It seems like I read a lot these days about how Millennials, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha – generally speaking – just don’t have the same car bug as we previous generations. Sure, there are pockets of younger car enthusiasts, but is it a dying hobby? Will the bottom fall out of the collector car market one of these days with the passing of the Baby Boomers and Generation X? If so, mark my words: it’ll happen about a week after I die, because that’s my luck. In any case, I believe that we as the (ugh!) senior generations have a responsibility – no – an obligation to light the fire and pass the torch! But how?

I am dad to two daughters. For purposes of this article I shall refer to them as Thing 1 (the elder) and Thing 2 (the younger) . I made it part of my parenting mission to instill a degree of “car girl” in both of them, starting when they were very young. Recently, on a short trip home from college, Thing 2 asked me if there was a Cars & Coffee we could hit while she was here. I consider that as just one example validating that I my mission is complete! Following are some of the methods I used and found effective – or didn’t use but wish I had. Of course, your mileage may vary….

1. Cars and Coffee: The Low-hanging Fruit

Many Saturday and Sunday mornings all over the country – nay, the WORLD – enthusiasts gather to sip on some caffeine in the company of other car folks and the cars that light their fires. I started bringing my kids to C&C about the time it really got going in my area – about 2008. I went with my dad from time to time as well prior to his passing. Of course it doesn’t hurt that I live in an area with one of the best Cars and Coffee events in the country: Katie’s Cars and Coffee in Great Falls, Virginia, but most anywhere there are car enthusiasts these events take place. Heck, I’ve been to C&C in Hong Kong, and just this past weekend my TTS partner in crime attended one on O’ahu.

I like to walk the parking lot and talk to the kids about what I like or don’t like about each car we see, and to talk to other early-rising car enthusiasts about what they brought that day. It’s double extra special good when those cars that we either 1) have; 2) have had; or 3) want show up. Thing 1 was particularly smitten with the Isetta you see above at Katie’s about 10 years ago. Geez, time flies.

2. Car Trips, Enthusiast-Style

When Thing 1 was five years old, I made the super-wise decision of purchasing a 1979 Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9, sight unseen, from a guy in Memphis, Tennessee. A good friend and M100 guru convinced me that it would be a fabulous car to fly-in and drive home – about 900 miles/13 hours (without stops). My wife suggested it would be a good father-daughter bonding trip, so I decided that in addition to tools and spare belts, I’d pack her as well. She was great, and excited for our special trip. The car was decent, and despite a hiccup with the AC (on a 98 degree day) rectified by a whack of the lug wrench on the climate control servo, made the 2-day trip without incident. I even managed to comb her long hair satisfactorily at the start of the second day.

A short few years later Thing 2 turned five, and among her first questions after her birthday was when and where we’d go on our “five year trip”. Hmm.. The first trip was a fluke – now it was a rite of passage! Sensing both an opportunity for more parental bonding AND justification to expand/modify the fleet, I set about looking for a car. On her first trip we brought home a pristine pearl black Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.3-16, purchased from a fellow in New Jersey who’d lost his license after being hit in the head by an airplane. I kid you not – you can’t make that up. Funny enough, her second five year trip (at age 10, logically enough….) was to get another 2.3-16, but this one was smoke silver and not nearly as nice, but still made the rainy trip home from Atlanta flawlessly.

Thing 1’s second trip was to fetch another Mercedes from the estate of an owner who’d passed away in Westchester County, New York. That one was a 300CE Convertible. We lasted about 20 minutes on the highway on that cool October morning with the top down, but still all went as you’d hope. All of them were awesome experiences that built memories. When they got older, we actually made whole family trips out of them, including a trip from Dubuque, Iowa back to Virginia in a 1984 BMW 733i 5-speed and one from Wichita, Kansas in a 1989 560SEL when Thing 1 got to log much-needed behind-the-wheel hours to qualify for her driver’s license!

3. Miniatures are Your Friends

As a dad, I have actually failed catastrophically on this one. My girls bought me a model of a 300SLR race car years ago, suggesting that we should build it together. By the time it seemed like there was adequate time in my work and home life, they’d both moved on to other things. One of these days, reminiscent of Cat’s in the Cradle… <sniff> ANYWAY….

