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" &amp;quot;Oversized taillights are a lazy design,&amp;quot; Jaxx Cabrera tells\u00A0me from the back seat of a Hyundai Veloster Rally Edition. We&amp;#039;re\u00A0talking about cars as I give him a ride out of Manhattan and north along the Hudson River. When I ask what he thinks\u00A0about the special edition Veloster, Jaxx pauses, looks\u00A0over the interior trim, and says\u00A0skeptically, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m not sure this stuff is real carbon fiber.&amp;quot;\u00A0  Jaxx is obsessed with\u00A0cars. Spends hours on the street spotting cars. He even does occasional YouTube reviews of supercars.  Jaxx just turned five years old.\u00A0  Kids don&amp;#039;t care about cars anymore. This has become the default belief even among carmakers. Who needs a car when you have Facebook?\u00A0 Various studies have shown that younger people are waiting longer to get their driving licenses\u00A0and aren&amp;#039;t buying as many cars when compared directly against an older generation. These studies mostly concern the Millennials, or Generation Y, who aren&amp;#039;t really all that young (they were born in the &amp;#039;80s or &amp;#039;90s). Still, the causality is unclear: Is it apathy or economics? After all, older generations have always had greater income to buy cars.\u00A0  Other studies, like one from J.D. Powers, indicate that Millennials are still buying plenty of cars. And so the argument volleys back and forth, from the Washington Post&amp;#039;s headline, &amp;quot;America&amp;#039;s once magical\u2014now mundane\u2014love affairs with cars&amp;quot; to Bloomberg&amp;#039;s rebuttal &amp;quot;Millennials Embrace Cars, Defying Predictions of Sales Implosion.&amp;quot; Count it all as just another cog in the wearying culture wars. Guess what? Kids still love cars. I don&amp;#039;t need a study to tell me that. I know it from 15-plus years behind the wheel testing various vehicles, often in New York City, where everyone supposedly hates cars.\u00A0 Just look at that boy hopping from foot to foot on the corner of 86th and Amsterdam, pointing out the lime-green McLaren 650S to his dad. He&amp;#039;s probably eight, a native Manhattanite whose regular ride is a yellow taxi, but he certainly knows that this exotic wedge is something special. Or my 15-year-old neighbor in rural Pennsylvania, Jake, who&amp;#039;s been saving for a car since he was 12, and is anxiously counting the months until he gets his driving permit (five and a half to be exact).\u00A0 Every time I drive something more interesting than a Corolla, I get positive reactions from all kinds of people, from various walks of life. But especially kids. There&amp;#039;s something about the proportions, stance, and oversized\u00A0wheels of a Camaro or a Wraith or a G-Wagen that, ephemerally, speaks to a young and happy heart.\u00A0 But even among all those kids, Jaxx is pretty special.\u00A0  I met Jaxx\u00A0and his dad, Miguel, one afternoon while parked in front of an elementary school near my house in northern Manhattan. I was driving a bright blue Ferrari California T. Any time I&amp;#039;m in something as special as a Ferrari, I consider it my civic duty to spread the love. So I was giving rides to neighbors, friends, and teachers. The single most repeated request: Can you give a ride to my kid?\u00A0  I was waiting, top down, for my next riders when a small voice chirped up: &amp;quot;This is the Ferrari California. It&amp;#039;s got a turbo engine.&amp;quot; I leaned over, and there was Jaxx, his head not quite reaching the top of the door.\u00A0   I invited Jaxx into the driver&amp;#039;s seat (engine off), and he played with the steering wheel as he told me, in great detail, all about the Bugattis and Ferraris and Lamborghinis he&amp;#039;d seen in various places around town and elsewhere. He was four years old at the time.\u00A0  Months later, his dad mentioned that he wanted to do something special for Jaxx&amp;#039;s fifth birthday. I offered up a ride. Unfortunately I wasn&amp;#039;t testing anything supercar-esque that week, only the rally edition Veloster, a $24,775 hatch with no performance upgrades except a short-throw shifter and revised suspension setting. Didn&amp;#039;t matter, Miguel said. They&amp;#039;d love a ride.  Part of the fun hanging out with Jaxx is that he&amp;#039;s continually scoping for cool cars, and will call them out\u2014&amp;quot;Look, a Porsche Cayenne! And there&amp;#039;s a Bentley!&amp;quot; He&amp;#039;s invariably right, and he spots them before any adult&amp;#039;s eyes are likely to.\u00A0  &amp;quot;He was obsessed from the beginning,&amp;quot; Miguel says\u00A0fondly. &amp;quot;By age one he was already recognizing car logos. I figured he&amp;#039;d grow out of it. I bought him dinosaur toys, which he totally ignored. So we embraced it.&amp;quot;\u00A0 By age two, according to Miguel, Jaxx\u00A0was recognizing all car makes and many models, and\u00A0scrutinizing car magazines. By three came engine sizes and specs, and by four he was &amp;quot;reviewing&amp;quot; his toy cars on YouTube. He makes some pretty good points in his reviews, including\u00A0one of a\u00A0LaFerrari model he got for his birthday.\u00A0  &amp;quot;Be gentle with the real one. It doesn&amp;#039;t have a bumper, so if you&amp;#039;re driving around and go very fast and don&amp;#039;t know where you&amp;#039;re going . . .\u00A0well, you really have to be careful with this car.&amp;quot;\u00A0 Jaxx also has\u00A0more than 700 Hot Wheels\u00A0and donates duplicates to Goodwill. Miguel says that family members drag him along whenever buying a new car, because he charms the salespeople, and usually they get a better deal. &amp;quot;All the dealers on 11th Avenue know him,&amp;quot; Miguel says. As for his dream car, he is definitive (and which he pronounces in an adorable squeaky intonation): The Lamborghini Veneno. &amp;quot;I love it,&amp;quot; he\u00A0says.\u00A0\u00A0  Yes, maybe it&amp;#039;s true that some teens won&amp;#039;t get their license anytime soon. Or if the autonomous future really comes true, ever. But as long as there&amp;#039;s a Jaxx out there\u2014millions of &amp;#039;em\u2014trust that a love of cars will continue.\u00A0 (Jason Harper, a contributing editor to\u00A0Road &amp;amp;amp; Track, has tested and written on cars for two decades. His scariest drive was a rally race in an original Lancia 037, his first drive of a supercar was the Porsche Carrera GT, and the only time he&amp;#039;s gotten a speeding ticket was in a base Mini Cooper.\u00A0His column,\u00A0Harper&amp;#039;s Bizarre, runs every Wednesday.) "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a27875/dont-buy-the-hypekids-still-love-cars/>