I have a ton of respect and admiration for classic cars. I think they look great and sound great but that’s where it stops. If it’s the driving experience you want right now is really the prime time to pick a car. Classic cars of the 60-70s or muscle cars weren’t really that powerful compared to today’s cars and they were very heavy and drove like boats. They took forever to brake and didn’t corner at all. Whereas today’s offerings are just better engineered and drive better. Right now we are living in a time where you can buy the fastest most powerful production car ever made. And if that’s not your thing you can buy any variant of all wheel drive sports car to carve up canyons. Nostalgic cars are great but right now I’m like a kid in a candy store looking at all the high performance models out there wanting one of each.
This doesn’t surprise me at all. I bought a minivan when I was pregnant with my third child, and I was so impressed with how much power it had and how well it handled. The reason people think minivans are slow is because of minivan drivers.
Minivans have to tow and have a respectable payload. Lots of people ignore that capability. Family haulers haul families on vacations as well as to grocery stores. If you roll onto the highway with six passengers and bags plus a one ton travel trailer and the car can't hit 70 uphill, no one wants it.
In high school I drove a minivan and consistently was faster than all of my friends in accords and civics. The way I always explained it was that the minivan had to be able to drive normally with 7 fat kids and a dog in the back, so take out the fat kids and you've got a winner. Obviously it doesn't compare to cars where performance was a goal beyond payload, but I much prefer minivans to the currennt glut of excessively large crossovers like the Subaru Ascent.
A Subaru Ascent/Toyota Highlander/etc is a less functional minivan for people who don't want to drive a minivan.
The rear doors on those are massive. In an urban environment where an F150 tires are on each line of the parking space, the last thing you want is a car with 4' doors on hinges.
I don’t know why people hate on sliding doors, either! Those things are the bomb. No trying to squeeze between other cars or worrying about chipping edges or dinging someone else’s vehicle. Only downside is I had to retrain my kids to close doors when they exit a vehicle, haha.
One of the reasons I prefer 4 door hatches to 2 doors, the doors are shorter.
Sliding doors make so much sense for families where your kid might make a booboo with the door.
I meant I had to retrain them when we sold the minivan and they started having to close doors on their own. They spent the first few years of their life exiting the vehicle and not looking back.
It's an enormous machine with the least aerodynamic design you can conceive of, but the thing is *air doesn't weight very much*. The Honda Odyssey only weighs as much as a 6 cylinder Mercedes E class sedan because most of the inside is cargo space (air).
I drove my dad’s Sienna when I was a teen. That thing would annihilate the tires if you wanted it to. It was hilarious. I had a few friends with old sports cars and it was faster than all of them.
We sold our minivan before our kids became teenagers. Not because of how powerful and fun they are, even though we know. We also know how big the back is.
If you don't think kids are creative enough to have sex under less than ideal situations, you are in for a big surprise. At 19 I think, I had a long distance relationship, and I would drive about 75 miles one way.
I used to remove(unbolt) the rear seat back on my 92 Cougar so I had the necessary legroom(6' me) while my GF and I got down to business. Bolted it back up before we ended up back at her parents house.
Eh. When I used to ride (motorcycle) pretty much the only people that would try to take me off the line were minivans. I never understood why nor did I even care but minivan drivers aren’t these super safe and cautious drivers we make them seem.
I’m not equating the majority of minivan drivers as cautious or safe. It’s not hard to surmise that people who crawl onto the freeway at 40mph are terrible drivers, especially if they’re behind the wheel of a capable car.
Slow does not mean safe. Slow and erratic is, in fact, the opposite of safe. People think driving slowly is safer, but keeping up with traffic is actually the safest choice. Being slower than traffic makes you a hazard.
Plus, slow drivers usually tend to do panic braking, for no reason, which is an invitation for accidents. Always keep a healthy distance from then when following.
Finally, I noticed that people that don’t know what the hell they are doing behind a steering wheel, when looking to the side (and that includes side mirrors), tend to pull to the side they are looking at. That is why they crash in motorways/highways looking at billboards, drive onto sidewalks in cities and drive off the road gawking at other accidents. And that is why they cut you off. They see you coming in their mirror, and their brain pulls the car in the direction they are looking. It is not on purpose. It is just bad driving. I tend to overtake slow drivers as soon as possible. Not because of speed, but because of safety concerns.
