In the car world, we hear the word “preservation” quite a bit. For many, it means an uncompromising reverence for all-original classic automobiles that are just as they were when they were new, or close to it, despite the passage of time. Preservation has become a fundamental component of today’s car world, with special attention given to those cars that embody the term. At major car shows, “Preservation-Class” vehicles are seen as documents of history, roadmaps for restoration, and evidence of how things really were.
In 2024, a Preservation Class car took the top honor at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance for the first time in the event’s 73-year history. It was a defining moment for that class, and for the concours itself. This car—a 1934 Bugatti Type 59 from Fritz Burkard’s Pearl Collection—drew a clear line through elegance, usability and the visible evidence of time passed—a strong example of what preservation should represent, at least as it relates to tradition.
This development was well understood by the collector car community, and cheered on by those who believe in the celebration of history being at the core of the highest levels of the car world.
Outside of Pebble Beach’s white plastic chains, though, well away from the high-end auctions and fancy hats and perfectly manicured greens, there’s another view of preservation that’s arguably more consequential to the future of the car world. In the places where younger people gather around older cars, preservation can have a different meaning.
In that world, modification is preservation.
What Did You Say?
Sure, by most definitions, modification and preservation are in direct conflict. To modify something is to change something, after all, while preserving something is the antithesis of change. So, how can one complement the other?
“Modification and preservation are not polar opposites, they’re a different manifestation of exactly the same thing, which is essentially that all things are changing,” says Miles Collier, car collector, author of The Archaeological Automobile and founder of the hugely influential Revs Institute in Naples, FL. “Nothing in this world is fated to remain static. The forces of entropy, the effect of use and accident and misadventure all have a tendency to change automobiles from the way they started life to where they are today.”
In other words, cars exist in time and space just like we do. There are varying degrees of change over time, but change itself is inevitable, whether a car is carefully stored in factory configuration or given modern upgrades to make it more usable and keep it on the road.
Parking Lot Evidence
The key here is not necessarily to look at “preservation” as it relates to a specific car. Instead, the key is to consider it in a much broader context, as it relates to the collector car world in general.
Some lament that this world is shrinking, thanks to a general aging out and shifting demographics. Is it shrinking, though? No, that’s not happening. Is it evolving? Absolutely.
Here’s one example: I got a call from a friend on a Tuesday night. An Instagram-based group in Portland, Oregon called Wasted Space was putting on a pop-up car show—on four hours’ notice—in a parking lot at a mall about three miles away from my house. He wanted to go and I joined him, me in my LS-swapped 1967 C10 and him in his G-nose Datsun Z.
Wasted Space turns otherwise empty parking lots into pop-up car shows, generally with only a few hours’ notice. Despite a lack of marketing, lead time, or much overall organization, this is a popular event. About 400 cars showed up for this show, taking over a corner of a mall parking lot in the middle of the week and right in the middle of the rush hour commute.
The attendees shared a couple of things in common. First, their average ages, taken by straw poll, were from 16 to 30 years old. Then there were the cars—Subarus, Hondas, Nissans, Toyotas. RHD. JDM. Even modern exotics such as McLarens and Lamborghinis were on hand, drawing cell phone cameras and commentary. Every single one was modified, some heavily, and those mods started hundreds of conversations.
Granted, this is just once slice of a much bigger car culture pie, one evening in one little corner of the country, but it still felt important. These people are the future of the hobby, taking ownership of the moment in new ways, yet the edge in the air was familiar, the same any seasoned car person would remember from the cruising or street racing meetups of their own youth. It felt like tradition, redefined by social media and now under new ownership, surviving and thriving. At its heart were all the modifications. They were impossible to ignore.
Big Numbers
There’s a lot of money involved in keeping old cars on the road, and young people like the ones at Wasted Space are a huge part of that industry.
The Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) reports that the automotive aftermarket has a combined $337B economic impact, and that in 2024, the overall sales figure in the automotive aftermarket was $52B. Contrast that with the collector car auction market (the whole auction market, including both online and in-person events) itself worth “just” $3.6B in 2024, according to Hagerty.
And it’s more than just Boomers buying carburetors for their Camaros. SEMA’s 2025 demographics report states that there are more licensed drivers under the age of 25 than there were 20 years ago, and that they are buying used cars more frequently due in large part to the high cost of new cars. SEMA also claims these young people are driving the accessories market and tend to live more enthusiast-oriented lifestyles. Critically, more than 60% of specialty equipment sales in 2023 came from car people under the age of 45.
