- Did it go 30 times,
did it go, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang?
- [Cameraman] Yeah, you want to hear?
- Stop talking, crank it up and show me.
'Cause you know it ain't gonna do it.
(engine rumbling and loudly clattering)
- [Morgan Freeman] It was at this moment that he knew
he f'd up.
- Ah, yes.
The car scene is filled with people
that commonly say "respect all builds",
and then go on to talk about a 700 horsepower
OEM muscle car, doesn't make sense.
We have those that won't respect all builds respectfully.
And then you had those disrespectfully,
not respecting all builds while driving a base neon
with a body kit from 2003, because it was built,
not bought, which somehow makes it okay.
I'm not entirely sure of the rules of car clubs anymore,
but that's a thing.
The car industry, when it comes to understanding though,
what's acceptable and what's not,
is about as emotionally subjective
as Formula 1 officials determining who's at fault
when two cars hit,
because I'm pretty sure at some point
they're just putting the names into a hat,
shaking it a little bit, and just picking one at random.
And they're like, yeah, this week's for Stappen.
A lot of these subjective opinions, trends,
ideas, and subcultures in the automotive industry
have come from none other than car clubs.
I'm Alex, ALEX.FI on Instagram,
and today we're gonna be talking about
the Jersey Shores of the car scene,
the Kardashian drama of the industry,
the Real Housewives of the car shows,
we're gonna be talking about
just what happened to car clubs.
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Car clubs are a prominent piece of automotive history.
Ever since you could buy a car, there have been car clubs.
Fairly similar to the days of like the Bōsōzoku in Japan,
or the BMW clubs in Europe,
and the local classics of Columbus Valley,
and cams of the United States.
Those were all car clubs
that really paved the way for what we know and love today.
Back then, car clubs across the world were made
for no other reason than to bring a group
of automotive enthusiasts together,
with maybe just a little tiny piece
of potential illegal activity
throughout their Saturday night cruises.
Because anytime you bring a lot of people together,
traditionally speaking in the mid 20th century,
there was illegal activity in involved, but not a lot.
Okay, so maybe there was some alcohol runs
that were happening,
maybe there's some gang related stuff in the forties.
That's fine. They had cool cars though!
So there was that,
but car clubs really did establish
one of the first informal ways
that the enthusiast industry
began collectively speaking to organizations
like city councils, auto manufacturers,
and the ones that we probably know the most,
the popo, the 5-0, the police.
And this was good and bad for a lot of reasons.
Most of their good came from the fact
that anytime you get a mob together,
some form of hierarchy helps control the chaos.
Have you ever seen a 500 motorcycle cruise go on before?
That type of group is an absolute tornado of like,
we will do whatever we want
simply because there's so many people together
and no single figurehead that's controlling the chaos,
and you get police upset,
cities get upset, communities get upset,
people get hurt and the list goes on.
And the only reason I actually bring up bikes
was because I used to go on those rides,
and so did Dakota, wherever he is,
he's been a part of them too, I knew it!
All right, and it was fun,
but I officially do not condone what I used to do, okay?
Car cruises, street racing, and rallies
were pretty much the same thing.
So car clubs began organizing the chaos, okay?
They were establishing things they wanted from the city
and things that they would adhere to as a group,
as long as the police kind of stayed off their ass
about some basic stuff.
And car clubs would continue to form around certain areas,
certain ethnicities, certain neighborhoods,
certain makes, models,
and certain mantras or certain values.
You could find car clubs back in the day
that were part of your neighborhood,
and it was a rite of passage to join those groups
if you wanted to be seen as an adult.
And it's not actually that far fetched
to say that some of that still happens in the 21st century.
And I mean, back then car clubs went pretty hard.
It was very similar to a lot of other
sort of team activities back then.
And as the sixties, seventies, eighties came around,
the media age of America further pushed
the sexiness of car clubs.
I mean, you had my boy John Travolta
dancing up and down in Grease
that made every mom at the time feel some sort of way
as they're sliding up and down that '48 Studebaker, okay?
You have bullet, which is not actually
a car club style movie,
introduce the adrenaline packed experience you could get
with driving a muscle car and being a man, all right?
It was just one of those things
that just kind of paved the way
for people to enjoy and really get attached
to the automotive industry,
and just like Fast and the Furious encouraged
a lot of younger enthusiasts in the early 2000's
to get into the car industry,
movies like the Grand Prix, Smokey and the Bandit,
Lamont, and all of those types of movies
did that for the previous generation.
And they did it with their friends.
What resulted was car clubs being founded
throughout the states to get together
and further enjoy their cars,
drive like a bad-ass, and get some bomb-ass
bomber jackets that I really, really want.
Every single time I was researching this,
everybody's got cool bomber jackets,
and then I put on a North Face,
I don't even go on any north face adventures.
I drive to work and back.
Look at how cool they look.
And North Face.
Last time I was on a trail was when I was 16 years old,
and I did it by accident.
Car clubs then got digitized
with the explosion of the worldwide web.
You're the next generation of enthusiasts
transitioning from car club promotion
through magazines and VHS pre-rolls like Option,
into HTTP, semi-colon, forward-slash, forward-slash websites
with their own terrible color schema
and PO box to submit your application too,
so that you could send in your four by six photos.
And for the most part,
the controversy of car clubs was still relatively simple.
People were still talking about other people's build style,
which style modification is truly modifying,
and what club had the most established roots
of who they were.
And if you've ever been part of a true car club,
like having fees and having a board, et cetera,
this was like some serious-ass business.
And there were certain clubs
that were making a ton of money doing this.
But with the introduction of digital clubs,
this is where things really began to shift.
