remember when
 

it used to be fun to look at the Ebay model A's for sale.......new cars popped up daily. Now the cars rarely change and it seems to be for, the most part, cars offered by dealers or hotrods----very boring. Changing times

Re: remember when
 

Yes, sad changing times indeed.

Re: remember when
 

If the nostalgia train has come for eBay of all things, this might be where I get off.

Re: remember when
 

When I was kid in the 1960s and 1970s, we were in Model A Club. My mom was secretary. Once a year they had a progressive breakfast, going to each member's house. eggs at one house, bacon at the next... Us kids' road in the back of the Model A pickup beds or rumble seats. When they arrived at our house the Model A's lined both sides of the street, over 20-30 cars, I still go to their clubs' annual swap meet and "not one" club member brings out a car. in the town they live in??? Not one Model A for sale in the swap meet section. In the early days of the club there were guys that grew-up with old cars and wanted to relive those days. One of the guys had been Bonnie and Clyde's next-door neighbor. There were guys in the club that bought their Model A's new. Guys that had driven them over 100,000 miles on the original engine. Those guys are all gone. If you bought a '31 new you'd have to be about a 112 by now.

I go to Early Ford V8 shows here in SoCal and there is a good chance that not one stock '32-'34 Ford will show up, they have mostly been street rodded. And then we have a generation that is afraid of everything, won't attempt fix the simplest things, People send their distributers out to have points installed. They send out their carburetors to be rebuilt that are no more sophisticated than their toilet bowls which they can't fix either. It was a different world that I grew up in.

Re: remember when
 

harry I've noticed that too.

Hemmings Motor News is another example. I still get it I don't know why. About all there is in there for sale are dealer cars and they are way overpriced. But I'll admit, if I were selling an old car today E-Bay or Hemmings would probably be my last go-to choices.. I haven't sold anything on E-bay in ten years but they tell me you have to collect sales tax for your state now? Heck with that bother.

Today you have a lot more options. Hemmings Auctions online, or BaT or Craigslist

Yes E-Bay old cars for sale are mostly chopped up rodded junk.... yawn

Re: remember when
 

I first got involved in the Model A hobby in the late '60s when I was a teenager. At that time almost all the club members were actively restoring cars. Now in my MAFCA chapter of 100+ member families I doubt that there are more than a half dozen cars under active restoration. The hobby evolves.

We had a club breakfast last weekend, about 55 people showed up. One Model A, the rest moderns. It didn't help that was at the tail end of the recent California storm-a-geddon and it was raining like hell. Normally on our monthly tours it's about 80% Model As and 20% moderns.

JayJay

Re: remember when
 

That's OK. I still enjoy driving my Model A.

The people now who want to relive their younger years are are buying cars from the 60's and 70's. I read that 1990 cars are going up in value because of demand.

Re: remember when
 

Our club runs a breakfast gathering each year but this year, the numbers were down a bit. I suspect it was because the day was expected to be very hot - close to 38°C (100°F) so the drive home would be uncomfortable (especially in our RHD cars).
When I reflect on the numbers at all of the regular events, they are certainly not going up and I can see the day arriving sooner than we realise where we will be considered polluting dinosaurs by the general public because our cars burn fossil fuels (and leak some of it onto the ground (where it came from).
I've come to realise that as much as I don't like it, we are now of an age where we are past our "use by" date and younger people with different interests have the numbers.
Growing old is a bitch but I want to do as much of it as I can. BTW, I don't even look at fleabay these days and wouldn't list a car there either. I haven't dealt with many worse companies.

Re: remember when
 

Synchro909,
Driving my Model A in 15 degree weather makes me wish for righthand drive to be near the heater.

Re: remember when
 

I understand that Dan. I guess it's swings and round abouts. we win one and lose the other. In my Tudor, I make things a little more bearable by closing (or nearly closing) the windows and opening the windscreen. That gives me positive pressure in the car to keep the hot air out. In winter, I close the windscreen and drive with a window cracked open so the heat can come in. It feels nice blowing up my trouser leg. I'll leave it at that for now!!! ;)

Re: remember when
 

eBay has kind of screwed themselves, but the users screwed it up too. To avoid selling fees, users put stupidly high shipping charges on the items and the item was cheap—ebay countered by adjusting their charges to include charging fees on shipping. 20 iterations of fees later, you can’t sell anything on eBay and if you do, all your profit goes to fees. Now the shipping is auto-calculated and screws the seller. I rarely sell on ebay now and if I do, i crank the price up to cover fees and the eBay screwing, then the item sells only part of the time. I am going to go back to swap meets—and looking forward to it.