Like my dad had, from time to time I did manage to get my girls interesting scale cars. Usually when I’d been someplace where they had something unique – like black cabs and double-decker buses from England, or Trabants from Berlin. I always really liked the practical scale cars – similar to the cars my parents drove, or what I saw on TV. Sure, there was a place for over the top Hot Wheels, but that wasn’t really my bag. One of my favorites was buddy Jonathan’s Corgi metallic burgundy Volvo 245 wagon. You could just imagine yourself driving it…  I always attributed a lot of my short car attention span to the ability to buy Matchbox cars and build them into a collection. That hasn’t come out yet in therapy, but give it time. The counter argument is that it further fueled my Car Geek fire. And I think it helped – to a far lesser extent – for my kids despite dad just not having the time…

If you really want to engage in a miniature car adventure with your budding car enthusiast, consider getting into self-assembled radio-controlled cars. As a kid I remember a lot of great times with my dad both building and repairing my Tamiya Rough Rider R/C car (also available in the “Sand Scorcher” Baja Buggy body…). Just make sure they don’t terrorize the neighborhood with it. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

Truth be told, I still collect the occasional miniature. The speed yellow Boxster in the picture above was a gift from my brother-in-law when I got my first yellow Boxster. The 500SEC model I bought for myself when I got my identical (except for the hubcaps) 500SEC. I’m still a kid a heart, I say! Maybe one of my girls will help me build the SEC model when they put me in the home.

4. Car Magazines: Everyone should Encourage Kids to Read!

I think I bought my first car magazine when I was about 8 years old. It was Car and Driver and David E. Davis, Jr. was Editor in Chief. Honestly, I’d started flipping through them well before that, because my dad would leave them in the bathroom or by his easy chair, and young car guy Reed would pick them up and peruse them like I had a clue what they were talking about. Yeah, I was looking at the pictures. But beyond that, I got to the point from that exposure that I craved a new issue. Dad didn’t subscribe, but he traveled a lot and always came home with a magazine or two that he’d picked-up at the airport.

My kids similarly (if not more so) grew up with car magazines scattered around the house, and also similarly picked them up to read. Once in a while one of them would bring up something they’d read about, and as they got older the questions got more challenging. In a good way, but still. I had the added benefit of writing for a few car magazines starting when Thing 1 was just two years old, so they also periodically had their picture in a car mag or as they got older each of them did (and still do) a little time as photographer for me.

But you don’t need a paper outlet for your kids to get involved – have them shoot pictures of your favorite car even if your only intent is to keep them for yourself or share them on social media. But be sure to give them photo credit. They ALWAYS want photo credit. Ask me how I know.

5. Enthusiast TV: Induction by Osmosis

I’m not a fan of a lot of the car content on television right now, but I have a few “go to” shows that my kids sort of grew up watching with me – and again we’d talk about the cars, restoration style choices, or even just the people involved as we watched. The ones that stand-out as my go-to shows include:

• The obvious shows are Top Gear and The Grand Tour. Both my kids are fans of the Clarkson/May/Hammond trio, and enjoy the car shows as well as their other endeavors – well, Clarkson’s Farm and most of what James May does. I’m also a Chris Harris fan, having met him on a trip to the Nürburgring years ago when he was there testing a V8-powered Ariel Atom – Nice guy. So while TG wasn’t the same, the newer episodes had some good moments.
• Car Auctions: Barrett-Jackson and Mecum – at some point in every episode is a car I wish I’d been there to buy. And yes, I know they accept internet bids…
• Wheeler Dealers: Budget fix-up of “regular” enthusiast cars.
• Chasing Classic Cars: Note the photo above – I’ve been driving by (and stopping-in) Wayne Carini’s F40 Motorsports since about 1993 when I started dating my wife. His shop was between our college and her parents’ house. There was always something cool to see, and I was double-psyched when he ended-up on TV. And I like the cars, too.
• What’s My Car Worth: I always enjoyed Sports Car Market’s Keith Martin reviewing classic cars and I’d always try to see if I could guess the price before he said it. I was rarely right, because I still think that G-body 911s should be $20K cars – for a nice one. Anyway, the show was very much like a video version of the magazine – and that was cool.
• Graveyard Carz: I really like Mopar muscle cars, and Mark Worman, the owner/host, is an interesting dude. Honestly, aside from the reality TV nonsense I personally really enjoy the very minute restoration details that this crew gets into.

