Morality is relative. There were a lot of things about the “good old days” that were decidedly anti-moral. Segregation, Japanese internment camps, lying about the negative health effects of leaded gasoline, etc.
Even that is somewhat skewed, especially with regard to cars. When I was a kid I remember the neighbors coming over to look at Dad’s odometer because they didn’t believe he got that “little Japanese thing” to cross 100,000 miles. These days, a car that doesn’t make it well beyond 100,000 is considered a pile of junk.
If we keep it to cars, 126" wheelbases, big block V8 engines, Rear wheel drive, and “regular” automatic transmissions (torque converter in the front, backed by a 3 or 4 speed planetary gearbox).
When examining these issues, we must look at generalities…
So, morality, in general was more prevalent (with less moral relativism) than it is today. And, generally speaking, product longevity was better.
There will always be anomalies, outliers and exceptions-- like the satanist axe murderer (morals) and the cheap lil junk toy I got for going to the dentist (product longevity).
Edited to add: I just noticed that you referred to product longevity, not the longevity of people.
Huh?
Let’s deal first with longevity first, because that is easily quantifiable. I don’t know when “the Good Old Days” in The US actually ended, but I will throw out some stats that you can easily verify.
Average life expectancy in The US did not edge above 40 until the year 1885, when it skyrocketed to 41.5 years.
By 1915, it reached 54 years, and by 1940, average life expectancy had reached 62 years.
Did the Good Old Days end in 1955? In that year, the average life expectancy in The US was 68.7, and–thankfully–that stat has continued to climb since then.
While life expectancy took a bit of a hit over the past 12 months because of the pandemic, 2020 saw a US life expectancy of 78.8.
As to “morality” and the state of the nuclear family, I hope you don’t think that “immoral” behavior didn’t exist in The Good Old Days simply because people were reluctant to report rape, incest, and child molestation. Trust me… there was almost surely as much of those illicit activities going on in The Good Old Days, but it was rarely reported.
And, just because the divorce rate was lower in The Good Old days, that doesn’t mean that family discord didn’t exist. People used to keep things behind closed doors, and others didn’t necessarily know what was going on behind those closed doors, which often concealed physical abuse of both wives and children.
Drug addiction was at its peak in the aftermath of The Civil War because so many wounded soldiers wound-up with a Morphine addiction. The early 20th Century saw an incredible number of people who were addicted to Cocaine, and there were even print ads hawking that substance.
As George Santayana famously said, “Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it”.
Let’s not forget about our past, and instead let us hope that we learn from the really bad parts of what many people believe to have been the Good Old Days,
Plus, lying about the negative effects of both asbestos and tobacco.
The Johns Manville corp. knew of the devastating effects of asbestos on their employees as far back as the 1940s, but they concealed that information. By the '60s, tobacco companies knew that their products were the cause of most cases of Emphysema and lung cancer and many cases of heart disease, but that data stayed in their file cabinets. When The US Surgeon General aired their dirty laundry, the tobacco companies continued to deny it for many years.
To keep it on an automotive footing, car companies knew that sharp, shiny objects protruding from car dashboards were a hazard, but–heck–that glitz helped to sell cars. Sometime in the '50s, Buick’s Chief Engineer was interviewed by either Popular Science or Popular Mechanics (I subscribed to both) and when he was asked about seat belts he stated that when he drives his grandchildren in his car, if he thinks he is going to be involved in an accident, he simply tells them to “put your hands on the dashboard and brace yourself”. Hopefully I don’t have to explain to anybody how incredibly stupid his response was–on several levels.
No, it wasn’t. That’s a lie we tell ourselves while pining for “good old days” that didn’t exist. We denied fair employment access to people who were not white and male. We denied housing to people who were not white. We denied civil rights to people who were not white. We put people in prison camps because of their race. We denied marriage access to interracial couples, not to mention homosexuals, who were targets of a government and citizen backed campaign in which cops beat them as a matter of course.
Hell, even just in the car realm, we had automotive magazine articles with sentences saying things like John Deere hired female product testers because “if there’s a way to break something, a woman will find it,” or “the automatic transmission and power steering means that even a woman, with proper savvy, can drive it.”