The data shows that modification trends younger, and there’s real excitement there that is reflected at SEMA’s cornerstone event every November, where tire smoke and rev limiters welcome the 160,000 attendees that head to the Las Vegas Convention Center to learn about what’s new in the automotive aftermarket.
YouTube content creator Zac Mertens (@Mister_Zachary) knows that well, both from his current content efforts and from his extensive experience as one of the former members of the multi-million-follower Hoonigan group. He’s hosted burnout events at SEMA and elsewhere, and currently builds high-profile high-power vehicles on his own YouTube channel.
“People like high horsepower stuff,” says Mertens. “[W]e are definitely living in a different generation and there’s different interests. But the one thing that is the constant is like people love raw badass power and speed … Pretty much everything I have is radical. When I fire up something that’s violent, it keeps me locked in and engaged what I’m doing, what I’m driving.”
Mertens thinks a lot of the same things get young people excited: “The litmus test for that would be, you know … my live show is Burnout Wars. And even through the Hoonigan years, when I had the Hoonigan Burnyard and I’d be hosting that … you’d get to see how captivated people are and the fact that they can wait … they can be outside in the sun for six straight hours just watching burnouts, where people bash limiters and slam the walls, you know. It just, it does really seal the deal that people are into this stuff still.”
That audience tends to be a young one, relatively speaking. Most of it is in the 26 to 40 range, but “there is still a very alive and well culture of kids that want to drive and want to modify these things and experience them. And that is still clearly booming because, realistically, if private equity is dumping so much money into trying to capture these aftermarket automotive companies, then there’s clearly something to that,” he adds.
A Blank Canvas
While the quiet concours green and the billowing tire smoke at SEMA are both celebrations of the automobile and of driving, there’s obviously some distance between the two. For most cars and for most people, the latter celebration is actually a lot more relevant than the former.
“[W]hat’s important about preservation and how thoughtful should we be about modification relates to a very small number of very important cars,” says Collier. When there’s “two of two left in the world and they’re both really original, that’s something else. That’s not even part of this discussion.”
Meanwhile, “all the other cars in this world, all of the 2002 BMW tiis, etc., etc., you can modify all the hell you want, because in my view, a modified car that’s still on the road doing its thing is way more interesting and useful than one that’s absolutely box-stock original and is never going to turn a wheel again.”
In addition to keeping cars on the road and “doing their thing,” Collier also sees embracing modification as a key to get people interested and involved in classic cars: “I think that the best way to engage young people is to give them a canvas on which they can express their creativity. I think the idea of completely inaccessible cars, which is what so many of the modern automobiles are, is a prescription to alienating young people from the idea that automobiles are a fascinating and beneficial place to spend time. And that’s the beauty of older cars. The whole point of being able to engage with older cars is you want to do stuff to ‘em. I absolutely endorse that … The reality is that cars have always been a canvas for people to write upon, sometimes because they’re enthusiasts … There’s a whole host of reasons.”
The New Graffiti
If modification can serve as an entry point for younger people in the old car world, how does that relate to the long traditions of collector cars? Can modification evolve into something else?
“Modification and preservation are greatly linked,” says Mertens.“ Modification keeps classic cars alive because you see what’s possible with them. When it comes to classic vehicles, and even when I say classic, I hate to say this, but it’s 2010 and earlier. We still have some sort of analog input. We still get a manual. The ability to change something to your own liking, I feel drives much more interest in cars than keeping it completely stock.”
He adds, though, that “as you grow older, I feel that you typically respect and you have a greater appreciation for what the factory did. And then that leads to that whole lifestyle of wanting to bring something back to that original form … But I think the catalyst for that appreciation comes from the modification of vehicles.”
“I think that the next wave of automobile engagement is going to be one that’s much more open-ended,” says Collier. “That’s why you have the effect of the events like car shows and things of this nature. That’s why Luftgekuhlt [the all-encompassing air-cooled Porsche show founded in 2014] is so popular. They’re extemporaneous, they’re fun, they’re free flowing, they’re open-ended. They’re not judgmental, you can show up with whatever the hell you want. This all sounds pretty healthy and good to me.”
Finally, Collier sees the link between young people modifying cars now with the show fields of the future: “Is there a natural progression from modification into traditional preservation classes? Sure. Absolutely. I mean, everybody can map out their own path and there will be certain people who become interested in things like original typology and configurations and they’ll really get into it. That’s a great thing.”
That progression is where we’ll find the future of our revered traditions in the collector car world—preservation and otherwise—and we’ll have today’s young enthusiasts and their modified rides to thank for it.
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