Do you think much has changed between my 49-year-old car and my wife’s one-day old car? Thank heavens it has two glove compartments!
A '66 Corvair! Outstanding!!!
Yup, lots of laws, lots of lawsuits, and entire regulatory agencies with multibillion dollar (that’s TAX dollar…) budgets have changed cars and what comes in the glove compartment dramatically.
The real question is, how much is for the better and how much for the worst? I would argue that 40% is for the better and 60% not.
Usually, the infotainment system takes up much of the paper. Did you have satellite radio and have to sync your cell phone back then ? What about hat ipod with 680 songs on it ? Do you want to know how to hook it up. How about a GPS and how it runs ? Much of this stuff too is a result of making the auto conform to YOUR more complicated life. Funny you should choose a Corvair. That model alone might have been most responsible for much of the rest of the excess pages
How so? It’s pretty dependable and features almost nothing that can break, power nothing, an a Deluxe AM pushbutton radio! Handles really well too.
Not near as many gadgets (things to go wrong) on the Corvair as in the newer car. Some of those new radios in cars require a manual all by themselves!
I learned to drive on Corvairs, first a '61 and then a ‘65.
They were highly underrated due to ol’ Ralphie’s quest for fame and fortune. Intensive testing by NHTSA after the self-appointed paramour of public safety’s book proved his allegations to be unfounded, but by then it was too late.
I have 1000X greater respect for the Corvair than I do for Nader.
I’ve had the hots for Corvairs ever since a neighbor let me (at age 11!) back his '65 out of the garage to wash it (today we call what I did detailing). It was maroon, but otherwise the same. I bought this car eight years ago as a present to myself for quitting smoking. And I should admit the car also has an eight-page brochure on how to put down the top that I didn’t include in the comparison photo. They are great cars and a wonderful exercise in GM R&D.
Oh, yes, that is one pretty Corvair. I found the original design looked a bit like a bathtub (especially in white) , but the second generation is absolutely gorgeous. Especially the convertible. I don’t love many cars of that era, but the teenage son of a family that lived across the street when I was young had a convertible much like yours, but in metallic gold. It was one of the first cars I majorly lusted after, and I was only about five or six. Now I prefer red cars, so yours is even nicer.
That is a sweet lookin’ ride. I wish we could find cars like that in NH, but heavy applications of road salt every winter before environmental laws rotted them all away.
Those manuals are thick. The sound system manual is about as big as the one for the rest of the car. I put my manuals in a cabinet so I could have room for other things in the glove box.
That’s a beautiful car. A buddy of mine I ran around with in high school had one of those in a dark blue color. I would imagine that it gets a lot of looks and questions.
Some guy around here still motors around regularly in an old Corvair but it’s the earlier and more bland body style with 4 doors. The old sled is pretty straight all things considered with only a hint of rust in the quarter panels.
I would also imagine that the owners manual on the new car is much thicker due to the plethora of “WARNING!..” disclaimers.
Car makers shouldn’t have to warm someone about shoving their face into the pulleys on a running engine or drinking anti-freeze but odds are someone somewhere will try it and sue.
I finished reading the main manual, skipping over all the WARNINGS! But you KNOW each one of them probably represents at least one lawsuit where some moron did what they’re telling you not to do.
Do you think much has changed between my 49-year-old car and my wife's one-day old car? Thank heavens it has two glove compartments!
Things that have changed:
No need to manually adjust fuel/air mixture when changing elevation, the computer does that for you
No need to change your spark plugs every 12k miles
Oil that goes for longer than 3k miles
Tires that use much better materials to provide better traction; no more bias ply tires
No more changing points on a distributor cap
Automatics with more than 2 gears in them, manuals with more than 4
cleaner air coming from the exhaust
engines with more horsepower and torque, with fewer cylinders AND better mpg(200+hp from a 4cyl engine)
engines that use better/lighter materials than cast iron
Airbags
Heat/AC that actually works, and isn’t some little box under the dash
GPS
trunks that allow you to escape, should you get locked in one by accident
engines that last longer than 100k miles before becoming “junk”
crumple zones that keep the engine from being shoved into the passenger cabin in an accident
ABS
traction control
Disc brakes; What’s the 60-0 stopping distance of your car vs. her car?
satellite radio
power steering standard, not optional, for 99.99% of cars(I only know of 1 or 2 cars made today that DON’T have power steering)
Would you like more examples, or is this enough? ~(<<~) (~>>)~
“Car makers shouldn’t have to warm someone about shoving their face into the pulleys on a running engine or drinking anti-freeze” - OK4450
So very true. Yet, somes year back I bought a new mountainbike frame, pro level, triple-bitted ovalized aluminum, and it had a warning sticker on it that mountainbiking may be hazardous… ya think???
Anybody buying a professional level mountain bike frame to build their own bike should be assumed to already know this… but I’m sure someone sued someone somewhere. Or perhaps the corporate lawyer needed to prove his worth.