Do you think this car will be a classic one day
No it will not.
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If you want a classic, buy a roadster or some limited production vehicle
Sure, in 50 years. In the late 50s and early 60s 49-52 Ford/Merc woodies were cheap ‘beaters’, now they can go for high five figure sums.
Even granny cars like a 50s AMC 4 door, 6 cylinder can go for $$$$$
Yeah, but those cars don’t have more computers than NASA. A big impediment to modern cars becoming classics is going to be that the computers are eventually going to crap out, and when that happens to the wrong computer, the car is dead. And if there are no replacements, you’re stuck.
Thing is, if the head on your Duesenberg motor goes bad, there’s a guy in Wisconsin who will fabricate a new one for you. Who is going to have the ability to fabricate a new ECU or BCM?
It’s kinda like the old fighter planes you see at air shows. Plenty of planes flying around from WWII, and Korea… Vietnam gets a little harder to find, and I’m guessing you will never see an F14 or an F22 (when retired) being flown privately. It’s just too hard to keep them in the air once the support chain is gone.
Nope, not ever. It’s a mass-produced wagon, fine at what it is, but not that different from millions of others being made these days.
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That is the main problem. Up to a point, a good tech can repair the computers, by fixing bad solder joints, replacing caps and other simple components. Even replacing connectors. But the LSI chips are all custom made and are not repairable. When one of those dies, the computer is toast, unless you can salvage one from another computer.
There may be a market, 20 years from now, for a programmable processor you can mate to any car with cable adaptors, and then connect it to your home processor to program it from a set of online programs. That’s possible now, but the connectors would be an issue. I don’t know, but I doubt there is any standardization of connectors from brand to brand. Even from year to year??
I’ve always wondered what Iran is doing in order to keep their F-14’s relatively air-worthy. Do they have some kind of cottage industry fabbing up spare parts or something?
No, I do not. As far as modern Benz’s go. I think the AMG SLS will become a desirable classic, I think the G-Wagens will always have a following, and the C and E class AMG’s with the 6.2L V8 will be sought after as well. But a GLK? Nah, they aren’t rare or limited production or anything.
Even then, some are tied to the specific car they come from. If you put 'em in a different car they’ll refuse to work.
Yeah, I can see that as a possibility. We see it in old video games - you can download an emulator and play every Atari 2600 game ever made. But on what you said, every Pacman cartridge for the Atari was the same, and every Atari ran the same hardware, so it’s easy. Might be difficult to find someone willing to keep up with all the versions necessary to outfit all the cars someone might want to collect. For something like a Porsche 911, sure, there will probably be a market. For a Mercedes wagon? Eh… The interest just wouldn’t be there.
Of course, there might be another solution - electric conversion. They’ve already got kits out for some cars - I’m seriously considering doing it to my MR2 because it would make it faster and I could stop chasing oil leaks. A conversion kit for a modern car would replace the drivetrain, and then replace, where possible, things like the radio/nav with a standard version. It would require a lot of rewiring and be expensive, but then people with collector cars drop a ton of money on them now so that wouldn’t be much of a deterrent.
Stealing parts from us and smuggling them, primarily. That’s why DOD is shredding Tomcats now, and they’re seizing planes even from museums to make sure parts don’t get to Iran. They even seized a non-airworthy version from the people filming JAG who were using it as a prop. It’s kind of a sad story for an 80’s kid like me who grew up drooling over the Tomcat.
In 50 year rather than worry about concours restoration just resto-Rod it with a new system.
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I recall a Wheeler Dealers episode where Mike took an electronic module to someone that fixed them. It wasn’t a PCM or BCM as we know them now, of course, but I suspect that for a popular older vehicle, someone will figure out how to fix one for himself and then start a business repairing them for others. I understand this means troubleshooting and replacing ICs, and I imagine if someone loves his car enough, he will figure out how to do it.
Popular and expensive.
The guy who wants to collect a 2018 Civic Type R probably is going to be out of luck, because he won’t be able to pay the bespoke prices.
I thought I had read somewhere that they were crushing most of the F-14’s that ended up at AMARG. It’s a shame.