Back in the 1980s when I was a lad I had a poster of a Lamborghini Countach on my wall. At the time it represented the absolute pinnacle of teenage automotive fantasy:
To my eyes the car looked from another planet, particularly in white. The other car I lusted after was the Ferrari 308GTB (as driven by Tom Selleck as Magnum PI:
…sheer poetry in metal….
During those same spotty teen years I also liked (in no particular order): Starsky & Hutch; Tintin, Scooby Doo (I always had a soft spot for Velma) , the Sweeney, Miami Vice (very difficult to pull off the white jacket and pink trousers look in a small Suffolk market town, but I gave it a go) and Kojak.
Wind the clock forward to the digital 21st Century and spotty youths like my self are now in the lower foothills of their 40s and find themselves in positions where they finally have a bit of spare cash and are in positions where they can actually take decisions and influence things. The result? The secondhand prices of Countach (now 30yr old car) are a faintly ridiculous £250k and rising. Starsky&Hutch has been re-made as a film, as has Scooby Doo, Miami Vice and Tintin. Ray Winstone is now appearing in the new film of the Sweeney (I can’t wait to see him say “shut it!”).
It’s all part of a phenomenon called the cohort effect. People of roughly the same age have shared experiences – music they liked, films they watched, cars they thought were cool but could never afford. When these people grow-up they get to live out their fantasies: buying the car of their teenage dreams, making the film of the TV show they loved when they were 13.
Brands occasionally tap into this but as often as not they do it by accident rather than intentionally.
…so here goes with my own very personal list of micro-trends that will get big/valuable/be re-made some time soon:
Films dying to be re-made: Beverly Hills Cop, Where Eagles Dare, Police Academy, Spitting Image (ok that one’s a TV show, but it was hilarious and surely worth a revival)
Music due for a surge in popularity: Roxy Music, The Jam, The Style Council, The Scorpions (my tastes were eclectic), the Pet Shop Boys (the played at the Paralympic Opening Ceremony so it ma ybe happening already)
Cars whose values should rise: Porsche 944, Porsche 928, Audi Quattro (already on the rise thanks to ‘Ashes to Ashes’), Audi 100 (the original ‘Vorsprung durch technik’ car)
…and last, but not least, a catchphrase that should be revived: ‘Wotcha’ (an all purpose word which has all the elegance of an Anglo-Saxon ‘ca-va?’