These were not anomalies. They were societal norms, frequently enforced by government edict, that no longer exist. Morally-speaking, while we’re far from where we need to be, we’re much better overall now than we were even 30 years ago. Our attitudes toward people of color, and females, and homosexuals, have evolved beyond the moral cesspool of “the good old days,” and I for one am not eager to see their return.
“Agreed. Technology has been the key to advances in all those things you mention.” Medical technology as it relates to curing illness, longevity, etc. was one that was mentioned.
From a following post”
“When examining these issues, we must look at generalities…
So, morality, in general was more prevalent (with less moral relativism) than it is today. And, generally speaking , product longevity was better.
There will always be anomalies, outliers and exceptions-- like the satanist axe murderer (morals) and the cheap lil junk toy I got for going to the dentist (product longevity).”
We would all appreciate it if you please read what has been stated prior to posting. Thank you!
Boy we have diverted a little from oil consumption. But since you started it, no one dares speak of the millions killed or re-educated by Lenin, Stalin, the Stasi, Pol Pot, Mao, etc. and the parallels to current thoughts today. Or the Norwegian slave traders of old and true history. We love to tell just the part of history that suits us and ignore the rest.
In the book Fins, the author mentions that, when Harley Earl hired some female designers in the '50s, this was heralded as a miraculous advance in equality. In reality, Harley only allowed them to design some aspects of car interiors, and they never got a chance to compete with male designers for exteriors.
And, when it was time to display prototypes on a turntable, those women had to play actress/model and stand there pointing dumbly to certain features while making dramatic facial expressions. The women despised that “duty” and stayed only because the pay was good.
That’s what they do at auto shows still. A model in a tight dress and high heels talking about the features of an 8 speed transmission. And I believe everything they have memorized.
Of course, but those actress/models were hired specifically for that purpose.
Don’t you think that it was demeaning for well-educated women–who were hired to be automotive designers–to be relegated to that type of duty?
We have diverted from oil consumption and I learned some stuff from the thread. But @bing as for the statement that “no one talks about Pol Pot and Lenin” and parallels to certain strains of contemporary thought … some people definitely do, because I’ve read it in several places on the internet. The difference is it doesn’t get discussed here. You have, I guess. It’s definitely not no one, but we do ask that those sorts of discussions occur elsewhere.
So with that said, for everyone, can we please try to keep it about cars? Thanks.
Getting back to oil consumption and cars, I remember reading in the Consumer Reports tests of new cars, one statistic CR reported was “miles per quart of oil after break-in”. If my memory serves me correctly, the 1960 Valiant with its slant 6 engine only managed 400 miles per quart of oil.
I also remember a statistic “piston travel in feet per mile in high gear”. Obviously, the lower this value, the less wear on the piston rings. Theoretically, a lower value implied that the oil consumption should be less as the car accumulated more miles on the odometer.
Somewhere I have a copy of their annual auto issue from–I think–1954. The format and the graphics (black & white) were both crude by modern standards, but it is still interesting to read.
If I can find it, I will post some excerpts.
we had a 1968 dodge coronet with a 318. it never burned any oil between oil changes. maybe we had a fluke. and I drove it in high school until it was T-boned by a caddy in the drivers side doors. the one time I was glad I didnt have the seatbelt on.
Yeah that happened with my VW too. I think it was a Dodge that hit it right in my door. No seat belts in that car so I slid across the bucket seat with the impact that took up half of the seat and the roof. Spewed glass all over me and injured passenger so the only way I could get out was through the sun roof. Sore leg for a week or so but not sure what would have happened with seat belts on. Still first thing I did with my replacement 59 Pontiac was to put seat belts in it.
And I know I checked the oil in both cars but I simply cannot ever recall adding oil or even changing the oil. I know I did but simply does not ring a bell. I can tell you what specific body work I did and plugs, generator, fuel pump etc. but no recall on oil use. I used Pennz back then against the advice from my BIL. I couldn’t recall paying him for painting the front end either so I asked him last year and he said danged if he knew. Bothers me that as a kid I may not have had the sense to pay him.