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later I walked around the cars to get a
tool and found her with her Super
Snake up on jack stands. Can you not
love that?
So down the road, what’s going to
happen with the girls and cars?
Shelby enjoys sporty cars and driving
fast but she also enjoys extreme com-
fort. It’s hard to imagine what her cur-
rent practical ride will eventually be
replaced with. Will Nicole’s first old
car be the spark that pulls her into the
hobby to stay? Or, might it scare her
off? And AnniePearl – she’s still seven
years away from driving legally. Yet
she has a real interest in the cars and
a thirst for knowledge about how they
work and how they need to be main-
tained.
Interests change and circum-
stances don’t always allow for a hobby.
For many years that was my situation
– a hobby couldn’t be a priority. But
now circumstances are such that I’m
able to once again work on the cars for
fun and pull others into the mix. What
I’m experiencing is that taking the
time to expose young people to our
hobby, and actually working with
them, isn’t good for just the hobby. It’s
enjoyable and rewarding for me and it
provides them with knowledge not
easily found anymore.
It doesn’t always stick and I’ve
had a couple failed attempts at culti-
vating an interest. The teenage boy
living next door was always polite but
baseball, basketball and probably girls
had far more sway over him than an
old car without air conditioning. His
younger brother went so far as to ac-
tually sit in the car and go for a short
ride. What he really wanted, though,
was someone to toss a football with.
So we would toss a football. The cur-
rent young neighbor needs to age
some. He just turned two.
To be honest, the folks working on
the newer generation cars are just as
knowledgeable and passionate as any
generation, and what they do can be
quite impressive, so there’s really no
limit on who can do this. As it is, I have
access to old cars and I know there
will be more opportunities for me to
help others understand the older cars.
So I’ll keep trying. But for the moment
it’s just me, my brother when he’s in
town and the girls.
The SHELBY AMERICAN
Fall 2016 66