As for the comment about club membership/activities in the 60’s and 70’s—I get it. I was a Model A kid of the 70’s and 80’s. Going on a 600 mile trip was a thing. Now, getting members to do an overnight is about impossible. Fortunately our club has a tour friendly board and they are on a tear to get the A’s out and drive them. The technical workshops are good, but we are going to need to do some member hands on at some point so people know how to do rather than just see it done.

Recruiting youth is the big challenge we all face. But as a kind of younger guy, I really would like some of the knowledge and skill passed down. The youth involvement and the aging expertise are my biggest concerns.

Re: remember when
 

Has anyone tried Hagerty? I have their insurance and I get emails from them with cars for sale. Most of the asking prices seem high to me.

Re: remember when
 

Yes, fewer and fewer of us in our local chapter drive em' any more even to our monthly meetings. Some of us at least drive another car, like an old army jeep, or a 40 Ford.

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In one of the clubs I belong to, we have a group of younger guys. They all want to do what the older guys did when they were that age but don't now. I'm in the older age group chronologically but the younger ones at heart. I often hear comment from members of club without a younger cohort about how our club runs some great events. We pick up quite a few new members that way.
Over the next 6 months, we have a number of 3 or 4 day trips planned and another of about 2 weeks that will cover more than 3,000 km (2,000 miles). Entries are filled very quickly. Bring it on, I say, Bring it on!

Re: remember when
 

There are 131 Model As for sale on eBay at the moment. 84 of those are from dealers; 36 are private sellers (3 are unspecified). Part of the reason you see the same cars all the time is because the way the BIN auctions are structured...they run 30 days and automatically renew. That way, the dealers (most of whom are way overpriced and most have cars with serious issues) the listings are renewed every month and seem to stay there forever. This is in contrast to "back in the day" (I have been on eBay since December 1995) where everything was a seven day auction.

Regarding clubs and such, I'm on the younger end (46) and am a member of the national organizations, but not a part of any local clubs. That said, I have really enjoyed the one-on-one interaction with other Model A owners in the area, but when you get into the group "social bunch", it's a bit more uncomfortable, particularly for an introvert such as myself.

As far as my interests in Model As, I'm on my third (owned two and sold them ten years ago) and am really enjoying learning about them. I'm in a different point of life now than the last time I owned them, and have a lot more experience in mechanicals so I enjoy digging into the systems and trying my hand at rebuilding things, ranging from speedometers to fuel valves to electroplating. I figure at some point the skill sets in these areas are going to vanish and someone needs to carry them on to make sure our cars survive for another century.

Re: remember when
 

I automatically heard/hear a mandolin every time I see this thread title, can’t help it. Alan Jackson “Remember When” give it a listen if you haven’t. https://youtu.be/xM3_dtGyspQ

Re: remember when
 

Auto Trader was a must check back in the day. Most folks that sold in Hemmings were too far away for a person on a limited budget. I still check the club classified sections when they come out. Most are bi-monthly publications now due to the costs of printing a periodical and especially if it has color pages. I also check the swap meet section here on a regular basis for stuff. Flea-Pay has it's place but I have always had a problem with charging sales tax on used items. To me, it doesn't make sense to keep charging sales tax on parts that have likely already had tax charged on them. This isn't the place to talk about the government so I'll restrain myself but it is what it is until it changes or goes broke.

Re: remember when
 

Anyone contemplating/working on/designing a conversion of their Model A to EV or hybrid?
Obviously this is tongue-in-cheek!

May the Lord take me home before I have to own an EV

Re: remember when
 

I am 61 now but remember when dad restored our Model A in 1972 and the club was very active. I moved an hour away and have the Model A with no clubs around here. I have thought about doing something like a pre-1945, period correct, club just to try and have the possibility
of more members.