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and forums
began to explode the definition
of what a car club typically meant,
and began to open the door to the idea of car clubs
into a massive million, bajillion,
not a real number audience,
and one that was typically little bit younger,
little bit less experienced,
but still as ornery as their grandparents
that were in their throttle bomber jackets,
which is still way cooler than any North Face ever made.
I said it, I'll never take it back.
(upbeat techno music)
So what happened?
If you go look around car clubs with the bomber jackets,
local meets, and a true hierarchy structure
that had a prominent focus in local communities
have disappeared!
They're nowhere to be seen.
There's just not a thing anymore, as much.
There's a couple, but not really that many.
So just what exactly happened to car clubs?
This is the part where I would sing
You're the One That I Want,
but there's 22 people in this room,
and usually when I film this there's one.
So we're just going to put John Travolta
doing it right here.
You're the one that I want!
And if you didn't have a crush on Olivia Newton as a kid,
I can't help you, and no one can.
And if you haven't seen Grease, we can't be friends.
There's a few reasons why you may not have
the same quality of involvement
with car clubs in the 21st century
as you did in the 20th, okay?
First off, because it's not as hard to get involved
in the automotive scene now as it was back then.
Car clubs were a catalyst for meets, events,
city councils and more,
but a lot of that information required mail,
it required physical meetups.
It required a more in-person involvement.
And because of us almost having
all of the world's community available
on the device that's the size of an old calculator
that you really don't use to its fullest potential,
you know it, I know it, we know what you're doing,
you really don't need to have
all of that in-person involvement anymore.
You just, you make a post,
you tweet it or whatever it's called.
And additionally, the world has done quite a big shift
in the mentality of volume versus involvement interests.
I mean, think about it.
Most people these days are involved
in like 15 different clubs or groups.
They attend some of their events,
they don't really help out,
and they just find what works best for them
and their own self-interest.
There's nothing really wrong with that,
but more historic clubs were a bit more formal.
They would require you to be involved
with some sort of time commitments,
some sort of money or due commitment
that you had to pay every single year,
event organization commitments, and more.
And nowadays that stuff just typically doesn't happen,
and instead it's being replaced with like just high volume,
high turnover groups
where there isn't that much of a requirement for entrance.
I know this because before FI,
that's really how I got involved
in the automotive scene in Wisconsin.
I started my very own Wisconsin Car Enthusiast Club,
which has a huge volume-based group,
but because of its lower requirements for entry,
it's caused more of the "gimme" mentality
and less of the "how can I help" mentality,
which usually comes from the shift of a low volume
versus a high volume car group.
And it's just how it goes,
it's just kind of the normal thing these days.
And another big reason is because car clubs
kind of regressed for a bit,
and some more experienced group people
just don't want to be associated with the new groups.
Here's what I mean by that,
not trying to kick anybody in the old knockers,
but this is kind of a thing.
Back in the day, as you grew into a car club or group,
you typically grew up into the ranks
of titles, responsibilities, and also expectations.
You had a higher expectation to either build a big boy car
or be a representative for the club, host events,
or just have some level
of responsibility and accountability.
You had to grow up.
You had to be an adult, responsibilities,
Peter Parker that shit.
And you did that over the course of years, if not decades.
So when the internet comes around
and slaps a huge community in front of you again
that's practically rebuilt from the ground up
because 40 year olds aren't gonna make a Facebook group,
you're left with a bunch of like 16 to 20 year olds
making groups and starting a new page
every single six months.
Hence experienced people
not really wanting to be involved
unless they liked the administration
of the car groups that are being founded.
And that's why a lot of clubs sometimes get that flack
and why sometimes they just don't behave that maturely.
It's just because they're so new.
I mean, take a look at the one we just talked about,
WCC was started online on Facebook by me
when I was 19 years old,
and I didn't know jack about running a car club,
and I still barely do, and it's been eight years later.
So when I tried to gain members
that were over the age of 30,
they weren't really a fan of the idea.
And now, almost a decade later,
WCC exists as one of the oldest new car clubs in Wisconsin.
And it's only eight years old.
There's car clubs out there that have existed for decades,
decades, and they're not anywhere to be seen anymore.
And that gap is still very hard to close out
because the generational difference
between what old car clubs used to be and the new ones.
And finally, car clubs just mean
something different these days.
With the experience coming down
with the introduction of the internet groups and forums,
in tandem with it being easier for automotive enthusiasts
to join pretty much whatever they want,
car clubs just don't have the same depth of involvement
and therefore feel a bit more
like an extracurricular activity than a family for some.
I will say this,
there are some excellent, excellent newer clubs out there.
And there's some really good groups out there
that are truly making a difference in the 21st century.
The family that I get to be around
every single time when we're hosting our very own shows
has allowed me to grow as a human,
and there's crews in Wisconsin that I know of,
like Equal MKE have always been around
and have always treated people around them like family,
and are truly an embodiment of what I believe
the next generation of car clubs should be.
And I'm sure that there's plenty of groups
or people that you know that are trying to do the same thing
in your local state or local city.
Just because you're new doesn't mean you can't be genuine.
And while there may be a higher volume
of car clubs out there these days,
there's still some beautiful ones to be a part of
that will help you push you forward as a car enthusiast,
a person, and maybe become like family
that you never really ever had.
But what do you think about car clubs?
Are they absolutely dumb, stupid,
or do you think they're coming back in some sort of way?
Let us know in the comment section below,
and of course if you're looking for wheels,
tires or suspension,
be sure to hit us up over at fitmentindustries.com.
Finally, we're very, very excited
to do this full car giveaway.
So if it means anything, please check out the links below,
at least take a look at it,
let us know what you think about it,
follow along for the build by subscribing,
and of course if you want us to see us talk
about something next,
be sure to drop a comment below.
I'm Alex from Fitment Industries, we will see you later.
Peace!
(energetic dubstep music)