126 TradeUniqueCars.com.auGARAGE GURUS
WHAT DO YOU RECKON?
GLENN^ TORRENSSO WHAT DO YOU RECKON What’s your best childhood memory of what are now today’s cruiser/collector cars?
LET US KNOW AT [email protected]DESPITE BEING A NON-DAD, GLENN TORRENS
DOLES OUT SOME SOLID PARENTING ADVICEWHO HAS an early girl
tucked away for the next
generation, asked a bloke
on a Holden Commodore
Facebook page.
“I had the unexpected
opportunity to buy this Calais
back in 2014 for my son who
was only two years old at the
time,” he continued. “It has
been locked away ever since.
The plan is to give it a quick
resto and hand him the keys
for his 25th birthday.”
However, reading this
bloke’s proud mention of
the locked-in-a-shed Calais
reminded me of the dozens of
stored-for-later and father-
and-son projects I’ve seen,
heard and read of over the
years.
And most of them seem to
end in disaster.
I’ve seen the dismay on the
faces of parents who have, for
years, stored a ‘special’ car
only to discover they’ve been
laughed at behind their backs
by kids who have absolutely
no interest in a 50-year old
relic...
The kid wants a Qashqai or
a Mazda 3.
Or maybe the kids won’t be
interested in our car hobby at
all, just like many of us are not
into Star Trek, collecting coins
or stalking steam trains.
One of my best mates
has a teenager. My mate
and I have tried our best to
include the kid in our hobby.
With more than a dozen
road-registered cars and
4WDs between us, we have
a stack of interesting stuff to
tinker with. We’re are doing
everything from rebuilding
engines and suspensions toinstalling aftermarket EFI
conversions... far more than
just washing our cars on a
sunny Saturday morning,
which was a rite-of-passage
for me when I was growing up.
We’ll give the kid a task
and it’s go-go-go for about
10 minutes... then things
go quiet. Recently, he was
asked to wash a car and he
didn’t even get the bucket
filled, let alone ask for the
detergent, before he’d drifted
back to sitting in a corner
looking at his phone. There
is no effing way this kid is
thinking about building a
mad Bug or dropping a V8 into
a Commodore with dad and
Uncle GT. It’s just not on his
radar.
So, for all those proud
parents out there who think
they are doing the right thingby buying a cool old car and
storing it in a darkened shed
until little Jane or Johnny gets
P-plates, be prepared for a
massive disappointment.
But here’s an easy fix that
makes everyone happy: Ol’
mate with the old Holden
Calais – and anyone else with
something nice but unused
in a shed – should get it out,
patch it up and cruise it right
now. I reckon kids will be
more likely to grow into adults
that appreciate our car hobby
if their childhood memories
are of happy family trips to
the beach, grandma’s house
and car shows instead of
vague f lash-backs to an old
shitbox under a dusty blanket
in the garage.
And by cruising it now,
mumand dad get to enjoy it
too!