Every vehicle I owned of that era…I removed that 1" in-carb filter and added a 3" in-line filter. Made my life a lot easier.
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Not many people work on their cars anymore. It’s not even hard to find an upper-middle-class and higher town which has no auto parts stores at all, because people just drive it to the dealership for everything so the parts store has no one to sell anything to.
A few of us in my neighborhood are gearheads. One even has a lift in his garage that he’s using on his muscle car restoration project.
But we all get quizzical looks from the other neighbors. They don’t understand why we spend a perfectly good Saturday with our legs sticking out from under a car rather than just taking it in and having the work done for us.
In short, I don’t think a DIY-serviceable car would find much of a market even if you could get around emissions/efficiency requirements so that you wouldn’t have to have everything computerized.
Now, maybe that will change in the future as electric cars become more common. Mechanics might find themselves being thinned out because they’ll have less to do, and maybe that will spur people to do their own work at home rather than having to drive 50 miles to the nearest surviving shop.
But I doubt it - especially since some of the electrics out now have concierge services where they come out and take your car to the shop for you, leaving you a loaner in its place.
“Serviceability” is an issue for fleet vehicles, but not in the way a DIYer could appreciate. They want “line-replaceable units” where you can quickly unbolt an assembly, bolt in a new assembly, and repair the assembly at your leisure.
Simply put, you can’t have a FWD or AWD car with the ease of repair of a RWD car. Everything’s stuffed under the hood! Also, older cars weren’t any heavier, but they didn’t care all that much about length, meaning the radiator wasn’t crammed against the fan, for instance. Also, a DOHC of a given displacement is bigger than an equivalent OHV, which is bigger than an equivalent flathead. You have less "wiggle room with a 5.0 DOHC than you would with a 302W, or likely a 351W.
…it also goes without saying, if you can buy a 4cyl, or a V6…the 4-banger’s gonna be easier to work on,
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Like you I replaced that filter with an in line model on many GM vehicles. And the 3/8" rubber line at the fuel pump made it convenient.
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LOL, this is the same industry that created so many disasters, such as the Cimarron and the Aztek?
Coke proved to us that they can be total idiots. That was just one more absolute disaster from silk-suited overpaid execs. 
Hmmm…
Are you referring to the soft drink, or to…as they used to call it in the '80s…nose candy?
Either reference could be totally valid…
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Most those old cars were designed to accept a straight 6 engine. Easy side access but a little tighter in front for fan and water pumps but that left LOADS of space in front of the V8s
I can’t see this when I look at the many design items that the auto industry has foisted on us. Some examples:
Very low profile tires
"rising belt line’ and subsequent reduced visibility
weird headlight designs
going back in time, tail fins, vinyl covered roofs.
I expect initial price, financing terms, and projected maintenance and repair costs are an important factor for most Americans with only a little disposable income.
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I did not mind the vinyl roof, Nostalgia maybe but I like to see them, My 71 was in fine shape when I traded it in in 1990.
Agree about low profile tires.
Rav4 we just got, weird headlight design, hope it works well at night.
Some company’s I’ve worked with here in Silicon Valley weren’t quite as enlightened about the wording they used to assess market appeal for their projected products. For example they would ask “If two products were available and only one had this xyz function [thought to be a good thing to have] , which would you buy?” The problem is that’s not the way consumers decide, seldom based on just one factor. Cost & other features are also part of the equation. But the company would go ahead and put the xyz function into their product anyway based on the positive response to xyz they got to that question.
Computerization, imo, isn’t the reason folks don’t work on their cars as much. More that they don’t have access to the maintenance & service information written in a diyer friendly way. And that some services are overly complicated. Automatic transmission servicing on newer cars for example. But those problems could be easily overcome with a diy’er friendly vehicle design. As far as the computerization, the problem is that it isn’t done in a way that is diy’er friendly. For example diy’ers are not able to access all the diagnostic features available they need without purchasing a manufacturer’s tech 2 scan tool. In the car I’m thinking about, that would come with the car. As an incremental expense, I’d guess it would add, what, $35 to the price of the car? Electronic gadgets aren’t very expensive. I purchased a DVD player for $30 the other day. Brand new. And a DVD player has a lot more complicated engineering & software involved than a tech 2 scan tool.
Most people buy based on emotion and not logic. Those items you cite appeal to a lot of people who are not considering technical details or issues associated with them beyond their visual appeal. It’s certainly not uncommon for older people to not understand the younger generation and what they find interesting, fun, appealing…etc what guy older than 40 wants his pants hanging down below his butt? Does wearing them like that make sense from a utilitarian perspective? Just an example.
Regarding the duds, nobody and no system is perfect. Those designs passed many levels of approval so not just one person with goofy idea. Lots of cars don’t appeal to me but I see people driving them.
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Back in the 1950s,. the Setchell-Carlson company made a teievision with a chassis built in modules. If the television didn’t work right, you called the dealer with the symptoms and he told you which module or modules to bring in. While the defective module was being repaired, you could take home a loaner module. The top of the set opened for easy servicing and the modules plugged in to each other and were easily removed. Yet these TVs didn’t sell.
In the 1960s, Proctor Silex had a line of small appliances–a toaster, coffee maker and iron–that came apart without tools and set up in modules for easy repair. Yet this line of appliances didn’t sell.
For that matter, the Checker motor company made taxicabs that could be repaired easily and offered a civilian version to the public. There weren’t many non-commercial purchasers. I don’t think the average consumer cares about whether something is easy to repair or not.
Let’s face it. We are a throw-away society. We have a washing machine that is 25 years old. Last January, it started vibrating badly. I decided to gamble on the price of a service call. An independent repairman diagnosed the problem as a bad shaft bearing. He repaired it in my house for $275. Consumer Reports would have recommended replacing the machine with a new, low energy usage machine. I’ll stick with my old equipment if it can be repaired.
A few years ago we were at a small town parade and one of the entries was a WWII Jeep. I think there were four guys in the team. At any rate they stopped, and completely dismantled the Jeep. Engine, trans, wheels, body parts, etc. Transported it a few feet down and reassembled it again. All in about 5 minutes without holding up the parade. Helped win the war but not much of a market for them now.
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I’ve seen a video of that Jeep @bing. And it occurred to me that the cooling system recirculated the water from the thermostat to the water pump and several non critical pieces were missing. I have replaced clutches in old Jeeps and it’s a real pain.
…but they continue to sell cars in record numbers, even if the public wasn’t clamoring for those features. On the one hand, many consumers wouldn’t even notice the very low profile of their tires unless it was specifically pointed-out (and explained!!) to them. Then again, even when they do notice certain negative features of a car, many consumers still buy those cars for emotional reasons–which are very difficult to quantify.
As to those tail fins, it appeared that many people really did want those signs of “modernity”. Take the case of Studebaker. They were selling eminently practical cars mostly devoid of tail fins and other space age styling cues, with essentially the same passenger room–but in a smaller overall package. The public voted with their wallets, and the result was not good for Studebaker.
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With the aid of cheap long term financing keeping up with the Joneses and Rockefellas has been a great sales feature for American automobile makers. Crosley couldn’t give his cars away and GM nixed the Cadet before it ever got to the show room.
Same happened in India. Remember the Tata Nano? Sales have been far below expectations because people didn’t want the ‘cheapest new car’.
On my trip home after work today I saw something special. It was an ivory Cadillac Escalade EXT with DUBs the same color and rubber bands wrapped around them. That is about the last vehicle I would want, but I’m sure the owner was quite proud of his ride. He probably wouldn’t be caught deat in my Accord. It’s a big, beautiful world.