When I was a kid, a family moved in down the street. Upon settling into the corner house, they immediately started an extensive renovation of the property. Their youngest, Derrick, was a year or two younger than I. We regularly raced our bicycles up and down the street, played Legend of Zelda on Nintendo and were commanded to stay clear of his house. Due to its bare concrete floors, naked plywood walls and exposed electric conduit, the busy construction zone made it unsafe for a couple of boys looking for trouble.

Sadly, Derrick and his family moved away almost as soon as the remodeling was complete. Since the oldest kids were enrolled in high school, the parents opted for another property in a neighboring housing tract not too far away; but for a 12-year-old, it could’ve been the other side of the continent.

My parents later explained that that was what Derrick’s parents did to make money; purchasing distressed homes, renovating them, and quickly selling them for an immediate profit. House “flipping” is (well, was) pretty common, but typically not at the cost of uprooting the family with each new home.

As fate would have it, the widespread practice of flipping homes contributed to the artificial inflation of the housing market, which of course, participated in a major fiscal meltdown and the near collapse of the housing construction industry in the United States.

Today, tracts of vacant homes sit in partial completion across the nation, while loans to purchase a new home boarder on unobtainable. While larger factors ultimately dealt the killing blow, the abused practice of house flipping nearly extinguished the American dream of owning your own home.

During this destructive craze, basic cable was rife with programs like “Flip This House” making household names out of insatiable real estate whores looking to wring out some extra cash out of an already overinflated market.

This “get-rich-quick” programming trickled into nearly every marketplace including classic cars, birthing programs like “Unique Whips,” “King of Cars” and “Wrecks to Riches.”

The later of the three was easily the most egregious as shop owner Barry White bellowed, barked and belittled his staff into hurriedly cranking out uninspired, soulless “40-footers” ultimately destined to be sold off to the highest bidder at the conclusion of each vapid episode.

Do you dream of owning an original '70 Challenger? Chances of finding a straight, low-rust E-Body continues to become more scarce as flippers and auction whores continue to snatch up and bid off any remaining examples. There ARE good cars out there, but not the factory BOSS 302, 440 Six-Pack or SS 427 that you're dreaming of. Be prepared to settle for a straight six or a limp small block.

Flashy editing, rock n’ roll soundtracks and Hollywood marketing did its all to mask White’s true intention of sloughing off each week’s car for the highest possible price. For a do-it-yourselfer muscle car enthusiast, it was televised automotive prostitution.

I was working at Mopar Muscle when a B5 Blue convertible ’71 Plymouth HEMI 4-speed ‘Cuda sold for over two million dollars. It was a landmark sale that rang like a klaxon throughout the industry. Seemingly simultaneously, anything with a HEMI became a hot commodity; restored originals, unmolested survivors, re-bodied VIN swaps, even cloned cars.

"Barn Finds" are still achievable but rarely for the fistful of cash that you're carrying on you. Hoarders typically have been spoiled by the outrageous sums raked in by big televised auctions and expect to sell off their unfinished projects and rusting rarities for a mint.

If it was a vintage Mopar packing a 426 elephant, it was worth some major dough. Suddenly, a ’66 Coronet on eBay which hadn’t moved in months sold for $9,000. Plain Jane Barracudas, 318 Chargers, and rusted-out Road Runners were now worth their weight in gold.

What ensued was a flood of over-inflated pricing on all things quasi-rare in the Mopar enthusiast market. The 383-powered ’69 Dodge Charger I picked up only a couple years earlier for $1,200 was now selling for $10,000 on eBay.

Old HEMI parts on RacingJunk.com suddenly became as rare as hen’s teeth. Of course, it wasn’t just HEMI-powered Mopars either. Corvettes of nearly every make and model became overnight treasures including unexciting Silver Anniversary Editions and clunky fuel-injected C4s.

Being an undaunted budget-minded enthusiast, I started asking around. What I found were a lot of “That guy’s got a ton of those,” or “You might want to hit this guy up. He knows where a bunch of these are” leads. Often, these wild goose chases landed me on the doorstep of unrelenting hoarders, people who either for psychological or emotional reasons, absolutely refused to part with anything.

These weren’t instances of a hardtop Chevelle  buried under 30 years of junk in a guy’s garage who bought it new back in 1968 and can’t bare the thought of parting with it, or the doting father who dreams of eventually restoring the rotting shell of a ’65 GTO in his sideyard with his son someday; no, these were mentally ill individuals who slowly accrued their own salvage yard’s-worth of vintage Detroit iron for little more than to merely “collect.”

Muscle cars were never meant to be the fodder of the rich and famous, or the affluent and isolationist. Muscle cars were originally geared for the performance-loving young enthusiast who didn't have a lot to spend and didn't want all the fluff. Today, they've become the stuff of static displays and show circuits, like Van Gogh's landscapes or Worhol's pop portraits.

Oftentimes, these hoarders have been fueled by the perception that their congested barn or backyard is an automotive goldmine, and that one fine day, some multimillionaire will hand over a fat check in exchange for a life’s worth of unchecked disposophobia. Be it for whatever reason, these people and their psychosis are just as injurious to the future of the hobby as any of the aforementioned examples.

While this is no car culture communist manifesto, this is meant to be a sad commentary on how cutthroat things have become. I poised a question a few months back on the SLTV Facebook page, asking “Why do today’s youth think FWD cars are cool?” The two most common answers were the most telling, “Because muscle cars are too expensive” or “They’re all gone.”

The reality is that, no, they’re not all gone, but they are becoming exceedingly expensive thanks to the virtual slashing and burning the classic car market. If you know a young gearhead, help him out. Cut him a deal. Show him the ropes. Its time to preserve not just our muscle cars, but our muscle car culture as well.

Light ’em up,

Kevin