Here at GM Authority, we often write about vehicles which have been returned to as-new – or in some cases arguably better – condition several decades after they left the factory. This led us to wonder: will the same thing be happening to today’s GM cars in the future? Or is it possible that, in 2050, more cars built in 1990 will still exist than those which first ventured on to the roads in 2020?
There are good reasons to hold both positive and negative views on the subject. The most persuasive reason to feel negative is the issue of fixability. There can be no doubt that this has changed considerably since the dawn of motoring. If, say, an Oldsmobile Curved Dash broke down, its owner might take it to the nearest blacksmith to see if he could fix it, and if the blacksmith couldn’t he probably knew someone who could. Fixing cars became more specialized as the years went on, but even well after the Second World War there was nothing strange about an owner working on a car if it wasn’t running right.
The situation began to change as the 20th century drew to a close and electronics became as dominant a feature of car design as they are of almost everything else. We may appreciate electronics or we may not, but there is no denying that they have made cars faster, safer, more reliable, more economical and less polluting (though not necessarily more beautiful or lovable) than could have been imagined before the revolution began.
Bertha Benz
The downside is that today’s GM cars, and indeed those produced by any other manufacturer, are far less fixable than the models that went before them. One might almost say they are hardly fixable at all. A fueling problem – the sort of thing that Bertha Benz (pictured) could and did solve with a hat pin when she made the world’s first long-distance road trip in 1888 – would now require investigation of software which owners have neither knowledge of nor access to.
This work, or the next step which involves replacing an entire computer, must be done by a specialist working for or on behalf of the manufacturer, using very specific tools. It is not something that can be done at home. Hat pins will no longer serve.
And we’re only talking about ICE models here. We have come this far without even considering hybrids or fully electric vehicles. What happens when something goes wrong with an electric motor or a battery? Must it be replaced entirely or can it be fixed? Could an everyday motorist afford the former without breaking the bank, or achieve the latter by his or herself? If neither of these is possible now, is it reasonable to believe that they might be possible in 30 years’ time?
Well, perhaps it is. There were surely people who believed that the earliest home computers and the pioneering electronic keyboards (back when they were called synthesizers) were as unfixable as today’s GM cars and rival models seem to be now, and they were wrong. The unimaginable becomes familiar in time, and the impossible becomes commonplace. Restoration of those once futuristic but now primitive devices is being done by enthusiasts whom the rest of us might consider eccentric, but the important point is that it is being done.
Equally eccentric folk might decide 30 years from now that this worn-out Buick Enclave or that stuttering Cadillac CT4, built way back in 2020, ought to be saved. If enough people think that way, there will almost certainly be others making money by creating the supply to meet the demand. That’s how the world works. Why else would it be possible today to buy a crate version of the 350 cubic inch Chevy Small Block V8 which first appeared under the hood of the ’67 Camaro SS?
A similar situation in 2050 isn’t hard to imagine: “Replacement motor for a Bolt EV? Coming right up. It’s on the same shelf as the Toronado driveshafts.” The hardware will be cheap, because electronic hardware always is, and nobody will be sufficiently hungry for profits from the software to make that as expensive as it is now, though of course it will be just expensive enough to be worth selling.
It’s therefore likely that, if there’s a demand for parts for today’s cars well into the future, then a supply will be created to meet it. And that takes us from, “Will anyone restore today’s GM cars 30 years from now?” to “Would anyone want to?” Most readers of GM Authority, and certainly all of its writers, are car people, so we like to think that cars are as exciting and frustrating and thrilling and infuriating as they seemed to everyone who saw them when they appeared in the late 19th century.
But not everyone thinks that way. Not even most people do. As cars have become more popular, they have become increasingly treated as appliances – more expensive than a refrigerator or a television, of course, and more difficult to operate, but not necessarily more emotionally engaging. That’s why, while few car people like the idea of autonomous vehicles while many non-car people love it; and, let’s not forget, there are more of them than us.
