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05-10-2006, 10:55 PM
Hip to Be Square: Why Young Buyers Covet 'Grandpa' Cars
Old Models Are Tricked Out As Fashion Statements; The Less-Stodgy LeSabre
By JENNIFER SARANOW
May 9, 2006; Page A1
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- Jabari Bryant didn't go to a car dealership to buy his new car last fall. The 28-year-old went to a retirement community in Tybee Island, Ga., where for $2,000 he bought a navy blue 1988 Chevrolet Caprice Classic Brougham from a man who was "at least 83."
The seller said "his eyesight was going and he had no use for the car," recalls Mr. Bryant, an automobile glass installer from Savannah.
Young people today don't want their father's Oldsmobile -- they want their grandfather's. Some of the hippest wheels for under-30 drivers today are models commonly identified with seniors: Oldsmobiles, Buicks, Chevrolets and Cadillacs from the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s
From Collins Ave. in Miami Beach's South Beach neighborhood to International Blvd. in Oakland, Calif., teens and young adults are cruising in "grandpa" and "grandma" cars that they have painted bright colors like lime green, outfitted with fancy sound systems and propped up on monster-truck-style wheels. They're sweet-talking their grandparents into giving up old cars and offering to buy them on the spot from strangers.
Television shows, such as MTV's "Pimp My Ride," and rappers, including Snoop Dogg, are helping to drive the craze. There's even a new magazine, Donk, Box & Bubble, dedicated to the tricked-out-oldie-car culture.
For U.S. car makers, struggling to lift sales, it's a painful irony that the models striking a chord with young buyers aren't those rolling off the assembly lines today but rather ones made decades ago. Detroit's marketers are trying to figure out how to ride the trend without ruining it.
"The worst thing you can do is start to promote this," says Steve Shannon, Buick general manager. (Still, car makers are embracing the idea of marketing the same model to two generations; see related article.)
Besides the older models' low price tags, young people say they like the challenge of adding features like big wheels to vehicles that weren't designed for them. The cars are easier to work on than newer, more-computerized versions and are sure to stand out. There's also the cool factor of being so "out" you are "in."
Mr. Bryant was showing off his car in Augusta on a recent Saturday at the "Big Car Showoff," organized by MIA Entertainment Inc.'s East Coast Ryders, which sells DVDs mostly depicting revamped older cars. He has spent about $11,000 customizing his Caprice, now painted "tangerine orange" and lifted onto 24-inch wheels, instead of the 15-inch wheels they came with. Arrayed nearby were about 300 similar vehicles, from a 1972 Chevrolet Impala with an ostrich-skin interior to a 1984 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme lifted four feet off the ground.
If you have one of the grandpa cars and you fix it up, "everyone just thinks ...you got the tightest car," says Tilton Jackson, a 20-year-old stereo installer who likes to show off his 1995 Buick LeSabre on Oakland's International Blvd. Mr. Jackson bought it for $5,000 from an elderly couple who had used the car just to get between home, the store and the hospital. "We're not mocking old people or trying to make fun of them. They are just driving cool cars," says Mr. Jackson, who plans to airbrush Smurfs onto his blue LeSabre.
The shift is starting to show up in market research. Brands like Buick still have an average buyer around age 60. But the percentage of used-car shoppers between 18 and 24 who said they would consider a Buick LeSabre jumped 168% in the first quarter of this year from a year earlier, the biggest increase of any model, according to market research firm CNW Marketing Research Inc., Bandon, Ore. And fewer 16-to-24-year-olds think such models are "for an older person" than did in the past, according to a CNW study tracking cars' so-called "stodgy index."
More on this Story (http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB114713620680347338-lMyQjAxMDE2NDA3OTEwMzk2Wj.html)
Old Models Are Tricked Out As Fashion Statements; The Less-Stodgy LeSabre
By JENNIFER SARANOW
May 9, 2006; Page A1
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- Jabari Bryant didn't go to a car dealership to buy his new car last fall. The 28-year-old went to a retirement community in Tybee Island, Ga., where for $2,000 he bought a navy blue 1988 Chevrolet Caprice Classic Brougham from a man who was "at least 83."
The seller said "his eyesight was going and he had no use for the car," recalls Mr. Bryant, an automobile glass installer from Savannah.
Young people today don't want their father's Oldsmobile -- they want their grandfather's. Some of the hippest wheels for under-30 drivers today are models commonly identified with seniors: Oldsmobiles, Buicks, Chevrolets and Cadillacs from the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s
From Collins Ave. in Miami Beach's South Beach neighborhood to International Blvd. in Oakland, Calif., teens and young adults are cruising in "grandpa" and "grandma" cars that they have painted bright colors like lime green, outfitted with fancy sound systems and propped up on monster-truck-style wheels. They're sweet-talking their grandparents into giving up old cars and offering to buy them on the spot from strangers.
Television shows, such as MTV's "Pimp My Ride," and rappers, including Snoop Dogg, are helping to drive the craze. There's even a new magazine, Donk, Box & Bubble, dedicated to the tricked-out-oldie-car culture.
For U.S. car makers, struggling to lift sales, it's a painful irony that the models striking a chord with young buyers aren't those rolling off the assembly lines today but rather ones made decades ago. Detroit's marketers are trying to figure out how to ride the trend without ruining it.
"The worst thing you can do is start to promote this," says Steve Shannon, Buick general manager. (Still, car makers are embracing the idea of marketing the same model to two generations; see related article.)
Besides the older models' low price tags, young people say they like the challenge of adding features like big wheels to vehicles that weren't designed for them. The cars are easier to work on than newer, more-computerized versions and are sure to stand out. There's also the cool factor of being so "out" you are "in."
Mr. Bryant was showing off his car in Augusta on a recent Saturday at the "Big Car Showoff," organized by MIA Entertainment Inc.'s East Coast Ryders, which sells DVDs mostly depicting revamped older cars. He has spent about $11,000 customizing his Caprice, now painted "tangerine orange" and lifted onto 24-inch wheels, instead of the 15-inch wheels they came with. Arrayed nearby were about 300 similar vehicles, from a 1972 Chevrolet Impala with an ostrich-skin interior to a 1984 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme lifted four feet off the ground.
If you have one of the grandpa cars and you fix it up, "everyone just thinks ...you got the tightest car," says Tilton Jackson, a 20-year-old stereo installer who likes to show off his 1995 Buick LeSabre on Oakland's International Blvd. Mr. Jackson bought it for $5,000 from an elderly couple who had used the car just to get between home, the store and the hospital. "We're not mocking old people or trying to make fun of them. They are just driving cool cars," says Mr. Jackson, who plans to airbrush Smurfs onto his blue LeSabre.
The shift is starting to show up in market research. Brands like Buick still have an average buyer around age 60. But the percentage of used-car shoppers between 18 and 24 who said they would consider a Buick LeSabre jumped 168% in the first quarter of this year from a year earlier, the biggest increase of any model, according to market research firm CNW Marketing Research Inc., Bandon, Ore. And fewer 16-to-24-year-olds think such models are "for an older person" than did in the past, according to a CNW study tracking cars' so-called "stodgy index."
More on this Story (http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB114713620680347338-lMyQjAxMDE2NDA3OTEwMzk2Wj.html)