I was riding my bike past a local more or less exotic car dealer- just to see if there was anything worth buying a lottery ticket for- and got to thinking- if I did win the lottery, would I buy the Bentley the guy was washing, or the AMC Pacer sitting in the lot? Which would draw more attention if I drove to work? Not that I’d drive to work if I won the lottery…
if you had any sense you would pass on both of those models 
Hahah, I might have to say the AMC pacer would get more attention. The bentleys, while pretty, at a quick glance can pass as most modern day luxury cars
Mayday, even if you won the lottery you wouldn’t have enough money to pay me to drive a Pacer.
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Several others have mentioned how the desire for ownership of older cars shifts with the advancing age of those who can afford to buy them. That is why earlier cars are no longer BIG at car shows. Model “A” Fords, dearly beloved by guys 30 years older than me, are not worth what they were 20-25 years ago if you adjust the dollars for inflation. Most of those who inherited them from their restorers have no real desire to own them, other than in memory of their fathers or grandfathers.
I wished I could afford a '64-1/2 or '65 Mustang when I was 19 or 20. Now I have owned half a dozen of them. Do I want another one? No. They really are not great cars, built on Ford Falcon chassis with lousy drum brakes. I’ll stick with my MGA, which I bought at 17 because it was a $400 car I could afford. I lusted after an MGB, but couldn’t afford it. I like all kinds of old cars, but my MG will always be my favorite. It’s not a great car at all, but it’s mine, and 45 years later I still like it.
Quoting @wesw “fast and loud… is it just me or does anyone else think that they butcher great cars regularly?”
It’s not just you. I quit watching Fast and Loud" because it seemed to me the whole thing was scripted with actors. No way anyone would pay some of the prices they supposedly get. Reality TV my foot!
While I’ve hijacked the thread, I think almost all “reality” TV is scripted. There were two girls from my area on Big Bother (shoot, I missed the r…) a few years ago. One was a friend of my daughter’s. Although sworn to secrecy one of them admitted to my daughter that they knew about half way in who the producers were going to make the winner.
Survivor?? What a crock. No one is in any danger of not surviving. The camera crew and producers are there all the time. Someone is feeding them. Medical help has to be close at hand at any moment.
“Mayday, even if you won the lottery you wouldn’t have enough money to pay me to drive a Pacer”.
@the same mountainbike–I owned a 1975 Pacer once. It really was a reasonably good car. It had rack and pinion steering which wasn’t common on U.S. cars in the late 1970s. The car was stable on the road, handled better than a lot of cars for the time period, and was much roomier than other compacts. However, the gasoline mileage wasn’t great. It isn’t a classic by any stretch of the imagination, but it could be classified as a special interest car. However, owning one again doesn’t interest me.
A friend of mine just bought a museum quality 1948 Frazer and paid $10,000 for the car. At my age, I find the Frazer more interesting than the Pacer. I remember when the Kaiser and Frazer cars were on the streets and as a little kid, seeing pictures of them in magazines. The Kaiser, Frazer and Studebaker were the first new designs after WW II (technically, there was a 1946 Studebaker Skyway Champion of the prewar design, but the new Studebakers came in mid 1946). I also remember fondly the 1949 Nash with its Airflyte models. I like cars that differ from the norm. These cars may not have been popular, nor is there much interest in them today, but the cars did pave the way for the future.
yeah, I would not trust the fast and loud guys to fix my bicycle. the guy on “kounting cars” does some beautiful work from what I can see. I think his vampire fetish is a bit creepy, but his car restoration is nothing short of brilliant.
as far as “survivor” , its teaching people that the way you survive is to plot scheme and back stab. they would all die if they didn t work together. it s horrible what our youth is taught, and not taught today. the tv teaches us how to destroy our nation and the schools teach us that our nations costitution and its founding ideals are worthless and not relevant today. they divide us and leave us ready to destroy ourselves
I fear for our nations survival.
Ford is better than Chevy, regular oil is better than synthetic. (Shhh I’m keeping this thread open!)
ford rules!
How seriously can you take a company that calls it’s logo the ‘Bow Tie’, though it bears little resemblance to one.
We were a Ford family, though my mother had owned various things, and my father had owned mostly Chrysler Plymouth models, though his first was a Model A pickup. But his favorite was a DeSoto, about 1956, possibly the most upscale car he ever owned (used, of course.) My mother had several cars in the ten years before she married, mainly Chevies, though the only one she remembers is the red 1959 Impala I can barely remember from my early childhood. Nice car, that. Still looks stylish.
. I hate any hot rod built from a 1930s car in the last 40 years or so. Unless the car was a complete wreck and unrestorable it seems like vandalism. I like the look of some of them, but wish they'd build them from scratch.
On the other hand, if every 1930’s car ever built survived and was still on the road, people would be giving them away and the government would probably pay us to scrap them.
If I had realized that some of the cars I drove when I was young were destined to become collector’s items in my lifetime, I would have taken better care of them, but the fact that most of them were used up and scrapped by people like me is the reason the survivors are collector’s items today.
One collector commented, “every specimen that gets used up or wrecked only makes mine more valuable”.