The real breakthrough for autonomous vehicles will not be technological. It will be social. A generation will grow up whose members would no more think of driving a car than of drying their clothes by beating them against a rock. Why spend time steering and braking and accelerating when one could be consuming the latest Hollywood blockbuster on a smartphone or a virtual reality headset while the car drives itself? Professional motorsport won’t survive for long in that new environment, and the car will be well on its way to becoming about as relevant as Whitney’s cotton gin. The restoration of old models will almost certainly die out with the talented men and women who do that work so well, though it might make a comeback round about the year 2250.
So, after that convoluted thought process, here’s the answer to the original question. Will anyone restore today’s GM cars 30 years from now? If there’s enough demand for parts to make supply worthwhile, then very possibly yes. But in 100 years? Almost certainly not.
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Comments
I’m looking forward to restoring a 30 year old spark hahaha
How about the white C7 pictured as lead image? I would restore that!
Well there are a number of cars that are nearly Un restorable due to the fact that they are over complicated and there is a lack of part for many 70’ to present vehicles.
Salvage yards process cars and scrap them fast so many simple cars like bumpers are impossible to find.
We will still have some cars like Corvettes Nd the like that will be restored but many cars that will fade away.
When was the last time you saw restored a Chevy Citation, Omni, Fairmont?
Of course every product is restorable , people even restore old bricked iphones which are much more complex electronics than cars. It looks a tall order even flat-out impossible for people like the guy who written this article because they don’t have any idea about electronics and software, they’re petrol-head ice engine mechanic minds so it’s an alien technology for them. By the way this can also be true for the people at the other side of the equation. It would look like a witchcraft rebuilding a rusted ’67 camaro for a software engineer who never had never held a hammer. Imho it could be easier to restore cars in the future because of the full time experts that would guide and be ready for you in the form of augmented reality googles that loaded with every kind of task tutorials.
Not everything is restorable or easily restorable.
There are some parts that are just not available or easily substituted in some of these newer cars and many salvage yard scrap the cars with in day not months or years. No one is willing to make a new one as the market is so small. Other gaskets really don’t fit.
Talk to the guys with the Fiero T tops. The gaskets for these are impossible to find new anymore. The last NOS one sold for as much as some of the cars. The glass tops are Found often used in poor shape. A few NOS ones are around but there is no sub for these.
While it is true anything is restorable physically not many are financially. Many a Ferrari is parted out as it is not worth the cost to restore it. Often they are worth more in parts.
May be some printed items may filter down in some cases but it will not fix all the shortages.
The bottom line is not the skill but the cost vs value that kills most of these cars from coming back from the dead.
My guess is 3D printers will be vastly available for retail customers in future. So you will not need to search internet for unique spare parts or ramble junkyards for donors.
You think people will 3d print circuit boards with all of the chips on them? What about the software?
“Professional motorsport won’t survive for long in that new environment,” the car replaced the horse right? but horse racing still exists, maybe not as big as in 1890 but still exists. Car racing will continue on for a long time, but will see declining viewership.
They said restore, not race.
I own an unrestored 1995 Camaro convertible with 48,000kms. It is mint, has never seen rain or snow and I love touring around in it when it’s out of heated storage from late May until early October. If it deteriorates I will restore it…it’s a 26 year old beauty.
Very Good, I do the same with my 1999 S10 Xtreme I ordered new!
Um you legally can’t restore a !odern car in30 years. The software is under copywriter and patents for the next 150 years. So if an electronic module goes bad In 2050 unless there is an official replacement part it can’t be replaced.
That is why so many places are beging to push right to repair laws. It is also why john deere is losing sales left and right. Unless you are a john deere rep you can’t repair your john deere tractor.
Ford gm etc are pushing cars the same direction. Odb data is a good example. Look at how they locked down that data. And now guess at the center console computer and how bad that is locked down.
