Anybody Else Hate New Cars & Miss Old Ones?

[beagle9]

I think everyone can agree that the worst older automotive abomination (or at least GM's) were those Oldsmobile diesels in the late '70s or '80s. Because those brain-addled, idiotic, shitheaded, cretinous, drooling-vegetable morons thought it was really cute to take a V8 GASOLINE block and put diesel heads on it (!!!). Which means the bore and stroke were all wrong for it to ever run correctly as a diesel. Its water jacket system was too small to disperse the extreme extra heat of a diesel. The crankshaft, connecting rods and bearings, and general metallic structure of the engine parts weren't anywhere near thick, heavy and reinforced enough to withstand the extreme extra torque of a diesel, so it had this adorable habit of throwing a rod at 40K miles. I'm sure it made an interesting, very expensive-sounding noise when it did so.

My aunt and uncle had an Olds diesel station wagon in the early '80s, it always spewed a giant, angry-looking stream of black smoke behind it - much like the starship Enterprise "tracer stream" when it goes into warp drive - and it had that 40k mile lifespan. Which was so rampant at the time I think they were recalled at some point but I don't remember for sure. That experiment certainly didn't last long. I've never heard of one of these unholy gasoline/diesel miscegenation engines lasting any longer than that forty thousand threshold.

Yep, remember that disaster as well. Had a part that controlled the syncronization of the fuel injection pump with the transmission shift, and it cost around $170.00 dollars to fix. I had to replace the motor with a junkyard motor after 70,000 miles I think. Who knows where that car is now. Gotta be in a scrapyard somewhere. Good riddance.

 

[rightwinger]

We are living now in a time that no one who remembers the great muscle cars of the late 60's and early 70's thought would ever comeback. Many of today's cars can out accelerate and out handle ANYTHING from that bygone era...as much as we like to keep those memories these new cars are just so much more, from the factory...WITH A WARRANTY!!!

745HP Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 SVT w/ Ford Racing Exhaust!"



2019 Dodge Hellcat Redeye 797HP- Jay Leno’s Garage"

Lighter weight and more efficient engines and transmissions make today’s cars much faster than they appear

 

[The Purge]

We are living now in a time that no one who remembers the great muscle cars of the late 60's and early 70's thought would ever comeback. Many of today's cars can out accelerate and out handle ANYTHING from that bygone era...as much as we like to keep those memories these new cars are just so much more, from the factory...WITH A WARRANTY!!!

745HP Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 SVT w/ Ford Racing Exhaust!"



2019 Dodge Hellcat Redeye 797HP- Jay Leno’s Garage"

Lighter weight and more efficient engines and transmissions make today’s cars much faster than they appear

Hmmm...Dodge Hellcat weights 4350 lbs, as much as an old, fully loaded Cadillac and even with undersized, stock tires will cut the quarter mile at under 11.5 seconds and 120 MPH.....0 -60 IN 3.5 SECONDS.....seems to disprove your light weight...even a new high performance Mustang is over 3900 lbs.!

 

[The Purge]

But. I do have to say this about older cars....at one time you could recognize what car it was a block away all had unique styling, today, without reading the BADGEZ on MOST new cars I have little clue as to what they are. Even standing next to an import and an American made car, there is little difference in basic design!

 

[longknife]

I have had my current car for ten years and over 200,000 miles on it

It has its original exhaust system,never had a tune up,never touched the engine or transmission

I don’t miss cars from the 60s and 70s

My parents once had a Chevy Vega. Didn't even make 100K.
Bought a 76 Cutlass Supreme after that. Still had the big block V-8. Was a sweet looking ride but unreliable as hell and made it to a whopping 120K.

Weren't Chevy Vegas those mechanical assholes that had an aluminum block as opposed to a steel one? In which all its various aluminum engine parts would cheerfully melt into solder from normal use?

I remember the acronym we used when I was selling parts in a pick-a-part junk yard = N.O.V.A.

