Make sure Modesto classic car museum appeals to youth who never cruised

The graffiti museum planned in Modesto — with its classic cars, old-time diner and Legends of the Cruise exhibit — looks like a rollicking good time.

For some.

Many people will relish a walk or slow drive down Memory Lane. Warm summer nights, rock ‘n’ roll, flirting, showing off hot rods and muscle cars, burgers and shakes at the drive-in — all will come alive again through artwork and memorabilia, sparking sweet nostalgia in a certain portion of our population.

The Graffiti USA Classic Car Museum is expected to draw hordes from around the country and perhaps beyond to the corner of Ninth Street and Coldwell Avenue, near Modesto Junior College’s east campus. Attendees will seek a peek into yesteryear, remembering an age of innocence, of young lives yearning to break free.

Visitors will learn, or recall, that Modesto circa 1962 was the setting for American Graffiti, the coming-of-age classic based on producer George Lucas’ youth here before his rise to fame with the Star Wars franchise. American Graffiti was a hit with critics and the movie-going public when released in 1973, and helped to put Modesto on the cultural map of the Fifties and Sixties.

Modesto cheerleaders have done an admirable job reminding us of this legacy, erecting in 2016 the American Graffiti life-size bronze sculpture at the Five Points intersection and instituting the Modesto Historic Cruise Route Walk of Fame a few years before. The annual Graffiti Summer gala with its concerts, parade and car show does Modesto proud.

“We are effectively the intergalactic home of American Graffiti,” Modesto businessman Chris Murphy told Stanislaus County supervisors Tuesday.

A grand car-culture museum capturing our cruising heritage is a laudable next step. By all means, let’s celebrate that which makes Modesto special and helps us fondly remember a time when life was less complicated.

At the same time, let us recognize with clear-eyed frankness that a graffiti museum may not be for everyone.

Click on the “About Us” tab at the proposed museum’s website. A group photo of 19 supporters appears. Many are civic and business leaders, a Who’s Who of Modesto stalwarts. Not one appears younger than 50.

Lets face it: The cruising demographic is an aging crowd. And it’s not realistic to expect they’ll be replaced by today’s youth, a generation raised without cruising.

It’s not their fault that Modesto city leaders, concerned at rising violence, banned cruising in 1990.

Enhance Modesto museum’s appeal to youth

The challenge for museum proponents, then, is this: Find a way to include and excite our young people.

On Tuesday, the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors gave the museum a huge boost with a $1.2 million, five-year loan. Last week, the Modesto City Council gave $500,000 in COVID-19 relief money to the graffiti museum, and also gave equal amounts to proposals for both the Modesto Children’s Museum and Awesome Spot Playground for disabled and other kids.

The children’s museum and the Awesome Spot have built-in constituencies. Modesto has lots of children, and we have children with special needs, and we always will.

This is not the case with the graffiti museum, whose natural constituency — mature people who lived through the Fifties and Sixties, and are happy to drop a few bucks to relive that age — is not being replenished by new generations with similar experiences.

The graffiti museum’s promotional literature makes quick mention of the prospect of drawing students. Let’s hear more about that. Let’s see how organizers intend to appeal to youngsters raised in a digital age and not a dragster age.

Let’s develop a solid model that will draw and retain the rising generation. Modesto wants and needs a showcase that has a chance to last forever, and it’s up to organizers to make sure that happens.

This story was originally published July 1, 2021 at 4:00 AM.