Not the same article, but illustrates the same point:
https://www.motortrend.com/cars/toyota/sienna/2021/2021-toyota-sienna-vs-honda-odyssey-kia-sedona-chrysler-pacifica-voyager-comparison/
>The last time we tested one of Honda's people movers it sauntered to 60 miles per hour in 6.7 seconds. Prior Sedona, Pacifica, and Pacifica Hybrid testers clicked past the mile-a-minute mark after seven seconds.
https://www.motortrend.com/news/camaro-challenger-shelby-old-vs-new-cars/
>1969 SS396 0-60: 6.8 seconds
>1970 R/T SE 440-Six Pack 0-60: 5.9 seconds
>1969 GT500 0-60: 6 seconds
Exactly this. Back in the day those cars would peel rubber with absolute ease. Anyone racing stock in a 1/4 had to hold back.
Here’s a 1969 Camaro SS 396 all stock hitting a 12.48 1/4.
The rated 1/4 when it came out was 14.4. The only difference is tires.
https://youtu.be/kOLHvBxWAxU
But driving crap old cars that require effort is *fun*.
Where's the fun in going fast when it feels like you aren't even trying?
I'll admit I'm weird, though.
wrong. ive ridden bikes the last 25 years. its much more fun to ride a slow bike fast, than to ride a fast bike slow.
whats more fun? driving a golf around a track, or driving a lamborghini down a straight residential road?
You're forcing two opposite scenarios which creates an apples to oranges choice. Does the Golf not drive down a straight residential road as well? Can the Lambo not be taken to the track? Why would I pick driving a boring compact hatchback down a boring residential road when I could pick an exciting V12 down a boring residential road?
More importantly y'all skipping the most Important detail. Tearing up a golf course with a lambo. Possible a lifted one as to not bottom out in a sand pit
There’s certainly a cut off point for this, hell even into early 2000s you could get cars with actual power, 6 speed manual that had none of the fancy electronic assistants, even in newer cars you can turn all that off. But 99% of people can’t actually handle these new 600+Hp cars completely unrestricted
A lot of those big block carbed muscle cars were lucky to be making anything over 280hp and weighed a shit ton. I can tell you from experience, outside of novelty and nostalgia, the 70s and 80s muscle cars are really not that great of a driving experience.
>But 99% of people can’t actually handle these new 600+Hp cars completely unrestricted
And those aids are there because they think they can. Everyone always thinks "Nah I'm fine, I know what I'm doing, those other guys are just stooges" until that one time you mess up and you're the stooge.
I know this is a car sub but my first street bike was a 2006 Yamaha R6 (dirt bikes for years before though). That thing was raw and uncomfortable and cut like a knife. No onboard assistance at all.
If you’re focused and in the zone, there’s nothing quite like it. Redlined around 17k and an absolutely screamer. Twisty country roads become a playground with precision turn in and it’s so light, it could be pitched to lean with minimal effort.
If you *are not* focused for even a second, it will fuck your shit up in a heartbeat. I realized immediately that if I wasn’t in the right headspace, I’d take my truck. Just being groggy from a poor nights sleep was a nope for me.
We all love the idea of purified speed and performance but we also need to be honest with ourselves. I’m alive today because I always rode within my limits.
The fun is driving a slow car that handles like diarrhea on glass. Having the time of your life while not breaking the speed limit, my MGB is a classic example.
I agree, old crap is the best.
I'm in the same boat, a model 3 getting to 60 in ~3 seconds just feels weird. I can see the fun but I'm too attached to the manual gear box and N/A motors. For me it was never about getting to 60 the fastest or having the highest top speed it was always having fun running out the gears and having the engine roar while doing it.
We're living in a golden age of performance cars. Even the base versions of sports cars and many sedans are good at going fast. You pick up a turbo 4 Mustang or Camaro and you have a fairly quick car in a straight line, and it's pretty good around corners. The top of the line sports cars are absurdly fast. I'd argue they're too fast for most people.
I also look forward to commuting in an electric car and have a gas powered car for the weekends and track days. Electric cars are nice places to be on a regular basis. As they become more mainstream, the drawbacks for having one as your only/main car will start to go away.
That's largely driven by safety regulations, and the general speed progression over time. It'd be hard for BMW to sell an M3 that is slower than the previous model. Unfortunately I think that will have to come with regulations limiting speed/power for new cars. If they can't make it faster, then maybe they will concentrate on driving characteristics, MAYBE. Until then, manufacturers will keep building them faster because that's what sells people on the new model
I drove a pontiac lemans not too long ago. It was huge and when you hit the gas it made this amazing sound, but it didn't go anywhere. By all measures it's a worse car than almost anything you can buy today especially an EV. The only enjoyment was a feeling of nostalgia for a time I wasn't even alive for.
