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There is a lot of head scratching going on in Detroit these days. It seems no one there understands why they're losing the war for the hearts and minds of the younger generation.

Perhaps this is because they are just too far removed from the street and what is going on there. The introduction of new car models almost exclusively aimed at the youth market is probably a mistake if substantial sales are the object of the exercise.

In most cases, people in their 20s and early 30s can rarely afford new cars. What they can afford are five- to 10-year-old cars that they can then customize.

That makes them no different from their dads and granddads, who as teens and 20-somethings in the 1940s, '50s and '60s were cobbling together cars from parts bins and scrap yards. The only difference now is that young customizers buy their upgrades from catalogues rather than by cruising though yards full of wrecks and derelicts.

In the 1950s, the Model A Ford was the car of choice. Not because it was desirable, but because it was cheap and there were lots of them.

Making them go faster, or at least look like they could go faster, was critical to the ego and social standing of many of their young owners.

In the late 1990s, the Honda Civic had become the modern Model A for the same reasons: They were cheap and had lots of parts available to make them a little faster and become personalized.

The same can be said of quite a few other Japanese and German cars and the Civic has started to see its broad appeal flag as other used imports become cheaper, develop a diverse and relatively inexpensive aftermarket parts supply and become perceived as cool.

This is where the headache for Detroit begins. We all harbour a nostalgic bias for our first car as well as the manufacturer of that car. But today, a young driver's first car is far more likely to be Japanese or German.

That means the manufacturers of those cars have a great advantage over the domestic manufacturers: They are, by default, already embedded in the hearts and minds of what are going to be the buyers of new cars in the next 10 years.

In the natural progression of buying power that occurs, the owner whose first car was a Honda Civic is far more likely to wander into a Honda dealership to buy his or her first new car than into a General Motors dealership.

So how can the once Big Three fix this?

Well, it's likely not with the creation of models targeted for the youth market. That market is too mercurial and easy to lose.

For instance, Ford had a good crack at it with the Focus but perceived problems of reliability and fit and finish by recalls in the first the model's first few years have earned it a very poor reputation among many young drivers, who now avoid almost all Fords like the plague. With one fell swoop Ford lost the war for the hearts and minds of an entire generation of buyers.

General Motors has fared a little better with the Cavalier. Although prone to corrosion damage, it's fairly reliable and has sired a fairly strong aftermarket parts supply.

Chrysler's Neon has not really made much of an impact and although they are out there they have not reached a very prominent profile amongst the tuners. They just aren't cool -- except for the SRT4, which the young can't afford.

It really amounts to the fact that domestics are just not perceived as cool. The car companies need to realize that if they were to create programs for supporting their five- to 10-year-old products with affordable custom parts and even event sponsorships, they would have a much better chance of turning things around.

One small proof of this has been with the Pontiac GTO. When they first appeared at drifting events, the GTOs were booed. Now, after staying the course, winning events and attracting top drifters, the GTO is being given a grudging acceptance.

The new Cobalt could profit from that grudging acceptance. While the GTO will likely still be a little too expensive for a young buyer, in five years time the Cobalt will likely be quite affordable.

Programs aimed to support it as a five-year-old platform with whatever custom body and mechanical parts in vogue at the time could plant the seeds for a crop of new-car customers 10 years down the road who would otherwise never dream of buying a General Motors or any other domestic product.

Combine that with the amount of profit that could be garnered from an efficient aftermarket sales program and perhaps a small light could be seen at the end of a very dark tunnel.

David Grainger owns an automotive restoration company.

dgrainger@globeandmail.ca