What do you miss about your old cars? (car engine, vehicle, seats)

[Fleet]

Originally Posted by breeinmo.

Whoever had the Duster, lucky duck. I always wanted one. I miss cars looking different and having character. Most look the same to me now, and I never know what kind they are. Back in the day, we could name them all on sight. <sigh>

Originally Posted by statisticsnerd

I miss cars with square edges that actually looked like they were made out of steel. You don't have to go too far back. Watch a movie made in the 90s and you'll see them.

Nowadays, all of the cars are plastic bubbles.

I certainly agree. I know some don't but it's so obvious it's not even funny!

As for the question, I will reply with the first car I owned:

1966 Dodge Dart GT V-8

I miss:

- The well-built, unhampered (no emissions equipment) V-8 engine. And the rugged and reliable Torqueflite transmission.
- Getting rubber in 2nd and sometimes 3rd gear.
- The bucket seats and console shift.
- The general styling.
- The generous amount of exterior and interior chrome. There was chrome even on the top of the front and rear fenders.
- The 16 mpg average fuel mileage. Certainly not great mileage, but better than 10 mpg!

I don't miss:

- The low seating position. The front seat should have been about 5 inches higher.
- The relatively small size; it was classified as a compact. Looking back, I probably would have enjoyed a mid-sized Dodge Coronet or Plymouth Satellite even more.
- The fact that it was not available with a big-block engine.
- The fact that it did not have a front anti-sway bar; it would have helped handling.

[Osito]

I miss my old stick-shift because it was a small car that fit me perfectly and it could practically stop on a dime.

[arrieros81]

Originally Posted by ukrkoz

So truly, your post should have been:

WHAT DID YOU MISS IN SUBARU FORESTER VS A DIFFERENT VEHICLE.

Lol sorry I thought the thread title was obvious, I did kind of go overboard with my post. Maybe I'm missing the forester a lot more than I realize and using cd as therapy for my feelings. I don't have tons of experience with different types of cars so it's interesting to see cars from decades ago inspire such nostalgia. No one says I miss the vinyl seats in my 2003 Camry ha

[arrieros81]

Originally Posted by North Beach Person

Why would one have to replace all four tires if one got a flat? Yes, with a trashed tire you have to many times, but not for a repairable flat.

I don't remember why the flat tires had to be replaced entirely it was a while ago. So if the original tire could have been fixed I could have saved myself replacing all four? I'll keep that in mind

[Frihed89]

There's no spark advance/retard lever on any car I owned since i junked my 1926 HI truck!

No, I can't think of anything.

[Ralph_Kirk]

Repairability of my Ford Fairmont.

[CrownVic95]

Originally Posted by Zen88

The feeling of a large, older car is like nothing else. Real power steering, floaty suspensions, a big and solid feel, that if you hit something it would just go right through the object and keep on going without a scratch, the style that is gone for years now, because everything looks and feels the same. My 2007 Chevy Monte Carlo looks nice but feels like a Toyota Camry. And the seats are too hard nowadays.

That's because it's a Toyota wannabe, just like most lower-end GM cars have been for 20+ years. The last Monte Carlo that wore the name with any of the dignity that it earned in years previous was the 1988.

[jtur88]

Getting in on the right side through a door that opens toward the front, and sliding across to the drivers seat. The last one might have been the 1956 DKW (predecessor to the Audi).

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_LiDCr-5Gf-...0/hi990041.jpg

In the 1950s, you were taught in Drivers-Ed to never open the drivers side door when parallel parked. Slide across and get out on the passenger side. You could fail a drivers test for that.

[CrownVic95]

Originally Posted by bolillo_loco

More misinformation. Most of that could be contributed to people not taking care of their batteries, fuel, ignition system and or having their carburetors properly adjusted. Providing they were properly maintained, the cars from that era were very reliable. I can fix anything on on those old cars and most often it was a bad choke or weak battery. Manual chokes worked 100% of the time and rarely broke. I cannot work on today's fuel injected cars. The beauty of those old inventions was that the average person using common hand tools could fix most things on their own cars. Most of the trouble shooting was a matter of common sense and basic mechanical knowledge. This is no longer true of today's electronic nightmares.


The last real car I owned was a 1969 Grand Prix.

What do I miss about that car?

There was nothing on that car that I couldn't fix. Once I rebuilt the 400 in it, the only thing I had to replace was the points, tires, and brake pads/shoes, and the occasional clutch. Yes, it was a four speed. The first thing I used to do to any truck or car I bought was to swap out the automatic for a four speed.

That car went through 18" of powdery snow like it wasn't there. I'd have to slow down to 10 mph because of how it would blow straight up over the hood and blind me. *Note, that's 18" of standing snow on roadways and hills that were not plowed.

That car was in my family for more than 20 years.

Next, miss my 1974 F-250 4x4.