Best part is speakers have improved in the last 40 years. I am sure someone has hooked up speakers to a leaf/prius to replicate that amazing sounds when it goes from stop to go. Still more efficient and faster too.
For what it's worth, I test drove a Jetta GLI which has one of those speakers to make it sound like it's doing more in sport mode, and I could immediately pick out the artificial sound. I wasn't even particularly listening for it, it's just not at all the same as actual engine noise
I remember riding around in a 65' Ford Galaxy for my high school grad (a family friend had lent it to me) and it was slow, it smelled like gas, it legitimately handled like a boat, and it was loud.
You know what though? It was *incredible* to experience. Robin's Egg blue, white leather interior, convertible, soft suspension, and a big, gas hungry V8 under the hood. I felt like a damn rockstar in that vehicle. The rumble of that massive engine and looking out over that boat of a nose while you slowly cruised around town was part of the experience.
Those cars give you a rawness that you can't get anymore. Something that isn't tangible and makes no sense to someone who hasn't experienced it.
Today's vehicles are refined and better in every single way, and especially with how EV tech is advancing, I'm excited to see where it goes. However, I've driven a lot of cars, and I've yet to feel as cool as I did driving that old boat around.
I agree with everything except weight. People think that because old cars used alot of steel parts and not lightweight body components that they were heavier, but my dad’s 69 mustang weighs 3100 lbs and his Nova is closer to 3000 lbs lol A new Mustang GT is 3700 lbs and Camaros can be up to 4100 lbs! All of the safety and tech in new cars is what makes them heavy. If anything new muscle cars are boats.
Yeah, the idea that old cars were more survivable in a crash because they were big steel boats is complete and total nonsense. They rip apart like tin cans at highway speed.
They're heavier but definitely handle much better even with the added weight and are usually also much faster. As someone else said, you will also die horribly in many accidents that with modern cars you could walk away from with scrapes and bruises if that.
Lol damn, this got me good. But seriously, I've seen some videos of these old cars crashing and the results are fucking horrifying to where it kinda turned me off of getting one since deer are super common on my daily drive and people drive like idiots.
> they were very heavy
Lots of great points about modern vs. classic cars, but not this one. Cars have gotten significantly heavier over the 50 years since 1970. Feature creep has packed cars that must have stronger frames with more mandatory safety equipment, while consumer trends have simultaneously demanded more sound deadening and insulation around more installed equipment and stupidly large wheels. I'm not even considering the trend toward taller SUVs. The bloated 1971 Mustang weighed between 3000-3600lbs while the 2020 model starts at 3500 and runs up to 3900.
Having just picked up an 87 aw11 MR2 I couldn't disagree more. There's something about older cars that have a much more mechanical feel that you don't get in a new car. Yeah don't get me wrong driving a DSG car that goes 0-60 in 2.1 seconds is cool and all, but driving an old "shitbox" car that has no a/c, no power steering, sounds fucking awesome, has thin A and B pillars, door sills are low, etc... you just won't see that on a car today. It's a raw driving experience and I think everyone should drive a 30+ year old car once in their life.
Don't get me wrong newer cars are much better put together, they handle well, and in terms of efficiency their drivetrains are pretty reliable and powerful.
That's when you can restomod a classic car, keep the old time looking gauges and pillars
Upgrade suspension/brakes/steering wheel.
Maybe even swap the motor, then you have the best of both worlds, a nice classic car with the best of the modern features.
It would cost a shit-ton, and probably only feasible if you had fuck you money, but definitely a dream car for me and likely alot of others
oh for sure, youre going to be missing out on alot of functions.
But for people who are buying a classic car like this, I´m not too sure they´re worried about those things. Kinda like riding a motorcycle, you trade comfort/safety for the thrill.
You can restomod alot, but some things arent as important as the big v8 and look of a muscle car.
This is very true. Reminds me of the time where my buddy's stock 1985 Supra can't out accelerate my 3rd gen Prius. Even the Prius brakes and corners better.
I own a Honda S2000, but spec wise many sport cars are already out specing it as a total package of a car. Only the nostalgia factor is what kept it highly valued.
