Fuel costs put brakes on car clubs

[depakid]

CLASSIC cars are staying locked in the garage because owners can't afford to start their petrol guzzlers.

Motoring clubs are cancelling rallies and country weekend meetings as fuel prices soar.

"An entire lifestyle is being killed," said Barry Luchetti, of the XW-XY Association, whose members own 20 restored 1970 and 1971 Ford V8s.

"We love our cars ... but we just can't afford to fill the tank any more. We used to get together for weekend drives to the country one weekend every month, but now it is every two months and we don't go far out of Sydney."

The cars get about 14.5 kilometres per 4.5 litres "so it takes us a full tank to get to Crookwell where we used to go every winter, and another tank back", Mr Luchetti said. "That's $280 just in petrol."

More: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/fuel-costs-put-brakes-on-car-clubs/2008/08/02/1217097610457.html

[Submariner]

1. I had a '66 Chevelle SS-396 that got 8 mpg leaving GTO's,

Road Runners, and 442's in the dust. Gas was 28 cents/gallon then. I bet these car clubs with their rally's and road tours come to an end. It has become unaffordable.

[Warpy]

2. Tough shit

While I can dig restored land barges as art, the engines should have been retired decades ago. There is no place for dinosaurs like that in the modern world, pumping out monstrous quantities of unburned hydrocarbons without even a catalytic converter to partially scrub the emissions.

Perhaps their need for conspicuous consumption could now be channeled toward something a little cheaper and a lot cleaner: restoring and sailing wooden sailboats.

What current fuel price is threatening is all the fads that required the least efficient internal combustion engines. Gas hog cars are just the first casualty.

[elocs]

3. So the car club lifestyle is being killed...

:nopity: :bounce: :nopity:

[kestrel91316]

4. Tragic.

:nopity:

Wake up. Smell coffee.

[Trillo]

5. They'll likely morph into something else.

People congregate peacefully under the banner of a number of special interests. Perhaps they'll figure out how to make their former muscle cars into electric vehicles, with microturbine generators or something else creative. It may be a different, newer group of people, while the Old Timer's cars collect dust and rust.

[tinrobot]

6. Kind of like horse and buggy clubs 100 years ago.

Like a horse and buggy, I hope that these types of cars become vehicles you'll only see in museums and the occasional parade.