Welcome to this Monday edition of the Daily DRVN newsletter. I hope you had a restful weekend, had a chance to hit up your local Cars & Coffee, and are ready to take this week head-on! Over the weekend my wife took me and our daughter to the National Automobile Museum in Reno, NV. While taking in the hundreds of amazing cars from every era, something profound hit me.

Nearing the end of the tour, as I stood in front of a Mercedes 300SL Gull Wing (one of my favorite cars of all time) I checked my watch to see the time. I had forgotten what watch I had put on that morning until I checked. It was my grandfather’s gold Longines he had received from Mercedes-Benz for 40 years with the company. That fact made obvious from an engraving on the back which shows his initials, F.M. and the dates 1947-1988.

I had recently restored it and paired it with an extra band I had lying around. A navy blue leather Nato strap. I was excited to see that it was still running after being disassembled and cleaned. But this feeling was immediately extrapolated to the excitement I felt from being surrounded by so many priceless automotive relics.

The nearly 36 year old watch was too, a relic that deserved appreciation and preservation like every machine in the museum, in which I stood. And I felt proud for doing my small part.

All too often we get sucked up in the novel. We want to acquire the latest and greatest gadget, garment, or car from our favorite manufacturers. I know as well as anyone, being a self-proclaimed technology geek. But that prioritization of the new comes at a price. With the finite nature of resources, I could have chosen to buy a smartwatch rather than restore my grandfather’s vintage time-piece. Likewise, I could have opted to drive a newer Nissan Z, rather than restore a 240sx from the late 90’s. Both options are objectively better from a performance standpoint. However, something would have been neglected in the process, and possibly, forgotten all together.

Every car in the National Automotive Museum probably had a story (one of many) in which someone opted to invest in preserving that machine over buying something “new and improved”. And thank god that they did. In fact, some of the placards for certain cars indicated it was the last or only model left in existence. Image if just one of its previous owners had made a choice, while the custodian of the car, to deprioritize it. It would very likely no longer be the window into the past that it was.

Living in Reno, NV I am fortunate to be able to attend the Hot August Nights events every year. This is one of the biggest car shows in the country, practically taking over the entire city for over a week. So many of the cars that are featured are from an era that is sadly losing its core audience. Primarily the pre-muscle car era of hotrods and land-yachts. Car enthusiast my age and younger are opting to maintain cars from 60’s and later, with a growing apetite for 90’s JDM cars (my particular cup of joe). My only hope is that the well-loved specimens belonging to the older generations will find their way into the hands of big-picture collectors and museums for our future generations to appreciate.

At some point in the past I had come to the conclusion that progress often leads to a disposable mindset, unnecessary consumption, and neglect or wholesale disregard of the valuable achievements that came before. Electric self-driving cars are the future… So it is said. But has anyone ever stopped to think about the amount of consumption, pollution, and waste that will come from committing fully to that kind of future? It seems that the people who are most for it should better understand that.

This perspective of mine deserves a post entirely to itself (probably multiple posts), which I will most certainly circle back to. But I’d like to wrap this post up with a few thought exercises to hopefully spark a conservationist mindset in you.

1. When will 90’s cars be considered classics? 90’s music is already played on classic rock stations, so it seems natural to accept this era of car into the fold. This is particularly true for events like Hot August Nights, which have a strict year range to be featured. If they don’t revise that rule, the amount of eligible cars to participate will dwindle through a simple shift in demographics. If they don’t we could very well lose this cultural institution that is instrumental in preserving automotive culture.

2. When all-electric self-driving cars are the norm, what will happen to car culture? Can it survive a world where the act of driving is increasingly unobtainable and manually driven cars are potentially segregated from public roads? Will anyone want a self-driving Lambo? Will we see intergenerational bonding, appreciation, and a grass-roots market to preserve 2030’s era autonomous transport pods?

3. What if the power grid can’t handle all the new electric vehicles in circulation? As it appears that will in fact, be a significant challenge. Furthermore, what if there is a Carrington-level event (massive solar flare) or act of cyber warfare that takes down the grid? This system seems entirely too fragile to allow total ubiquity. Shouldn’t we preserve the internal combustion vehicles as a fail-safe, or fall back?

4. What if we found a way to preserve, restore and maybe even build an industry around keeping old cars on the road? It would require no new infrastructure, would allow the new era of cars to be developed and adopted at a more sustainable rate, and would arguably reduce pollution (counter-intuitive, I know). Most importantly to me, it would preserve a culture that appreciates the past, hands down skills and a DIY attitude to the coming generations, inspires a drive to optimize performance, and ultimately… offers the freedom and independence that only manually driven cars can provide. There is absolutely no reason why my 1997 240sx or your 1969 Camaro can’t share the road with 12th gen driverless Prius… Prius’s… Prii. You know what I mean.

This quote strikes at the heart of the problem with disposable novelty. The only cure is finding meaning in what is, so we have a more inspired and grounded vision for what could be.

Watch this!

^{(Oh, those famous last words)}

Didn’t catch the Mexican GP? We’ve got you! See the coverage in two flavors. Mild and Ey-chihuahua!!!

🌶️ 
(This is the official F1 race highlights. They’re just weird about embedding vids.)

🌶️ 🌶️🌶️🌶️

Drip, drip, drip

We’re not talking about your oil leak (you should really look into that). In Gen-Z slang “drip” means fashion or clothing. And there is a lot of great automotive lifestyle “drip” out there. Here’s one brand that’s recently caught my eye. Last Era.

This brand really knows how to show respect for our shared motorsport roots!

For Sale Gawking

Bring a Trailer Edition

Motorsport Meme of the Day

F1 Mexican GP - Checco Edition

That will do it for this edition of the Daily DRVN newsletter. If you’re not already, please subscribe!

Until next time, work hard so you can drive hard!

—Rex Tracer