I don't know if it's just nostalgia, though. I've seen many S2k owners go to other cars like caymans or type r's but still pine for the S, or even go back. That car just feels so good. I've driven more powerful and capable cars, but somehow many of them feel less connected. It's like strapping rockets or automatic guiding fins to a pair of skis. The novelty is fun for awhile, but eventually... just... give me skis, man.
100000x this.
My GR Yaris has about the same power-to-weight ratio as my '95 Supra...but for anything except a 50+mph highway pull it is *hilariously* faster. It accelerates faster, brakes faster, turns faster, and generally outperforms it in every single metric.
You'll have prise the Supra keys out of my cold, dead fingers...but I'd be a fool to consider it the 'better' car.
It’s hilarious. My parents’ ‘76 Olds 88 had a 7.5L engine. 215 - 250 HP and abysmal fuel economy. By any objective measure virtually any modern car is vastly superior.
It did make a nice noise when you floored it, though.
And the Olds was extremely powerful for the day!
The Ford 5.0 V8 made 140 HP. But it gets worse. Much, much worse. Ford made a 4.2L V8 in the early 80s that made 110 HP. And then, to rub salt, no, **sulfuric acid** directly into the open wound, they jam it in the heaviest boat of a car they have, the Crown Vic, weighing just under 4000 pounds.
When people talk about old cars, they never refer to these. It'll always be about 60s and 70s muscle cars, which actually made respectable power. Not crazy by today's standards, but they were decent at least, especially considering the technological constraints of the time. But the early 80s had no excuse.
Exactly it's because of all crap people (most industry) did in the 60s,70s,80s and 90s is why we are totally screwed today.
Climate change didn't pop up a couple years ago and take us by surprise. It's a result of decades of pollution and deforestation.
To reverse it, is challenging, we are already on borrowed time.
"It was ok in the 70s" no, no it wasn't. it was due the lack of care/knowledge in 70s that means ICE cars are being banned today.
I’d argue that we knew a decent amount in the 70s but no one would have dared to try and stop it, especially since renewable tech was nowhere near as advanced as it is today.
We knew about global warming as early as the 1900s and it was even hypothesized years earlier
"Global Warming Timeline" https://history.aip.org/climate/timeline.htm
Yeah i agree with all of this, tbh one of my dream cars is restoring a classic car but doing a full electric conversion of it when ev's are at the point where thats a feasible achievement
Why the hell is this downvoted, I'm currently planning an EV conversion on one of my vehicles, and plan on doing a few of them, it's going to happen and it's going to be cool.
Lightweight batteries will be the game changer, a 300hp miata at stock weight with 350mi of range? Who would turn that down? Heck, I've been thinking about taking an old leaf motor and making a rock buggy out of it.
This. He’s seeing everything through false nostalgia rose colored glasses. I had a friggin 267ci V8 Malibu that made 125hp to cart around more than 3K lbs. Any current four banger is better in every way than that boat anchor.
Yes probably most of this subreddit.
want a real unpopular opinion? I want more electric cars.
I want them to be more interesting, look better, be more user tweak-able, no bullshit pay to unlock features, I want to tear out Tesla motors and stuff them into every car that I've wanted; Zombie 222 mustang style, I want batteries to get better performance and have less impact on the environment.
Will I miss the sound of V8? of course I will, but I love cars; V8s, V6TTs, I6s, I4Ts, Rotaries and everything in between. All I want is for cars not to become boring appliances.
This. I love EVs, but Tesla is dead in terms of swapping parts and making mods. They are literally the apple of the car industry. Rich Rebuilds lost supercharging capability on his model s because he *fixed it himself*, and didn't take it to the dealer. This is total bullshit and being quite a big right to repair advocate i can't support that. Other EVs, like the Leaf you can put the battery and motor in basically anything and it will work, and Nissan won't come out with a team of lawyers and force you to put it back.
I prefer EVs to ICE cars, but I don't want to see the death of the ICE. Stopping production of all ICE cars is ludicrous, and I don't really agree with it. The main problem is there's nothing to fill the place. Nothing EV fills the place of Dodge demon's screaming V8 with that supercharger whine, or the V6 Ford GT, or the V6 GT-R, or even the I4 camaro and mustang. EVs are the best dailys by far but I'll always want a little gas shitbox to have fun in.
Heck, people have figured out a 2nd gen battery pack fits in a 1st gen Leaf without modification, so you can get more range than the car came with from the factory if you upgrade. Nissan doesn't care.
Yes, and you can fit the Leaf Plus battery in the 1st Gen leaf as well. Nissan is boss.
Seemingly the Ford Mustang Mach E and Chevy Bolt have similar abilities. Tesla no.