There are others , but these shows are top of mind. Sometimes my kids roll their eyes when I’m watching them (especially the auctions), but at least as often they’ll watch with me and engage about whatever is going on. I’m certainly not one who would encourage more TV and sedentary lifestyle, but if you’re there anyway these beat an episode of Strictly Ballroom or the Real Housewives of Just About Anywhere. The key is not just staring blankly at the screen, but also talking about what you’re watching.

6. Cheap Labor (or, GET OUT OF MY LIGHT!!)

There was a great old Louie Anderson comedy bit (link HERE – starting around 3:39 – but the whole bit is pretty funny) where he was working on the car with his dad, who yelled at him to get out of his light -to which he mused “and you looked down at that jack and thought ‘college or prison?’” Heh, been there.

But in the midst of it all, as I got older and out on my own, I realized that the old man had actually taught me more than I realized about the care and feeding of my own cars – with mixed results.. Nonetheless, this is very much something I have tried to instill in my own kids. It’s all the more important now that they’re off in other states and both with cars. Heck, just yesterday Thing 1 called up, about to embark on a 6-hour road trip for work, with a strange problem with her HVAC/radio unit in her ’06 Subaru Outback. She detailed the problem, and we talked through it together, ultimately deciding that the only thing we could think of that *might* rectify the problem would be a hard reset. So when she got to he office she disconnected the battery and let it sit for a spell, then reconnected it and – lo and behold – it worked. The point is: she had been exposed enough and helped out enough to have the confidence to give it a try. Now if she would just fix the darned rear window wiper.

Admittedly, Thing 2 will likely comment that I did more car maintenance training with her sister than her. It’s probably true, but she did learn now to change taillight bulbs this past weekend, so I’m not feeling too bad about it… Besides, she’s further along in her stick shift lessons (see #8 below).

7. Come and Go: The Car Buying and Selling Process

You might not believe it, but I’ve bought and sold a lot of cars. When I say a “lot” I’m talking about well over a hundred. Nearly every time I start contemplating a car, I’ll talk about it with one or both of my Things – and my wife, obviously. While my wife has always had veto power, the kids are more of an advisory board. They do get more say when the decision directly impacts the driver’s seat they will be planted in.

Last time we had to replace Thing 1’s car for cause (i.e. it failed, a lot, and not her fault), I gave her the task of researching various cars. I had made the decision not to replace her black 560SEL (duly named King Joffee) with another of the same, if for no other reason than I expected that with her going to college 10+ hours away, the gas bill would cripple me. Ultimately we settled on a very clean 1992 Volvo 240 that served her faithfully until I got tired of fighting with weirds electrical foibles. Now earning her own money, one of the things she’s talked (more than a few times) about is getting an “interesting” car of her own. As long as she can insure and store it, I love the idea!!

If your space and budget allow, consider getting a car for them before they can drive. The photo above is Thing 1 receiving the keys to her first car, shortly after she’d turned 15. We were happy to have a putter-around car, and she spent a lot of time cleaning it up, helping me fix a few things on it, and getting it ready for the day she could drive. It was a fun process, and got her more and more excited about driving. It was a little different for Thing 2, because our process of musical cars meant that she ended-up getting a hand-me-down from Thing 1, but she actually helped pick that car out, apparently having predicted that it would be hers. Eventually.

8. Stick-Shift Driving Lessons

Following on the above, I helped my dad pick what would be the car that would be my first car: a 1977 Alfa Romeo Spider. I liked that few of my peers at school knew what it was, but it looked neat. I largely learned to drive on that car – a 5-speed manual – but in truth Dad had started teaching me a long time before that. I think the first time I was left to my own devices in a manual transmission car was when I was about 10, and Dad asked me to move the car – a 1978 Fiat 132 sedan (we lived overseas) with a stick. I let the clutch out too fast and nearly ran over a good family friend, but it was a start.