Several reasons why cars of today won’t be restored 30 years from now. The main reason for that is that none of the cars we have are worth restoring. That doesn’t just hold true for Chevy but all of the brands out there are JUNK!!, No one is going to restore a Camry, or Malibu or a trailblazer or any of the crap we have today. Are current “muscle cars” are a joke and they’re all plastic and computers. Who in their right mind is going to restore this nonsense. The cars worth restoring are all gone and manufacturers aren’t looking to make new ones! They’re content with the worthless BS they’re shoving down our throats at ridiculous prices and all we do is buy them up! American cars are a complete disgrace and we should be embarrassed to drive them. I’ll admit there was a time when I loved them and had a deep passion for the auto industry and the glory of muscle cars and all of that stuff. but now i look at these cars and feel like what a waste! The Camaro is a disaster, the mustang is an overpriced joke and the Dodge garbage is a collection of the more garrish and overdown junk that disgraces their performance history! They are FIATs for crying out loud! Even foreign performance legends are becoming terrible. A BMW disguised as a car named the Toyota Supra which is more-less just an overgrown Scion FRS. A replaced Skyline called the GTR that is nothing like a skyline at all. These cars aren’t legendary anymore, they’re just crap. I’m sorry but no, no one is going to give a crap about anything from today’s era. besides, everything will be electric junk in the future thanks to Elon Musk! Way to go bud, thanks for ruining the auto industry!!!!! This entire industry is a complete waste of time anymore which is why anyone with sense is getting out of it and as far away from it as possible. The glory days and golden ages are dead!
Old man yells at cloud?
Yesh! Someone take away his ibm from 1969!
If left unchecked the manufacturers will make ownership of the software illegal and cars will become disposable. Thirty years from now a concours restoration of a 2020 may be impossible. What will happen is a 2020 will get a Mr.Fusion reactor and an electric drive or a hover conversion.
There will always be enthusiasts for old vehicles but the software will be a stumbling block. That said maybe the technology 30 years from now will make designing an engine control module child’s play. The question is will anyone want 2020 vehicles I. 2050? Its more likely they will still want 1960s muscle cars.
I bought my first and last new GM car in 1978. I bought my first and last Ford vehicle in 1978. Detroit turn out real garbage in the 1970s. I will not make that mistake again and the UAW support for Barack Hussein Obama was unforgivable.
He’s not the president anymore. Give him a break.
Every newer model GM vehicle I’ve seen that is from the 1997 to 2008 year models have busted up dashboards and it’s expensive and a pain to replace if you can even find them. I can’t tell you how many otherwise okay GM vehicles I’ve seen that I just said not no but heck no cause of the ugly dashboard. That’s just one of the issues I see with GM vehicles. Screwed up instrument clusters a re another issue.
What do you mean by busted up dashboards? Like they put their first through it or something?
the dash boards were improperly engineered so that when they heat up they break due too thermal expansion. the easy fix for this was allow the dashboard to expand and contract. in simpler terms don’t bolt the dashboard super tight to the dash skeleton. leave a millimeter or two of give. that’s how I fixed my Silverado dash a couple of years ago. doing this has made my new dash last longer than the original.
2 words…….what for ???????
Here are a few proclamations that came to defend the ego of my car-hoarding mind:
No one restores a muscle car to drive to work, so I don’t think the trend of making old things new will ever fade away, especially for folks who favor sustainability over the hot new thing. Plus, not everyone restores to OEM spec – and the world will never run out of aftermarket standalone systems, so I think people will gladly take a sixth-gen Camaro ZL1 clunker and ‘restore’ it (as long as they can still legally drive it on the road)
The Bolt EV is tomorrow’s car built today, and most folks taking the time to restore a vehicle probably won’t aim for it, though Chevy released an EV kit that was retrofitted to a Blazer. This crossing of old and new shows, in my opinion, that obsoletion is often in the eye of the beholder. At least until law makers say otherwise.
