Interestingly the things you mention do make it sound like a different era. Many millennials don’t drive, don’t know what fuel costs today, and have no idea what a rotary engine is. The American fascination with cars probably peaked around 1971.
that's an interesting question. cars/motorcycles/fast things were a huge box-office theme in the 90s and 2000s, with many franchises featuring car thieves, enthusiasts, and racers -- but the same trend was around in the 70s.
If one generalizes social direction by using box office themes as an indicator, like plenty of people (probably unwisely) do, it's a tough question.
Sports car sales, a decent indicator of automotive interest due to their singular purpose nature, were higher in the 90s and 2000s than the 70s.
Just as a singular example, take the Corvette[0]. A practically useless car for anything but enthusiasts, sports driving, and status. It sold 21 thousand units in 71, and 53 thousand units in 84. If that's any indicator, the peak must've been past 71, at least, albeit that's a fairly weak indicator given the gas crisis a few years later that spurred most folks away from anything with a big engine.
Cars are still a huge status symbol for the rich, famous, and successful. Millenial-aged rappers are still buying Lamborghinis.
To be clear : I think you're dead-on correct that millenials are driving less, but personally I think that means more about millenials lack of financial mobility more than it does the failure of the automobile to allure current generations.
Cars are a status symbol because most city people don't really need them.
> About 87 percent of 19-year-olds in 1983 had their licenses, but more than 30 years later, that percentage had dropped to 69 percent.
> Drivers in their 20s, 30s and 40s also saw their ranks fall as a percentage of their age group population since 1983—down about 13 percentage points for those in their 20s, more than eight percentage points for thirtysomethings and nearly three percentage points for those in their 40s.
http://www.umtri.umich.edu/what-were-doing/news/more-america...
An aside but I’ve always found that turn of phrase bemusing. The right word is “can’t”, nobody says “I don’t swim” or “I don’t wire a plug”. It’s like people realise that it’s something they ought to be able to do and are deficient in it.
Undoubtedly more common in Europe - lots of Londoners don't own cars because there's nowhere cheap to park at either end of a trip, the traffic is bad, and the public transport is usable.
In my experience those people never use that phrase, they say “I don’t have a car”.