After I rebuilt the engine, 390 4V, I had no trouble with the truck. I ran that truck another 210,000 miles before I could no longer afford gas and tires on it. The truck had 330,000 miles on it when I unloaded it. The local car dealership bought it 13 years ago. They've kept it at their shop ever since. It pulls their big car trailers without any trouble. I've talked to people who use it, and the newer diesels and gas trucks don't have the guts that old 390 4V does that I rebuilt. I didn't do a stock rebuild on it... I'm told that with several cars on the trailer, my old truck goes up the mountains on the interstate like they're not there. Find me a new truck of today that's going to run that long and pull with such power. They've done nothing to the truck since I rebuilt it in 1992, and the only reason I did rebuild it was due to the fact that I didn't like the lack of power that the middle 70s smog motor delivered. Still, 40 years after it was produced, it's still purring along on all original running gear... I beat that truck to death, and the dealership that purchased it uses it hard like a 3/4 ton truck should be.

I miss my 84 F-250 diesel. It was another simple truck I could fix everything on it.

I miss not being able to fix a car, and I am not one who enjoys buying a new car every two - ten years. Since my factory closed and my job went overseas, I can no longer afford to buy most things.

The other day I saw an old early 1960s Ford Falcon. I thought about how great it would be to have one, put a four speed in it along with positraction and either a small 50 - 75 hp diesel, or a small straight 6. In such a car, there would be nothing I could not fix, and I tend to keep my vehicles for decades, so sooner or later something always wears out. Those old Ford Falcons were known for 25 - 30 mpg, which is very competitive to a car of equal size today.

As far as tires slipping, a lot of that boils down to tire technology. If you think rigid differentials were junk, you've never had one and built one up. Every car I've owned from that era, I put a positraction unit in it, and it went through mud and snow far better than any front wheel drive I've driven since. Moreover, the older cars could easily be changed to suit my needs, so they usually sat up a lot higher than these newer cars do, which is important when driving through several inches to more than a foot of snow. This isn't true of today's cars. Sure the gizmos and gadgets may give a slight edge, but it's not the winning deal. The bottom line will always be a driver's ability to control his car. Furthermore, those gizmos and gadgets don't last very long and are getting worse not better. Throttles and brake pedals are no longer manually connected to the part they control... That's why car sometimes want to pause when one tries to pull out, slip suddenly on lose terrain, and the brakes are jammed on when all one wanted to do was gently brake. The computer traction control is a joke. If people would learn to drive, run the proper tires for the given road condition, the need for computer controls wouldn't be there. The more complex something is, the more prone it is to failure.

I no longer care about fuel economy. It's not like I have a job to drive to. They've shipped all those overseas as well, but a 60s econobox with a small four cylinder diesel or gas engine would be a pretty fair economy car unlike the gas guzzling 10 mph figures all the school boys who were born after 1980 parrot. Every V-8 I had got close to 20 mph highway and averaged 15 - 17 hacking about in light traffic to and from the city. Look at the fleet average today, it's not a whole lot better. The only time a big V-8 I owned got less than 15 mpg was when I put a big cam in it or it was in a large 4x4 F-250 that sat more than 6' tall. Even then, my diesel f-250 4x4 with 35" tires still got 20 - 22 mpg.

That's what I miss about previous automobiles that I've owned. Their simplicity and ease of maintenance. Today's junk can't be fixed, and when it can, it's usually a heart attack bill, but I guess if one can afford 45k for a rebranded foreign car, repair bills are moot. The same's true if one buys a new car every 2 - 5 years. For the rest of us living in the reality of Nueva 'Merika, older cars were a better option because we could actually fix and nurse them along for decades.

Since I do not speed or carry on, I could care less about race track handling or top fuel quarter mile times. All I care about is how much does the car cost me per year including price, operating cost, and maintenance. Also important would be, does it get me from point A to point B, and will it go through a dozen inches of snow. Since I can't afford a truck, I have to have a car, and it's virtually impossible to chain the tires. What's worse, I have to purchase four snow tires instead of just two like on a rear wheel drive, and I also have to chain all four tires now due to front wheel drive's unique handling characteristics. In the old days, tire chains on rear wheel drive didn't negatively affect braking like it does today. Anybody who's run snow tires or a pair of chains on the front and all season/unchained on the rear knows what happens when one has to execute an emergency stop. The front end stops, but the rear end swings around and passes you. When rounding a turn, if front wheel drives slips, the car goes straight. In rear wheel drive with positraction, if the front end slipped, one could power-slide the car around the turn with the rear wheels. Yea, I can jam on the parking brake on a front wheel drive, but if I lose my momentum, another approach on the hill and turn has to be executed. It was just so much simpler with rear wheel drive and positraction.

Thanks for reading,
bolillo

You certainly didn't live in the upper Midwest or the Northeast in the 50s and 60s, did you?

Look, I love the old classics as much or more as anyone and have numerous times voiced my sadness about their demise, but the other poster is correct and you aren't. The big V-8s of that era - brand new, in a perfect state of tune, did not start reliably in sub-zero temperatures. The colder it was - especially if coupled with wind-chill, the less chance you had of going anywhere in the morning. At 20 below in Minnesota or North Dakota you could forget about it....and spent the day at home without at very least a dipstick heater or, preferably, a water circulating heater plugged in overnight.

[stevej64]

I miss not owning them now.
55 chevy conv.
63 vet coupe I paid sticker price 4475.the car was that popular
65 fuel injection vet
56 lincoln mark2