Bring A Trailer is clear proof that nostalgia is unpredictable, leading to $35,000 base Honda Civics.
I could see car folks in the 1970s wondering if their split-nose Camaro would still exist in 2000, expecting future cars to fly around with autopilot.
Ok… *breathes deeply*… I think the denial has passed.
With the advent of home 3-D parts printers, it would seem that all mechanical parts will be uploaded and reproduced. Electrical items not so easily. I recently replaced my computer printer that had a false ” jammed carriage” fault because new printer was less than the cost to even have a service technician look at the repair of old one. So what will a 2050 “Retomod” look like…probably a Delorean from back to the future. “Roads? , we don’t need roads” Dr. Emmett Brown
I have a 2006 Chevy Silverado 63000 miles bought brand new in 2006 same parts on the truck from the factory good condition have all records of maintaining to the truck
I don’t see junk yards and swap meets selling car parts for new cars like you do of the cars of the past. I don’t think the resources will be there to restore these vehicles – getting the vehicle computers & software is the a whole other issue as well.
So, I see it moving to more ‘kit or replica’ cars (like the Shay Model A’s or the Factory 5 Cobra’s)…. if someone truly wants a 2012 Volt (or whatever) you get everything you need to piece together a look a like vehicle. Not technically restoring, but at least you would have all the pieces to the puzzle.
In my opinion, thirty years from now there will not be so much of a “restoration” of today’s vehicles. Instead, I think we’ll see increased applications of electric motors in crate form being installed to older vehicles (aka the recent K5 Blazer). I also think we’ll see more “preservation” of only the rare, unique, or cool vehicles from the era. Think about C7 Corvettes and 1LE ZL1 Camaros. Stuff that was cool today, but fear of being the last of its kind soon.
The Cadillac CTS Coupe has to be a decent restoration candidate.
with 3d printing and more automated manufacturing, i would think restoration will be easier decades from now.
Good cars with a strong performance history behind them would be worth the restoration effort, Impala, Camaro and Corvette certainly, the V6 Powered Cruze and Malibu could also be considered.
Unless there is move for repo parts on the later cars it will hinder the Dd to it the cost of restoration is not getting cheaper.
But with that said if you look around there are tons of low mile well cared for performance models out there.
Many in the 80’s and 90’s bought performance cars as toys. They drove them in nice days and in limited miles. They hoped that they would be the next ZL1 of the future.
Well that has left us with a lot of clean low priced Corvettes, Camaro’s, Mustangs, Monte S and other models that are great deals today.
With a large supply and low demand you can find a nearly new car for under $12k.
As for copy rights no one is reprogramming cars but tuners and no one is stopping them.
The truth is the age of the auto enthusiast market is getting older. While they still spend more money there is no youth to replace all of them. I expect we will begin to see a decline in the after market in the coming future.
Much of the performance market has moved to Trucks and Jeep’s. The youth car market has really declined.
It has hit the big name companies as many have closed or sold out. Many are owned by large investment groups now.
I recall I used to call and deal with the person who’s name was on the company and today are gone at most companies.
Who ever thought there would not be an Edelbrock at the company calling the shots.
This all depends on being able to buy (and use) gasoline…
ICE engines are planned till 2050 and Gasoline will remain viable beyond that.
Even now s GM adds EV models they are not cutting ICE models.
The greater danger will be states like California doing something to make it more difficult to own older vehicles.
There are places in the world they raise the tax on older models to get people to buy new models. I could see California doing that.
If you are lucky in 30 yrs. you will be able to buy gas at the track for $15 a gallon,in today’s dollar in 55 gallon barrels because gas pumps and fuel tankers will be extinct just like dinosaurs. Hot Rodding will be dead unless it is electric and if you have a gas car peaceful protesters will find you and burn it and you will be canceled for polluting and be fired from your job and they will take your house and you will live your life out in squaller for “free” eating “free” lettuce.The Chinese will still have coal fired power and we will be killing anything that farts to save the world
I just want to know. What’s with Republicans and their boyfriend Trump with China? We get it. It’s a bad country. It has concentration camps. The sooner we break from it the better. But seriously why would you be so obsessed with China out of all countries?! We get it it’s “yuge”. But why not Russia or India.