It meant you could get the same parts from a Nova, Olds, Vega, Apollo.
The Buicks usually had the best parts as nobody thought of them as a match.

 

[beagle9]

We are living now in a time that no one who remembers the great muscle cars of the late 60's and early 70's thought would ever comeback. Many of today's cars can out accelerate and out handle ANYTHING from that bygone era...as much as we like to keep those memories these new cars are just so much more, from the factory...WITH A WARRANTY!!!

745HP Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 SVT w/ Ford Racing Exhaust!"



2019 Dodge Hellcat Redeye 797HP- Jay Leno’s Garage"

Lighter weight and more efficient engines and transmissions make today’s cars much faster than they appear

Hmmm...Dodge Hellcat weights 4350 lbs, as much as an old, fully loaded Cadillac and even with undersized, stock tires will cut the quarter mile at under 11.5 seconds and 120 MPH.....0 -60 IN 3.5 SECONDS.....seems to disprove your light weight...even a new high performance Mustang is over 3900 lbs.!

Had a 68 SS Chevelle with a 396/4 speed/373 posi-trac rear, with 29" tall/10" wide slicks on it, and it ran stock 12:20's in the quarter mile. It weighed I think close to 5,000 pounds maybe. Did some major work to it over time, and I got it down in the low 11's while keeping it street legal. Fun stuff back in the late 60's for sure.

 

[WillMunny]

I think everyone can agree that the worst older automotive abomination (or at least GM's) were those Oldsmobile diesels in the late '70s or '80s. Because those brain-addled, idiotic, shitheaded, cretinous, drooling-vegetable morons thought it was really cute to take a V8 GASOLINE block and put diesel heads on it (!!!). Which means the bore and stroke were all wrong for it to ever run correctly as a diesel. Its water jacket system was too small to disperse the extreme extra heat of a diesel. The crankshaft, connecting rods and bearings, and general metallic structure of the engine parts weren't anywhere near thick, heavy and reinforced enough to withstand the extreme extra torque of a diesel, so it had this adorable habit of throwing a rod at 40K miles. I'm sure it made an interesting, very expensive-sounding noise when it did so.

My aunt and uncle had an Olds diesel station wagon in the early '80s, it always spewed a giant, angry-looking stream of black smoke behind it - much like the starship Enterprise "tracer stream" when it goes into warp drive - and it had that 40k mile lifespan. Which was so rampant at the time I think they were recalled at some point but I don't remember for sure. That experiment certainly didn't last long. I've never heard of one of these unholy gasoline/diesel miscegenation engines lasting any longer than that forty thousand threshold.

Yep, remember that disaster as well. Had a part that controlled the syncronization of the fuel injection pump with the transmission shift, and it cost around $170.00 dollars to fix. I had to replace the motor with a junkyard motor after 70,000 miles I think. Who knows where that car is now. Gotta be in a scrapyard somewhere. Good riddance.

It really makes you wonder what drugs GM engineers were rectally absorbing to think that fusing a gasoline and diesel engine together could work when the temperatures and forces going on in a diesel are as radically different as night and day from a gasoline engine. It would defy all laws of scientific chemistry and physics to combine gasoline and diesel, even the average teenage high school student could figure out what a mess that would make.

 

[WillMunny]

But. I do have to say this about older cars....at one time you could recognize what car it was a block away all had unique styling, today, without reading the BADGEZ on MOST new cars I have little clue as to what they are. Even standing next to an import and an American made car, there is little difference in basic design!

That's essentially been my point all along: older cars all had their own specific, unique design-signatures. That's what gave them their own "personalities."

 

[WillMunny]

People who park their cars, walk away and blast their ******* horn to see if their doors are locked need a good ass kicking for their rudeness. That`s a feature that nobody ever needed.