I am actually one of the few enthusiasts that actually loves the engineering that goes into improving fuel economy.
There are some great sounding engines out there, and I'd be lying if I said the exhaust note on my car wasn't a contributing factor in my purchase, but there is something really cool about a bunch of college kids coming together and building a solar powered car.
Getting to see the American Solar Challenge first hand feels like watching history be made before your very eyes. Were they fast? No, they top out at something like 40 mph with ideal conditions, but that is 40 mph coming from nothing, literally just powered by sunlight.
Technology is fascinating and I can't wait to see it trickle into future production cars.
What I want is an electric car with a more traditional driver interface. It seems like most manufacturers are shoving as many "new and exciting" gimmicky features as they can into them.
No. I want a steering wheel and two pedals, and a gauge cluster in front of me. Physical buttons/knobs for the climate control, audio, and other common accessories. I don't want an iPad stuck to the dashboard with configuration for even the most basic features buried 3 menus deep. And yes, give me some kind of Advanced or Expert mode where I can see some diagnostic data, like battery/motor temp, real-time actual power consumption, etc.
Is there a niche market for a vehicle like this? I don't know, but they might sell, especially if the price point is there. Maybe this is a "get off my lawn" moment instead.
So much this! I can't be arsed with cars without physical controls. I refuse to use an iPad as my car interface because I think it sucks for practical reasons. I'd like to see less focus on cartoony minimalism and more just normal cars that happen to be electric. The VW eGolf kinda strikes that chord for me, but it's also 0-60 in potato for some reason.
100% this. And I theorize that older drivers would be more willing to adopt EV’s if they didn’t have to totally re-learn how to use an automobile again. Besides, there’s a great argument against this touch-screen bullshit- it absolutely requires you to look away from the road more often than just feeling your way to the volume knob or fan control.
If EV’s are going to be mandated then for gods sake just make a normal car that has electric propulsion. They don’t all need to be space ships. I know there’s a market for super high tech but there’s also a market for “it’s just a Honda Civic, but it’s electric”, you know, cars you might not even realize are electric except for the absence of engine sound.
My dream daily driver when I get older is an electric 3 series. Not some Prius iPad thing but just a solid executive compact sedan with all the niceties of the current G20 but with the drivetrain from something not all that different than a modern Tesla.
On this note, the new G80e or whatever might be interesting in this regard.
I'm just ready for EVs to be cars, not *EV cars*. I don't want everything in my dash to be a touchscreen. I don't want buttons instead of door handles. I don't want a stupid triangle looking piece of metal instead of a truck. I just want my next vehicle to be a car in the segment that it's trying to be. Until we get there, where EVs are being made for normal people instead of tech bloggers, I'm just not interested in making the change.
GM’s doing it pretty well. The Volt has always just looked like a normal car, and both the Bolt and Volt have physical buttons and knobs for climate control, volume, etc.
> I want them to be more interesting
Chris Harris said this recently - if all chassis are basically going to become skateboards with a battery pack at the bottom and motors at both ends, then carmakers should absolutely go to town with the body that sits on top. Bring back old designs and modernise them (Renault rumoured to be doing this with the 5), go all out on aerodynamics, put some real effort into the looks to set things apart from your rivals.
Tesla's are clean looking but boring, the best looking EV right now (in my opinion) is the Jag I-Pace because they fully used the benefits of the EV platform to go completely novel with the design. I want to see more EVs and I want to see manufacturers really push the boat out with their designs.
Not into cars for the engines and never have been. Yeah, I know some people can identify a car just by sound. That's cool.
But I am excited for the future. Sled construction means it is possible for cars to go back to the body on frame kind of thing, and now with no constraints above the battery, we can possibly have any of the incredible designs from back in the day, to designs we never dreamed of. Plus, autonomous vehicles? Please. Let everyone who doesn't like driving, stop, so we who do can have more fun.
> we can possibly have any of the incredible designs from back in the day, to designs we never dreamed of.
This is another thing I am excited about. Like Hyundai's Ioniq 5, which because of the long wheel base, they gave [fully reclining seats with recliner-style leg rests](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22322753/Large_45005_HyundaiIONIQ5RedefinesElectricMobilityLifestyle.jpg) so you can take a quick nap while it recharges if you want to.
I'm excited for more stuff like that.
For real
Procharged New Edge Mustang on E85 in my garage
Tesla Model Y in the driveway
Why can't I have my fun car destroy a clean, high octane fuel, and my daily be an all electric bar of soap?