When I was about 13, we got the Alfa and I was allowed to drive it up and down the long hill of a driveway we had to get the mail. I could’ve walked it, but why?? It was a terrific opportunity to practice hill starts and reversing – three pedal style.

Fast-forward, I like to tell folks that one of the reasons I fell for my wife was that when I met her in college she was driving a Ford F150 with a four-on-the-floor. When we started dating, it was all I could do to peel her out of my little Honda Prelude. We almost exclusively had stick shift cars until around the time we had kids, but she is still a master.

As the kids were growing up, we liked to watch The Amazing Race, and all of us observed that one of the key fail points for teams on the show was when they’d get to a foreign country and the producers would put them in a car with a manual transmission. Those who couldn’t drive stick rarely won the race. They don’t call it a “millennial car antitheft device” for nothing.

The mistake I made as a car dad when it came to driving stick was that I never seemed to have a stick-shift car long enough at a time to properly teach either of my kids. Both have had lessons, and understand the physics of it, but neither has mastered it yet. If I have any car regrets with my kids (apart from the model thing above), it’s this. I think at this point they’d be able to manage The Amazing Race, but I wouldn’t want to be behind either of them driving stick on a hill in traffic at this stage. Just sayin’… I still plan to complete their training… One of these days…

9. See the (Car) World – Cool Car Places

Cars and Coffee (#1 above) is a great cheap and local way for your kids to see lots of different and interesting cars, but there are lots of other free and not free car destinations with considering. This pair of pictures comes from a visit to the Mercedes-Benz Classic Center when it was in Irvine, California (now a much larger facility in Long Beach). While it helped that I knew the Center Director, the kids had a great time checking-out the new and old stuff there. The red car above, incidentally, was the same one used for one of those Mercedes commercials with Santa Claus and a bunch of red Mercedes. Both kids got a chance not only to see, but to sit in that car – then point it out for the next several years when the commercial would come on TV.

But look also at local car shows – our area has muscle car shows, German car shows, British car shows, and everything car shows. There are always a few on Father’s Day weekend – at least in these parts – and that can be a great gift for dad and time spent with the little’uns. If your family is particularly adventurous and/or well-traveled, there are great car museums like the Petersen in Los Angeles, the Simeone in Philly, and several throughout Europe – just for example. I’m also a big fan of the massive European classic car shows like Techno Classica Essen and Retromobile – my kids still need to go to one of those – and maybe get a lap or two around the ‘Ring while we’re there.

10. Keep the Fire Lit!

As I mentioned earlier, Thing 1 – now gainfully employed – contemplates a future inclusive of a cool car (or a few of them) and living something of a car life. Thing 2 is happy to ride my car coattails for the time being, and as a college student that’s just fine with me. I briefly thought about buying a second, old, crappy car in college (a Karmann Ghia, to be precise), but 1) it was rusty; 2) I really didn’t have the money; and 3) my parents would have strung me up from, well, something really painful. Besides, I think my apartment only had 2 parking spots – one for my roommate and one for me. So when I was out in the world and married to a very tolerant soul, I bought my first silly old car – a Fiat 850 Spider. It has been a long, long, long downhill (uphill?) slope from there.

I love that my girls are Car Geeks to varying degrees. We’ve built tremendous memories and had amazing and fun experiences around the car hobby one-on-one and as a family – and I look forward to continuing that as they move into self-sufficiency and adulthood. I can honestly say that I love when the kids ask to drive one of the old cars, when they ask to go to a car thing, or when they just hang out and watch people spending silly money on cars on TV. It’s not all we do together, but it has become part of who we are – just like I had with my dad. One time dad and I drove a 1969 Mercedes 280SL Pagoda with a bad radiator (but a killer heater core) from Atlanta to Northern Virginia overnight on a steamy August night. By about hour 6 he was singing weird old songs from the 50s and 60s. It was one of the absolute best experiences of my life. I can only hope I leave my kids with some great memories like that.