Enthusiasms

Glen's recent, wonderfully rambling, post got me thinking about stuff. Not research stuff, mind, though I might be able to work it in one day, but car stuff (obviously).

Then I read this critique of Star Wars III and it reminded me of a discussion on AusRotary a while ago.

I had asked why people who liked old Mazdas weren't banding together in to car clubs in similar ways to people who like British, French or German cars do. A lot of people replied "why should we do it how everyone else does it" (or something along those lines) which was probably a typically inarticulate car-enthusiast response. Notwithstanding that (a) a lot of people who are into old Mazdas are also in to drag-racing which doesn't have as much of a club-based history as other racing does and (b) the fact that there aren't that many Mazda clubs or even Japanese car clubs in comparison to the number of other marques, it still seemed like a strange sort of response.

(Ok, there are the MX-5 clubs but they don't count as most people who are into old Mazdas are into cars that are "tough" and MX-5s are "chicks cars". There is one Mazda club in each state of Australia but they are all pretty small and from what I've seen and experienced, hard to get people to join. There are few Nissan clubs and some Honda clubs, too, but for the most part they seem to struggle. Oh, and by clubs I mean registered associations with monthly meetings and Presidents, Secretaries and Treasurers, not just internet forums or dudes who meet up every Friday for a cruise.)

Then I had an aha! moment. A lot of dudes who are in to old Mazdas are hot rodders. Well, what else do you call someone who stuffs a 300hp 13bT into an R100, puts 17" billet rims on it and paints it metalic purple? Hot rodders have their own clubs and their own rules and even their own government approved code for modifications (talk about selling out to the Man!). So, I thought that was the answer - many guys who were in to Mazdas were actually hot-rodders at heart and a marque-type club wasn't for them. After all, rodders are generally into cruising and you don't need an incorporated, insured, club to cruise the strip.

Then I was reading more of Glen's stuff about Panel Vans and sex. An article he linked to in the Australian said:

"Another aspect to that, sociologically, is the erotic and almost sexual nature of the relationship and how the car is described almost as a lover. Some types of masculinity lend themselves to a car fetish."

I think a lot of young dudes who are "in to cars" are actually in to something else. As the Star Wars critique says of Star Wars geeks:

But Star Wars fans are less interested in seeing the movie than in having seen the movie, say, 25 or 37 or 56 times, or however many screenings it takes to adequately convey one’s sense of enthusiasm or, better yet, receive some kind of public acclaim for that enthusiasm. This is not so much the Force at work as force majeure, or mass hysteria.

Perhaps young dudes aren't "in to cars" as much as "in to being in to cars". Perhaps many of the young Mazda dudes who I associate with are too young to be in to cars in general but their general lack of awareness of cars outside of a narrow range of what's "cool" (or at least, what's appeared in Hot4s, FF&R and the like over the last few years) makes me think that there's some other attraction.

I dunno what it is, and Glen's understandably playing his cards close to his chest (at least until he gets his multi-volume history of the Australian modified car scene published), but it might be some combination of sex, disrespect for authority, and some young-male-thing that usually finds its expression in doing dangerous things with machinery.

Now that I've got that off my chest, here's a picture of the MGB I owned while I was doing honours at UQ.