Starting in 1969, because of safety modifications and other regulations gas mileage and driveability started to go downhill. Cars also got much heavier.
A retired gargage owner friend who now restores cars says to stay away from 1969-1976 models for these reasons.
Because of the high gas prices today, a 6 cylinder mid to late 60s GM intermediate would be my oldest choice as a daily driver.
I think mileage is more of a factor than age. When I was a teenager in the late 1980s, my father got his hands on a 1969 Dodge Dart that was in great shape and it lasted a long time before my brother and I drove it into the ground. A car made before 1971 would need a lot of maintenance and repairs to be used as a daily driver. If you enjoy that kind of thing, I say go for it. Personally, I only do my own maintenance and repairs to save money. Since I want something that doesn’t require as much tinkering, I draw the line at 1995.
I would retire a car made before 1971 after about 150,000 miles. I would retire a car made after 1995 after 300,000 miles. Of course all of this is contingent on both cars being meticulously maintained.
“4-wheel discs common in the '60s? I don’t think so.”
You were driving the wrong cars. As I recall the 356C had four disc brakes in 1963, I believe all benz sedans had 4 wheel discs by the early-60s, BMW may not have gone to 4 wheel discs until the mid-70s but I’m not certain (they had front discs on everything by the late 60s IIRC), and I don’t know when vw/audi went to 4 wheel discs. So all four manufactures had them by at least the early 70s. I don’t remember the last time I saw a drum brake, maybe some POS buick my wife had in the early 80s before we were married.
I’d agree with that. My 1965 Dodge Dart with a 273 V8 lasted 154,000 miles (till 1978)in the Great Lakes Rust Belt, even with undercoating and meticulous maintenance. At that age, nearly everything had been replaced, except the engine, transmission, steering pump, differential. Even the gas tank had rusted through. But the car was fun to drive.
My 1966 Malibu was totaled in 1978 at 99,000 miles; the powertrain was still like new, and the body only had a bit of rust. Interior was spotless.
Full size rear dive GM cars had good life expectancy; my 1984 Impala went 300,000 miles when we sold it; the kid who bought it in 1996 is still driving it.
I was thinking of the Isetta when I said post-war with a few exceptions. The Isetta being one of those exceptions.
Your comments about the Beetle and the Smart are the reason I stayed away from safety issues. I’m sure there are people who would find Craig’s old Mercedes unsafe for today’s roads. I would not mind an old VW Beetle, though I’d probably want a newer engine to be able to keep up. I have persoanally seen Smart cars slicing and dicing on the Italian Autostrada, their drivers seemed to be OK with it.
I just use my motorcycle criterion; if it’s safer than my motorcycle (which I have no problem using on highways), then it’s safe enough for me. Are you planning on living forever?
I’ve been passed by smart cars doing 80 mph on the highway, the drivers didn’t seem concerned.
Personally, I wouldn’t mind owning an Isetta but it’s not really practical at highway speeds. However, I would still drive a VW bug anyplace.
Disc brakes were optional on my 65 Malibu, but it didn’t have them on it. If I still had it, I wouldn’t hesitate to use it as a daily driver, despite it getting 14mpg with mostly city driving
A neighbor does use a Model A as his daily driver. You could keep pace on the interstate around here, but not everywhere… but then not everyone’s daily driver needs to get out on the interstate…
I learned to drive in a 1951 Pontiac straight 8. It would easily go 70 mph for as long as you wanted, with seemingly little effort. It would be compatible with freeway traffic now in my view. Although it had drum brakes in front, that was no problem for me and I felt safe driving the car. Drum brakes at that time were not a problem in the relatively flat midwest US. Although drum brakes needing a little work sometimes had a tendency to cause the car to veer a little left or right when applied, it was nothing that I could not handle. You could lock the wheels in a panic stop with front drum brakes. A 1950 Chevrolet 6 cyl would sound like it was working a little hard at 70 mph; would be better off going 60.
My dad’s 1938 Chevrolet was comfortable going 50 mph but no faster or the engine sounded strained. Depending on the price grade of the car, some late 1930’s cars would keep up with today’s freeway traffic to any car from the mid 1950s and later.
I recall getting a ride in about a 1948 Ford V8. Although it had the power to go 70 mph, the primitive transverse spring suspension made it feel a little less than safe. The car may have had a lot of miles; I don’t recall. For 1949, Ford modernized their suspension to use double “A” frames in the front; got rid of the horse buggy type transverse springs from the front as well as the rear.
Seat belts would, of course, be desirable in any car.
I’d like to add a little to this thread. I used to work with a man who was born in 1910 who enjoyed his cars. He told me that cars from the 1930s were the first ones good enough so that you would not normally anticipate a mechanical breakdown during an extended trip.
People who agonize about the minor differences in automobile brand reliability now have no idea of what could happen then, a broken axle, a rod out, a broken piston, a tire blowout at speed.
