Just to chime in, that 54 ford v8 was no slug. Won a drag race in down town Duluth against a Chevy. Going up mt Rushmore, never heated up like the rest of the cars in the lot. Acceleration was now worry. Think it was pretty good on gas too and could carry six with luggage.
I don’t know if they could build one now but you’ll not get a dependable one for $10,000 or even $20. Imho. My Pontiac came pretty close though. When I tried it out I commented to the salesman that it drove like my riviera. Just didn’t stall.
@Bing… if a car manufacturer was able to produce and sell a new car meeting fed emissions standards, 1980’s safety equipment, but w/ the 54 Ford’s limited accel, manual trans, and not much in the way of the currently in vogue tech accouterments, for $10K, do you think there would be many buyers?
No. Just No. There is no market for a stripped basic car in the US. 90+% of people could not and would not drive a manual, crank their own windows, live without AC or adjust their own mirrors by stepping outside. No one would accept even a 15 second 0 to 60 time.
Interesting. Say a college student has these options for a car they just need to drive/carry stuff around campus & the local town. Which would they most likely choose?
new car, manual trans, basic everything, 15 sec 0 to 60, for $10,000
10 year old used car, automatic, 12 sec 0 to 60, for $12,000
In that fantasy land (no new car will ever be sold that only meets 1980 crash regs), I’d go for a 10 year old car that meets 2014 crash regs. Every time.
I’d choose the new car, thinking it will go longer between needing fixing. I’m there to take classes, study, and learn, don’t want to be bothered with car problems. So the crash risk would be worth taking from my perspective, just drive more carefully.
If I had to choose b/t the used car and just taking the bus, riding a bicycle, I’d probably just take the bus.
I always had a ten year old car but I:paid $175 for it. No way could I have paid more than $500.
All you big city people seem to think there are buses going everywhere. In the largest city in South Dakota there were two buses. One did the west loop and one east. Didn’t come close to campus. And the trip home was 8 hours on Jefferson lines and came within 45 mile of home. That’s why we drive.
My wife and son both drive and love their stick shifts, both prefer a stick, even when they delivered papers in the middle of the night… I love a stick shift also, but with a total left knee replacement and my neurological disorder, driving a stick is a lot more challenging to say the least…
Bus routes in rural areas are the problem. I lived and worked in a city with a good public transportation system then I’d probably never drive my car to work.
The city I lived in during college had 190K residents with a good bus system. If I used the bus to get to school it would take 2 busses, a transfer and about 40 minutes. I’d ride into town and back out to school. I could drive my beater Datsun 510 there in 15 minutes.
My wife took classes at the community college downtown and used the bus that stopped 1/2 block from our house in the same city but that did not require a transfer.
Our first and second houses had good access to bus lines. While it was possible to get to work with them, we preferred our cars for the convienience.
Their is only one bus route that runs in my whole county and it only has one stop each in two different cities, and not one in mine or the other 6 cities in my county, my city does not have a bus route and we are the city bordering Nashville… So unless I drive for 10-15 minutes to a bus stop, when Nashville is only 16 miles away in the other direction, there is no use for a bus stop…
Now Nashville itself has a great bussing system, no matter where you are trying to go you wind up behind one of those oversized slow moving, stopping every so many yards, double busses making you late or caught at every freaking red light…
Personally I hate them, but for the 6.5 million people that ride them every day in Nashville, I guess they are a good thing… L L
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