The speed limit in many places is 75. Few months ago we were late for a baseball game and I hit 85 a few times on the freeway. Of course I’m talking about driving a modern day car though.
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You’d be run over even in the slow lane on the interstate loops around St. Louis. I often find myself being rapidly passed even when driving 75 to 80 mph in the slow lane on I-270 and I-64. And that is in bumper to bumper traffic including lots of big rigs. I can manage in that type of traffic but truly dislike it.
The times I’ve driven over 90 mph were all in situations working my way away from some idiot trying to play stupid games on the highway.
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I too am in the “Look how far we’ve climbed” camp.
Compared to today, vehicles back then:
- Needed much more frequent maintenance.
- Had inferior rust protection.
- Had overly complicated pollution controls and fuel systems that frequently needed tweaking.
- Got much worse gas mileage.
- Were far less safe to drive.
- Had an expected mileage lifespan far less than today’s vehicles.
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*****… and that frequently caused engines to run poorly
My habit of driving in a more relaxed fashion fates back to President Carter’s imposition of a 55 mph national speed limit. I would get on an expressway, set my cruise control at 55, and enjoy the benefits of much improved gas mileage, and a much more relaxing ride. I simply kept up that habit after the limit was repealed.
Not Carter, credit (or blame) President Nixon for that.
While 55 might have been relaxing on the crowded highways of the east coast, it was positively painful driving across Kansas, Texas, Georgia, Montana and any other long stretches of straight flat highway.
I often thought every politician who voted for and supported the 55 limit should be forced to drive across Texas at 55 mph in August in a Chevette diesel with no AC.
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Total bull. I’ve driven in and owned Caddy’s from the 70’s. No one wants that float and handle like crap feel. Cadilac and Lincoln lost major market share during the 80’s to luxury sports cars made in Europe because that’s what the customer wanted. When Ross Perot was on the board of GM he went to the head of GM’s Cadilac division to see why they were losing market share. Asked him, have you done any study as to what your customers want. The obvious answer was - NO. Ross then funded a study and found that people didn’t want the floating boat vehicles. They wanted a comfortable ride with performance that handled well.
Says who? I suggest you take a ride in a new Luxury vehicle. Far better ride comfort and handling then any Luxury vehicle of the 70’s or 80’s.
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The speed limit in the late 1960s when I noticed this behavior was 70 on I-270. The road is flat and had 3 lanes of traffic both ways at the time. Many drivers exceeded the speed limit.
I guess you’re not that old to not know it was Nixon who instituted the 55mpg. And it was NEVER a national speed limit. Speed limits are state laws only. NH never dropped their speed limit to 55. What Nixon did was withhold federal highway money if they didn’t drop their speed limit. Each state could either drop the speed limit and continue to receive highway funding or forgo any highway funding by not dropping their speed limit.
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From 1973 through the early '80s was a ‘Dark Ages’ for cars, known as the ‘Malaise Era’. Cars got slower, heavier, more expensive, ran poorly, and got bad mpgs. I’ll pass.
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Me too. That era gave us the Cadillac Cimarron. What a joke.
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The problem with engines back in the day wasn’t that they were bad. It was the lead in the gasoline which caused problems. Remove the cylinder heads from a leaded gas era car and compare the heads/piston tops to heads from modern unleaded gas cars. It’s a night and day differerence and the lead was also a problem which caused contamination of the motor oil. It also led to the contamination of spark plugs.
The car makers back in the day had no choice. The Feds forced them to jump through hoops and that was the only short term prospect they had. Other than lowered compression the biggest drawback was that camshaft timing was retarded quite a bit to the tune of 15-20 degrees.
In violation of standards, the cam timing could be tweaked a bit… 
Really I just want to float over bumps like in my Caprice. The Caprice does a good job soaking up the rough road, it just doesn’t have the lounge seats like some of the 70’s cars had.
I want a soft comfortable suspension and pillowtop seats. I want to RIDE my automobile not get beat to death from the road.
I’m a GM fan through and through, but for you I would recommend an early-mid 70’s Ford/Lincoln/Mercury product. Comfort, quiet, and smooth like no other. And the Twin Comfort Lounge seats are the best.
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I had a 72 Chevy Impala, it made me seasick too. I was used to Chrysler products with torsion bar front suspension and asymmetrical rear suspension that solidly located the rear axles. In comparison the Impalas uncontrolled floaty wallowing was a nightmare.
It was also terrible in the winter because the rear suspension would let the rear springs absorb energy from the drivetrain and release it all at once,breaking traction. The lack of control in the rear also gave it a nasty side sway in the rear that made it seem like you were starting to slide.
\If any snow blew under the hood, the choke closed and stalled the engine. I learned to carry a good sized screwdriver to stick down the carb so I could get home in a snowstorm.
The Impala was the only car I ever had that I unreservedly hated. Also it only got 12 mpg on the road.
My recollection of late-60’s car power-assisted braking was that the brakes were overly sensitive. Similar to car in link below, from tv show Streets of San Francisco. This made it difficult to stop without squealing & sliding the wheels. I preferred the non-power brakes to dealing with that. This problem seemed to have been solved later. My Corolla’s power brakes don’t do that.
The Mark IV’s power brakes were not overly sensitive. The brake pedal had–essentially–a “normal” feel for a power brake system. The problem was that pressing that “normal-feeling” brake pedal didn’t do very much.
Even though my Volvo was a true POS, its brakes were fantastic, and the contrast between the Volvo’s brakes and those of the Mark IV were like night and day.
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Yes but the Volvo was not available with crushed velour upholstery!
Why would anyone want that? I sure don’t.
I had a 71 Nova and a 72 f100 pickup I drove till 93 when I traded them in on a Toyota pickup. Never did anything special to them. F100 died of rust problems and Nova turned into an oil guzzler. Had a new job with a 45 mile commute so traded them in on the Toyota pickup. As far as traction the Toyota sucked, so I ran mud grips on it and that was acceptable. Made it through WI and ND FL and IL winters just fine with the old cars and no snow tires. Sure I moved alot, had a tow bar for the nova and towed it packed full of stuff behind the f100 with a camper top packed full of stuff. Worst time was I65 in Indiana in a bad snw storm, it was like trying to drive a snake down the highway, but made it through.
Had to buy a new camper top for the pickup moving out of ND in Jan, as I had taken it off, put it on the ground near the parking lot and it was buried under 6 feet of snow. Block heaters for both vehicles, and outlets for them free of charge in the parking lot of the apartment building i lived in. Gas pump went out in the truck, changed it in a NAPA parking lot leaving ND but no other gas related issue. Sure I probably replaced the accelerator pump in the nova a couple times, and maybe the diaphragm, needles and seats, not sure if it was ethanol related.