Quality now, although a little uneven among brands, is at a high level.
An interesting book that describes in some detail the quality of cars in the very early days is entitled “My Years with General Motors” written by Alfred P. Sloan.
4-wheel disc brakes have always been limited to high-end and performance cars. For your average car, there’s no point in putting discs on the back, as it does very little of the braking effort anyway. The lion’s share of braking is done by the front (due to weight transfer), so it makes sense to put discs there. I understand that it is also much easier to implement a parking brake on drums than on discs. You list a bunch of German automakers, all high-performance/luxury, where you would expect to see 4-wheel disc brakes.
Are there any other automakers?
“People who agonize about the minor differences in automobile brand reliability now have no idea of what could happen then, a broken axle, a rod out, a broken piston, a tire blowout at speed.”
Heck, back then, getting a car that didn’t need manual control of the timing was considered a luxury.
I think the limitation of “practical” here excludes a lot of the exceptions mentioned. Good stories though, really enjoyed them . . . thanks! But practical to me means reasonable safe, somewhat reliable, not too expensive to fix, decent MPG, parts available, and so forth. I still say late 80’s. Rocketman
The thing is, all those criteria are personal choices or tolerance. How safe is “safe enough?” For you it might mean one thing, for me another. How reliable is reliable enough? What is “decent” MPG? Yes, all those criteria are more likely to be met by a more recent car, unless you are Craig58, but I learned to drive in a '67 Mustang and would have no trouble accepting one as a daily driver, you might find it unacceptably unsafe or too unreliable or too hard to find parts for.
Of course, all this depends on even finding a well maintained example of whatever car. IF someone had a perfectly maintained 1933 Chrysler Airflow, I probably would not mind using it as a daily driver even without seat belts and easy to find parts. I’m unlikely to ever find such a car, but the question was what is the oldest car that can be practical as a daily driver, not what is the oldest most likely to be practical as a daily driver.
The fact that different people have differing thoughts is what makes it interesting, at least to me.
Good point on the brakes, Craig. My '53 Chevrolet, I didn’t call them brakes, I called them impeders. In my crazy years, I always kept an eye out for a deep ditch or a tree to hit if something got in the road, and that was when the brakes were properly maintained.
We didn’t understand brake fade was a problem; we took it as normal. The only time I have experienced brake fade with a newer car was a year or so ago, running my Sienna from Tlaxcala to Puebla in Mexico. There are major speed bumps every quarter mile or so, and so drivers tend to floor it from one speed bump to the next one, slamming on the brakes at the last instant. After about ten or fifteen of those, suddenly my brakes nearly failed. I didn’t even know fade was possible on disc front brakes. It scared me when I almost went airborne over a big speed bump. Fortunately, I was at the front of the pack when they faded.
I do think you would have to be very careful driving a car with “vintage” brakes on modern roads. It’s not unusual for highway traffic to slow very quickly. My brakes are actually pretty good (for a sedan), and on a couple of occasions I have watched the car behind me desperately trying to stop before hitting me. I try to leave plenty of room and avoid panic stops, but you know how well that sometimes works in heavy traffic.
If you had brake fade on a modern car, consider replacing the brake fluid. Brake fade is sometimes caused by water accumulating in the old fluid and actually boiling when the brakes get hot enough (steam is a lot more compressible than solid liquid).
My 1953 Chevrolet ran somewhat like you describe a 1950 doing. I made it a bit faster.
I ripped off the fan blades. I tossed away that air cleaner. Then, I loosened the distributor clamp so I could freely turn it, and adjusted it for maximum rpm at idle.
Normally, that car liked to shift out of first at around 15 or so; and out of second in the low 30’s. With these few changes, it ran well over 30 in first, and over 60 in second.
These were my crazy years, aka death-wish years. I drove like that on winding gravel roads.
The next year I was drafted, and just before I shipped, I drove to Arkansas. It needed a quart of oil every 30 miles though there was no cloud of smoke. When the oil gauge dropped on a hill, I stopped and poured in several more quarts.
The next December I came home and put in a rebuilt engine and transmission, and drove it 2050 miles to Ft. Lewis in 50 hours before the Interstate was all done, driving it around Washington and nearby parts of Oregon. I drove it for a year after I left the Army, then gave it to a brother when I bought a new 1967 Chevy II.
That 1953 Chevrolet was a nice car, a well maintained old man’s car, before I got hold of it. I still have the owner’s manual.
If anyone likes to read about the early days of automobiles, there is a free download book, copyright expired, TWO THOUSAND MILES ON AN AUTOMOBILE, by Eddy, allegedly written in 1902. Try:
You can read it with any text editor or word processor. I do have a special reader, etr, for my Linux machine, because it keeps my pages when I re-boot.
Interesting book.
Remember that older metal crystallizes, and parts break on really old cars that would never break on a newer car. I have often wondered if new alloys will also suffer the same fate as they age.