I was just talking with a coworker who races his Subaru and has blown 3 motors that maybe he need to go with an LS swap. By the time he adds on all his turbos and crap his engine bay is crowed and heavy. If there is an enthusiasm behind a car, then, yes. It will never die. Most the enthusiasm I see today though is behind GM trucks like the Denalis and the ZR2. Those are the only vehicles that have a following like the cameros and Broncos used to have. As long as people want to restore them, swap out guts. If GM won’t sell a motor for your ZR2 in the future, swap it.
The computers will not be an issue, particularly for GM vehicles. GM uses the same computer across many vehicle lines for a number of years, only the programming is different. They rarely fail, are not affected by mileage, and will be readily available for decades.
Restoration in 50 years of a 2014 C7? I don’t think so, but I’ll bet a pristine, low mileage, one owner car will bring tons of money!
I doubt it. There starting to be throw always. At my age i will never see it.
If we could just get the feds out of the car business, maybe we could start building great cars again. The more weight government leans on the auto industry ouch! Will it survive an EMP? Will you be able to get it running after an EMP? Will that internal combustion engine be illegal and will that swap-meet have to be held out in the desert at night?
Just like today only the ones viewed as cool will get restored. Some might be gas but when the second hot rodding boom of electric cars hits and they’re way faster the scene will be different I think. Faster will always be more popular. I like ICE but after having driven electric for a while there’s just less to miss about ICE and more to love about electric. Lol at the guy who said “will they be EMP proof?” They haven’t been for a while bud.
By the time year 2050 arrives , most plastic won’t be in shape to be saved or restored, and today cars have a lot of it. Sure a challenge for young people. Good luck
I don’t have any doubt that today’s cars can be restored in 30 years. The bigger question will be whether there will be enough of a collectible car hobby that anyone would. Cost vs value isn’t as big of an issue, as cars are often restored for reasons other than investing. (My 1929 Essex will never be worth what I have in it). The hobby is having difficulty attracting younger members, and that will be a bigger detriment to restoring today’s cars.
I don’t see why not. Electrify it! An owner with 100K plus miles on his Corvette may love it and want to make it fit-in with the newer electric cars. Put two motors in it and some batteries. It will probably go faster than the original Corvette.
Riding Harley’s and restoring cars are the hobbies of older generations that will be largely gone in 20 years. That mixed with electric cars of future making ICE cars look like a model T to younger generations
Maybe a Camaro or a Corvette. Or perhaps an ATS-V or CTS-V.
But that’s about it.
I believe in 30 years the after market will have many new products. Auto CPM’s may be commonplace as cell phones. I also believe guys and women(inclusive) will be even smarter than we are and will be enjoying hot rodding.
You think people will be smarter than we are in 30 years?
Bigger question, i believe that in 30 years there will be no gas stations as we know them today and no gasoline. I’ll bet it will be outlawed if the green people get their way.
Ha! Not a chance. Corvette Conti recently posted a video that they had an early model Corvette C5 that needed a replacement computer and could not find one. Also, try to buy replacement tires for a C7 GS or Z06 right now!
Good luck!
I’m seeing the c5 computers all over ebay. Maybe theirs was unique somehow though.
there are people out there that can repair
My guess is that we will see trucks as the more likely candidate to get restored going forward since it’s usually much easier to source parts for them.
That’s because trucks are also considerably more likely to still be on the road 30 years from now versus a coupe of the same vintage.
I mean there’s a hardware store in my town that’s still making 100 mile round trip deliveries in their 1990 K1500 that said farewell to its cab corners during the Clinton administration.