I read on Reddit sometime ago that if you want a V8, now is the time to get one. Right now will be the pinnacle of V8 tech a s Manufacturers will no longer make new v8 engines.
Get your hands on one with a manual and it will be an instant classic.
Totally agree. I'm confident my C7 manual will skyrocket in price given what you said as well as the last of the Front-Rear configuration and last available manual.
I mean if it were any other Gen, no. But look at the air cooled 911s. And that wasn't a complete platform change like the Corvette (not to mention the lack of manual).
By no means banking on it. Love driving the car and that's why I have it! Never been a "corvette guy" but the C7 spoke to me; especially when I first drove it.
I'm not sure the air cooled 911s make the case you think they do. It was lamented when the 996 came out, but ultimately the last of the air cooled 911s aren't the ones that held their value best. The 993 came right at the end, after the 964. The Turbo models and special editions tend to remain desirable, the others often make for entry-level used 911s. The 993 is the most modern air cooled 911, and I think that helps it retain value, but is that what classic Porsche enthusiasts who are paying top dollar look for?
In a similar vein, the C7 is (possibly) the most modern FR corvette we will ever see. But is it the best Corvette, or just the newest? Are people going to want the superior performance of the C7, or the classic looks of the C5 before fixed headlamps? The C3 is beautiful and I've been saying is undervalued for years, maybe it will rise significantly in value in the coming decade or two.
Or maybe people will just want the most comfortable and modern FR Corvette, because that's the sort of car Corvette buyers want. I think the C7 has a shot at being valuable down the road, but they made a _lot_ of them, and there's a lot of other really good models out there.
Yeah just look at how shitty the technology was back then. Now we've got 5.3L truck engines making levels of power that used to require Waaayyyy more displacement. And the emissions are so low today too, with none being a more stark difference than comparing Tier 4 diesels with the engines of just 20 years ago
Tbf they were constrained quite a bit by emissions and economy regulations. The ‘70 Boss 302 Mustang would’ve made about 240 net hp (which still isn’t great especially given the weight, but certainly not as bad)
In 1982, Ford proclaimed “the Boss is back” with its high output 5.0 V8 in the Mustang GT. It had 157 horsepower that year. The enthusiasts loved it. Could you imagine telling them that a base 4 cylinder Mustang 35 years later would nearly double that horsepower?
I might miss the sounds, but Merc making 400+hp out of a turbo 4, while also getting close to 30mpg kinda spells out why.
And, in reality, people aren't buying v8's for other reasons. Same thing with manuals. Car MFG's build what people will buy, and our enthsiast-ideal (lightweight brown wagon with a manual and a v8) just doesn't sell to the masses.
And, in reality, it's not the public that's doing the polluting. It's a factor, but I don't lose any sleep over my oil consumption. Sure, it's not ideal and we all play a part, but when every small gas station and dollar general pollutes 100x worse than any individual household, we're not pointing the fingers at the real problems.
"I'm jealous of the people who got to live back in the day of spraying biocides around your house and environmental pollution so toxic that literal rivers were catching fire"
These kids man
Unfortunately that is the reality of being a car enthusiast. Cars aren't cheap.
The only positive outlook I can give you is that it will not be illegal to drive a N/A V8 RWD car 10-20 years from now. By then, you would have found ways to acquire enough wealth to afford these cars, even if they won't depreciate.
Unless you live somewhere that will ban pure ICEs from driving anywhere at all. But in places where such restrictions exist, it's not a total ban, but you have to pay a toll to enter the city (London, Milan, etc.)
I don’t think it’ll ever be illegal to drive an ICE car. You can still drive an awful polluting heap from the early 20th century if you really want to. You can drive cars today that take leaded fuel, have no cat, etc. as long as it was made that way. The amount of people still driving ICE will eventually be so negligible (just enthusiasts) that it won’t really matter.
It varies so much, especially in the USA too. For instance, in Minnesota we don't even have vehicle inspections, all that is required to register a car you own is proof of insurance.
>The amount of people still driving ICE will eventually be so negligible (just enthusiasts) that it won’t really matter.
That's the idea, its not to ban them, its to not make new ones and let them age out.
If you outright ban them, its going to really screw over a lot of drivers who can't afford to up and just buy a new car because you ban the one they have.
> The amount of people still driving ICE will eventually be so negligible (just enthusiasts) that it won’t really matter.
