About a week ago, CBS News dug into its archives and posted an old 1971 news segment to YouTube. Originally aired on December 9th, journalist Charles Kuralt travelled to Southern California to check out the custom Volkswagen Beetle craze that had swept through youth culture.
The segment compared the cheap German punch-buggy to the “Model T of the ’70s,” a simple, inexpensive platform for customization, personalization and experimentation. Just as old Fords became lumps of clay for the hot-rod generation after WWII, young gearheads were chopping, widening and modifying Beetles into something uniquely their own.
The customizations shown in the news clip included Beetles with chopped front ends, flared fenders and narrowed running boards. Performance improvements included louder, free-flowing mufflers, hopped-up engines, wide mag wheels and oversized tires. Finishing touches ranged from pinstriping to elaborate panel jobs, because custom paint was a must.
What feels most unusual 55 years later isn’t the cars. It’s the way the young people building them are portrayed.
Rather than dismissing the cars as “death traps” or criticizing the culture for street racing and hooliganism, the CBS segment takes a surprisingly positive view. Kuralt describes the young men and women involved in car culture as future machinists and technicians, calling car customization an essential training ground.
It’s hard to imagine CBS News today looking at young, Fast & Furious-inspired gearheads in California and describing them as future machinists and technicians. More likely, they’d be portrayed as the future residents of the state’s penal system.