Safety. One of my hiking buddies is an aircraft accident investigator and knows several people in the insurance business. He says auto investigators unanimously conclude new cars are vastly safer than old ones, even ones made five years ago. Electronic accident avoidance capabilities, better structure, corrosion control, better air bags (even with the recent recalls after an isolated number of defects), etc. are all things to consider.
Still, there are things to be said for old, ugly, basic cars. You don’t have to worry about them as much (except for safety, of course!).
How far back is relevant when making comparisons to “new cars”? Some of the crustier types on here remind me of the old BC comic where the caveman is extolling his new triangular wheel as a significant improvement over the prior square version-
Behold, BC, the new wheel.
(a triangular wheel is shown)
It’s an improvement on the square wheel.
Improvement?
Yes, it eliminates one bump.
I would post the comic but it probably violates copyright rules here…
VDC, my 1st and 3rd grade teachers had a Packard just like that one. They were unmarried sisters and would drive home 90 miles every weekend. One weekend they were in a major crash and one was killed in that car. We used to ooh and ahh over that car parked on the street every day.
One thing that did make vacuum wipers work better was a vacuum booster section on the fuel pump. I know that my 1954 Buick, 1955 Pontiac, 1965 Rambler Classic 550 and 1968 Javelin had vacuum wipers and the vacuum booster on the fuel pump. To me, this set up was better than the single speed electric wipers that were either on or off. However, having electric wipers with two or more speeds was a much better arrangement. On some cars with the vacuum booster fuel pumps, the added pump pressure would wear down the lobe of the camshaft and then the fuel pump wouldn’t function properly.
I also remember cars of the 1930s where the wipers came down from the top of the windshield instead of coming up from the bottom. If the car was equipped with a passenger side wiper, there was a separate wiper motor. You didn’t have to wear out both blades. You could rotate blades from right to left and almost double wiper blade life.
@VDCdriver–I remember the hydraulic window lifts very well. My aunt had a 1948 Buick with power windows and while she was visiting us, the left window hydraulic cylinder started leaking. You could roll the window up and it would slowly creep back down. The car was 10 years old at the time and I took it to the Buick dealer. The dealer really had to scrounge for parts to fix the window. I think the 2 way power seat was hydraulically operated as were the motors that raised and lowered the top. I had an uncle who had a 1940 Ford convertible. The motors that raised and lowered the top ran on vacuum.
Does anyone remember vacuum power locks? When I was a kid, my dad had a 1967?? Olds Toronado (with the rolling speedometer) It had vacuum-operated power locks and instead of true cruise control had a little wheel next to the HVAC controls (which I remember as being on the left of the steering wheel) on which you could dial in your cruising speed.
Someplace I still have a 1966 issue of Mechanix Illustrated where the late Tom McCahill celebrated his 20th anniversary with Mechanix Illustrated by doing a comparison of two 1946 cars he road tested–a 1946 Buick Super and a 1946 Ford with a 1966 Buick Wildcat and a 1966 Ford Galaxie. In comparing the Buicks, he said that there was no feature on the 1946 Buick that he would like to see brought back. However, when he compared the Fords, he found that the 1946 Ford could take the curves faster on the test track than the1966 model. He and another tester raced the cars on the track. The 1966 ran away from the 1946 on the straight stretches, but Tom could always catch and overtake him on the curves. McCahill commented that the 1966 Ford should not be sold without a stiffer suspension. Remember that the 1946 had a solid front axle and a transverse leaf spring. I believe it had the transverse leaf spring arrangement in the back as well.
One other note–the 1946 Ford had a locking steering column which was discontinued on the 1947 and future models for many years. The locking steering column didn’t resurface until years later. Also, the 1946 Ford and the 1946 Buick had inside hood releases. Again, this feature disappeared in later models but was brought back some years later.
Our neighbor had a 40 something Ford. Then traded it for a 51. Don’t know why I thought of it but our 57 Ford had the hood hinged in the front instead of the back. I think 58 did too. I always thought it looked neat but was kind of a pain to work on. Never saw it again until our 86 Park Avenue had the hood hinged in front. Never quite understood the reasoning except design wise would have been hard to hinge it in the back.
I understand the nostalgia. One of my favorite memories was the 1936 Chevrolet I owned in the early 60’s. It was a fun car. The bucket seats were extremely comfortable and it would go better on snow or ice than anything I have owned since. But, I would not take one as a free gift today. My 2002 Sienna is by far the best car I have ever owned. It starts and it goes wherever i want, whenever I want.
I can’t even imagine a 750 mile day on the Interstate with that '36 car.
Sure do. Benz had them through the 2003 model year. In fact, there were some instances . . . on some of the early diesel vehicles . . . where the engine wouldn’t shut off, because one of the vacuum door lock actuators was leaking
In the days before evap/smoke machines were common, I remember guys lighting a cigarette, smoking half of it, and blowing smoke into the vacuum lines. They would keep at it, until they saw smoke coming out of a particular door panel. And that was the one they needed to take a closer look at
It also sometimes worked for finding leaks in the hvac system, under the dash
“I guess even BMW finally wised up, because I think they got rid of their front hinged hoods several years ago”
I hear you. Maybe from the days gone by when it wasn’t unusual for a hood on a speeding car to fly up, it may have been a safety consideration. Latch mechanisms are pretty reliable and to hang on to that may be a sales ploy which says…“my car goes so fast, it’s really a safety device” when comparing it to your neighbor’s Camry. Regardless, cars are hard enough to work on without limiting access to climbing down the windshield. Maybe it was a way to increased labor costs ? I suppose one can engineer an excuse for just about anything. Like Fins !
You don’t expect the hood to fly up on a car going 60 MPH, but what about one going 140 MPH? That might be why some models still use the front hinged hood, like Corvette. Not that your or I would ever get the opportunity to do that, but the mystique of a car designed to go very fast is a big selling point for some drivers.
I’ve owned (still own) a number of older vettes. I actually find them easier to work on with the hood “backwards”. How often do you work on/at the front of the engine bay? Which parts really need the best access and most illumination so you can see them? Leaning over the fender without having the hood in the way is actually more ergonomic than the other way around…
I actually prefer the backwards opening hoods as it seems to make access and serviceabiity much easier.
The older Corvette I had and my SAABs all opened backwards; if one wants to phrase it like that.
Serviceability on a SAAB would be a royal pain in the neck if the hood opened towards the windshield.
