Did you know that the second Friday in July is Collector Car Appreciation Day? SEMA has lured the U.S. Senate away from more-pressing matters to designate the second Friday in July as such, and we admit we are a bit perturbed that we don’t get the day off. Maybe once Collector Car Appreciation Day progresses from annually renewed observance to federal holiday.
We’re just planning to celebrate by grilling out in the back. Hagerty Insurance—valiant guardian of classic and collector cars— is gathering 10 vintage cars ranging from a prewar Packard to a split-window Corvette at the Automotive Hall of Fame in Dearborn, Michigan, to teach local kids the ins and outs of classic-car ownership and maintenance. This is the first so-called Hagerty Driving Experience, but the company has plans to develop it into a national program with dates throughout the year. As this month also marks the one-year anniversary of our Save the Manuals! campaign, we were pleased to note that the syllabus includes lessons on driving a manual transmission. We’ll be on hand with our self-propelled StM billboard, but admit that learning to drive a stick in a Mazda 2 might not be quite as memorable as learning on a Packard.