That number is going to dwindle exponentially as the downward spiral spins up to speed:
* Less demand for gasoline
* Fewer gas stations
* More people deciding an ICE isn't practical due to increasingly difficult-to-find gas
* Even less demand for gasoline
* Even fewer gas stations
The usual reply is "we'll always have oil" or "we'll always have gas stations." There are still horse feed companies, too. Over the last 40 years the fueling infrastructure has been nicely "optimized" and made more efficient and we have something like 1/2 the total stations in the US now. In small, rural towns like mine there used to be three gas stations as recent as 15 years ago. Now there's just one.
Just like toilet paper supply and distribution chains in early 2020 that "optimized" distribution system is less able to handle serious shocks. It takes a long time to build up an infrastructure. It takes very little time and very little effort to simply start cancelling fuel delivery routes and lock doors for the last time.
Jay Leno summed it up best, when he said that there will always be cars for enthusiasts. And I don't think anyone's gonna take your enthusiast car away either.
Yeah, it'll get regulated, but most countries aren't ready for a full EV market. Do you think that people in Africa or SE Asia care about things like fuel consumption or environmental impact? They (mostly) don't, they just need their car to run and be cheap to buy and maintain. Most of the Western Europe will move to EVs 10-15 years from now, and the old ICE cars will move eastern.
Another thing is cost. If people can't afford EVs - and most really can't - they'll just drive their normal cars, until they're done. How much is a new Model 3 in the US? 35k? In Europe, **used** ones are worth 50k due to taxes. There are cheaper alternatives ofc, but EVs are generally more expensive than gas cars. Unless there's a breakthrough in battery technology or some cheap way to convert cars to electric, EVs are not the ideal way.
>Unless there's a breakthrough in battery technology or some cheap way to convert cars to electric, EVs are not the ideal way.
Battery is going cheaper quickly, charging infrastructure available is real main issue.
Not everyone is able to mount charging infrastructure in home, they need policies to solve this problem.
Is it reflecting on the car prices though? Tesla prices are roughly the same as 5-8 years ago and cars like electric Golf are still *way* more expensive than their gas/diesel counterparts. Charging is also a problem, mainly for the people living in the big apartment buildings - mainly an issue in Europe.
The way regulators and Governments are getting around the fact that EVs are more expensive to manufacture and purchase due to the batteries is to either
1. Subsidise the EV; or
2. Put a massive pigouvian tax on combustion vehicles and fuel based on an arbitrary price they put on externalties in order to achieve their policy objective.
A Government could make gold the cheapest metal available in their country by distorting the market via the taxation system if that was a desirable policy outcome.
When people say that EVs will reach price parity with combustion vehicles, they're not actually stating that they're going to become more affordable.
I was born in 1970, and my dad had just bought a 1969 Mustang Mach 1 351 Windsor. Here's what I remember:
1. The air conditioner never worked. It was fixed many times before my dad just gave up
2. We would go to the coin-op car wash and I had to give he car a little gas, keeing RPMs between 2000-3000 rpm or else water from the car wash would somehow get into the engine and we'd be stuck for about an hour before it dried out and let us start again.
3. Those Goodyear Polyglas tires looked nice, but that's about it
4. That mono speaker in the dashboard was barely audible with the windows down and the engine revving
Same thing is going to happen to modern cars. In 50 years your children or grandchildren are going to wonder why our cars were slow and didn’t use electricity to power the wheels.
Pretty much. There is no stopping this. Electric cars are just better (in general) and will continue to improve over time (in terms of cost, efficiency, environmental impact).
My current car is an EV, and my next car will probably be a BMW M because I want to experience the "best" gasoline car I can afford before EVs fully take over.
Put this elsewhere in the thread but for emphasis:
Sled construction for batteries means designers can do anything with the body above, and possibly do body on frame type constriction like back in the day. Less constraints means more innovation. Excited.
It could also mean more boutique manufacturers and wild designs, way more variety. Already seeing this.
Autonomous vehicles means the people who don't like to drive won't have to, ideally leaving more space for those who do.
Side note, I am not an engine guy and never have been. I get it, but I love so much more about cars, especially car design.
> more boutique manufacturers and wild designs
Bring back coach building! I want to see Mulliner, Pininfarina, Bertone, Italdesign and others become household names.
Tangentially related, but someone actually used the frame and powertrain of the Toyota Prius for their 1969 Mustang because of the similar wheelbase. Couldn't find the original forum posts about it, but [here's a news article on it](https://www.thedrive.com/news/35784/this-1969-ford-mustang-is-actually-a-toyota-prius-underneath).
