LIFESTYLE | SEPTEMBER 2026 | 5 MIN READ
VINTAGE CARS – THE NEW BIRKINS
Gen Z, the most digital generation in history, buys vinyl, shoots on analogue film — and drives thirty-year-old cars with manual transmissions. This isn't nostalgia. It's a statement.
There is a generation that grew up with the internet before it could walk. A generation that had its first social interaction on a platform before it even knew what a platform was. A generation that, by the age of eighteen, had accumulated more digital experience than most people do in an entire lifetime. And this very generation — the most connected, fastest, and most algorithmically shaped generation there has ever been — is now turning around. Not away from technology, but toward something it cannot find there: the physical. The tactile. The real. Vinyl. Analogue film. And thirty-year-old cars with manual transmissions. The cliché would be to dismiss this as nostalgia — as a sentimental return to a past they never experienced themselves. But that doesn't quite capture it. Nostalgia is passive. What is happening here is active. It is a conscious decision against the frictionlessness of a world that optimizes and automates every experience, ultimately stripping it of its substance. And within this movement, the car is the most interesting example — because it sits at the intersection of three things that define where culture is heading.
The first is status. When did we stop building beautiful cars? The Alfa Romeo Spider was in production for almost thirty years — not because nobody wanted to replace it, but because nobody could figure out how to make it better. A body, a line, an attitude so complete that time never managed to outdate it. Today, a new SUV appears every year, one that parks itself, keeps you in your lane, and, if desired, comes with so much technology that the actual act of driving becomes an optional side effect. No one has ever fallen in love with a car because it parks well. What separates the vintage car from the Birkin — and at the same time takes it beyond it — is precisely this: You can buy a Hermès bag if you have the money and the right access. A vintage car requires taste, time, and knowledge. Things that cannot be bought.
The second is community. Car meetups were long the domain of a very specific demographic — weekends, parking lots, a closed circle with its own codes and little connection to broader culture. That has changed. The events emerging today are no longer simply car shows. They are gatherings. People don't come only for the cars — they come for the environment the cars create. Car clubs are becoming the new third place, perhaps the new tennis club — not primarily because of the object itself, but because of the community that forms around it. A community built on genuine passion, rather than algorithmic overlap in interests.
The third is feeling. There is something about the moment you turn a key — rather than press a button. About an engine starting with a sound that hasn't been optimized through sound design. About shifting into gear and feeling that the connection between driver and vehicle is physical — no interface, no assistance system in between. A vintage car demands attention. It requires skill. It rewards ability and punishes carelessness — with a driving experience so direct that it can barely be given the same name as operating a modern vehicle. In a world that automates every experience, choosing a mechanical object that requires competence is almost a political act. A conscious decision against the disempowerment of comfort. In favor of experiencing things on your own terms and taking responsibility for the experience. This is the same logic behind vinyl and analogue film. Behind manual transmissions and handwritten letters. Behind everything that is more cumbersome than its digital alternative — and precisely because of that, more real. Friction not as a disadvantage, but as value. Not as something that needs to be overcome, but as the very thing that gives the experience meaning in the first place.
The vintage car is not a symptom of looking backward. It is a compass. And every great drive needs the right soundtrack to go with it.