You mean car alarms? I hate those things because they are the classic Aesop fable of "The Little Boy Who Cried Wolf." Car alarms go off accidentally so often, nobody takes them seriously anymore. Anytime I hear a car alarm, I assume its a malfunction and not a theft.

 

[my2¢]

My first totally new car was a '76 Dodge Aspen. Other than its slant 6 engine, what a pile of crap.

Modern cars vs cars of my dad's time when I was a youngster:

​

 

[skye]

Anybody Else Hate New Cars & Miss Old Ones?


no not really! ......

 

[rightwinger]

People who park their cars, walk away and blast their ******* horn to see if their doors are locked need a good ass kicking for their rudeness. That`s a feature that nobody ever needed.

You mean car alarms? I hate those things because they are the classic Aesop fable of "The Little Boy Who Cried Wolf." Car alarms go off accidentally so often, nobody takes them seriously anymore. Anytime I hear a car alarm, I assume its a malfunction and not a theft.

He is talking about remote door locks that beep the horn when you lock the car

 

[skye]

Well..... truth be told....I kind of think sometimes ... of the last car ....but never miss it!

 

[P F Tinmore]

Racing 50 yo cars.

 

[OldLady]

Today’s cars are vastly superior in every area

I suppose they're safer and smarter; you can certainly slow down a lot more in third before the car stalls out.
I miss the little triangle windows in the front, though, and bench seats so you could snuggle up to the driver or squeeze a few extra people in.

 

[beagle9]

Today’s cars are vastly superior in every area

I suppose they're safer and smarter; you can certainly slow down a lot more in third before the car stalls out.
I miss the little triangle windows in the front, though, and bench seats so you could snuggle up to the driver or squeeze a few extra people in.

Me and the wife use to do that bench seat snuggling back in the day...lol

This woman told me at the BBQ restaurant once, " you and your wife make me smile because y'all still ride beside each other in that 1964 Impala bench seat just about everywhere y'all go". I think we were married about 3 or 4 years then, and yep still snuggling.

 

[WillMunny]

With today's overcomputerized, high tech cars and all their expensive fancy bells & whistles, I'm reminded of something Scotty said in Star Trek, "The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain."

 

[P F Tinmore]

 

[WillMunny]

To expand on my previous post, I currently drive a 27-year-old, slightly scuffed-up Nissan 240SX. Ultra-reliable even with over 250K miles on it and still - AMAZINGLY - it's on it's original clutch, 2.4L engine and drivetrain. It's somewhat high tech but still just primitive enough I can do a couple of maintenance things on it (I bought it off my mom in the late '90s). Of course I don't drive it very far or often because most of my basic life functionalities are within walking distance of me or a 15-minute driving radius. But it's still as reliable as the sunrise on the rare occasions I actually need to drive somewhere. Personally, I have the luxury of not needing to drive any substantial distances.

Here's the funny part: other people complain to me that their newer cars have all these high-tech computerized, multi-thousand-dollar glitches that make them undriveable. Yet this rather elderly Nissan I drive somehow keeps plugging along. Granted, I don't need to drive that often because I'm a habitual long-distance walker and I prefer walking, but still....

 

[WillMunny]

As long as a car gets me from point A to point B in a reasonable manner I don't care what its fancy luxury features are. I don't care how many high tech, starship-looking toys with which the sci-fi dashboard bristles. I DON'T require a car to wipe my glorious, gold-plated asshole every time I shit Tahitian black pearls from it. As long as a vehicle runs and drives fairly nicely - without vacuuming too much money out of me - that's all I've ever wanted from a car. I can survive without A/C, I can survive without seat-warmers, I can survive without automatic everything, I can survive with a rearview mirror instead of a reverse-computer-monitor, I can survive without the most sonically advanced, stereo-surround-sound car music system that ever shook a highway, I can survive without a bunch of GPS blinking, beeping, cool-looking gadgetry.....Really. Seriously, the simplest, basic, stick-shift car is all I really crave.