As to your question about expanding our influence, and educating more people, I think we have been successful in that regard beyond our wildest dreams.

The tem "classic" was well understood by the educated upper classes when this Club was started, but pretty much un-known to the masses. Again, this was at a time when the idea of rescuing any old car was considered nonsence, and the idea of concentrating on the symbols of the upper classes, was greated with hostility.

The fact that we were successful beyond our wildest dreams, can be demonstrated in how fast auto buffs, and, pretty soon, the general public, realized that there was value in what we were celebrating... and pretty soon wanted that word "tacked on" to just about everything. When did the RAMBLER CLASSIC, and the CHEVROLET CAPRICE CLASSIC come on the scene.....!

Our explosive success in publisizing the value of the concept of "classicism" occured when our membership ranged from 1,200 to 1,800 members. So, clearly, raw numbers meant NOTHING to our success...Many of us "hard liners" believe the large numbers of people we have NOW in the CCCA, are our "worst enemy" in terms of preserving what the classic car movement was originally about.

Please again note my disclaimer - I am a member of the CCCA, but I am not now actively engaged in its management. These opinions are my own, and where I represent that I have an idea as to what other CCCA members think, these are just my own personal "hunches".

Here's an idea for you..if you go into back issues of our Club's magazine 'THE CLASSIC CAR' and into our newsletter THE BULLETIN, take a look at issues from the 1960's and 1970's. Look at how desparately so many people with all sorts of "almost classics" wanted to get THEIR cars "classic status". I think that "says it all" as to how successful our programs were, in educating the public as to the value of the concept of "classism".

Pete Hartmann

Big Springs, Arizona

You will note that this string was originally posted by me, almost a year ago. At the time there was some very "collector car unfriendly" legislation on the horizon. The good news is, due to the effort of lots of car enthusiasts, it was defeated. The bad news is it will probably resurface again.

Since it is old news, the link no longer exists on the CCCA web site.

....like I said, forgive my stupidity...didn't notice the original posting date... just saw it was on top of the index when I went to read it.

Thanks-