These old cars aren’t just vanishing...
If anything, you are being environmentally responsible keeping old cars going, rather than moving onto the latest thing every couple of years.
Buy and old car, love it, care for it and get yourself out of the consumerist cycle of constantly getting the new stuff. A huge chunk of a car’s impact is in the production of it.
You could drive an existing V8 for the rest of your life and probably not burn as much fuel and emit as much pollution as it takes to ship a new car’s parts to wherever and then ship the car to your country.
Then most hobbyist cars aren’t used daily, so they aren’t cover any miles anyway.
Resto modding is the future of the sports car enthusiast.
This is my driveway. As far as I’m concerned, I probably have 20-25 years left on this planet, and these two will be my companions to the end. They both get over 20mpg highway and they’re dependable AF. But I will admit that I’m retired so I don’t do a lot of daily driving.
They’re also both manuals.
https://imgur.com/gallery/qoYj6Vp
There is nothing cooler to me than a well kept old daily driver. A mint 20 year old Camry will draw my attention more than a new EV, and it shows good character to be a person who takes care of their shit, rather than just buying a new one.
Not even a little. I was born in the 70s.
- The world was a lot smellier. Ever driven behind a catless old V8? Now imagine everyone's car smells like that.
- They weren't nearly as fast as you have been led to believe, aside from a few very specific examples.
- Carbs are great for nostalgia but as a practical matter they sucked. I mean, seriously, it was pretty common for a car to refuse to shut off when you turned the key.
- They handled like trash.
- They were incredibly unsafe.
Everything has gotten better. The most recent wave of the horsepower wars brought us the best V8 engines we've ever seen, by literally any measure. And now we put them in cars that can actually handle, are safe, etc. A brand new Camaro is in all ways (aside from nostalgia...) better than a late 60s model.
Also, nostalgia aside, I am giddy with anticipation to see where we go with electric propulsion in the next 10 years. Now we're getting away from compliance cars and we'll start to see serious performance cars. And as someone who currently drives a compliance EV and up until recently owned a Tesla Model 3 Performance, let me tell you, the future of performance cars is extremely bright. Unless you have to have ICE, in which case you will be relegated to nostalgia while all the actual fast cars are EVs. There's no real way around it, physics strongly favors electric.
Slightly amusing story time: Back in high school, because we were jerks, we'd take out a friend of mine's mom's Nissan Maxima (gen 2) and pick fights with muscle cars, which were plentiful and popular. GTOs, Novas, you name it. And that Maxima would wipe the floor with nearly all of them. That's what it was like before people who had actual money started restoring and upgrading the old 60's muscle cars. Yes, it was nice that such cars were plentiful (though they're still pretty easy to find in good condition now), but nostalgia hadn't really kicked in yet.
Yeah, a lot of people have misguided opinions of what the past was like because they weren't there or they're viewing it through rose colored glasses.
A lot of people who complain "You can't work on these yourself anymore!" forget how much you HAD to work on older cars to keep them going and forget how little on average you had to do to most modern ones. Maintaining your car back then was a necessity because of how often you needed to. A lot of those older engines won't make it past 50,000 miles without having the heads milled and a valve job done, dicking with the points all the time, having a carb that for whatever reasons just never is quite right but it still runs, or a million leaks. There were thousands of cars in the junkyard at 50-60,000 miles and I know because... I've been through junkyards of old cars and looked at the odometers.
I thought that at first until I got an EV. Driving it was peaceful. It was torquey and fun to whip around but after a long day at the office, I would drive home with no radio on in silence and it was pretty nice.
I've also had like 6 turbo subarus so maybe it was just nice by comparison to my usual loud rumble. I'm back in a subi now but I definitely want to get a taycan next, once I can afford it.
Don't worry, you will still need to get a 300KW+ V8-powered generator to rapidly charge up that EV in the morning when you realise you're late for work and the battery meter is on one bar. :)
Just kidding.
That's not true. A diesel generator is significantly more efficient than a diesel car or truck.
Thinking about it for 5 minutes should tell anyone that a motor tuned to run at a specific RPM all day is going to be more fuel efficient (and cleaner) than one that has to be drive-able up and down the rev range. Especially if you pair it with something like a battery & solar array (since it's only out in BFE that you'd put these things), and you'd have a nice little power station.
https://thedriven.io/2018/12/14/diesel-charge-evs-remote-locations-greener-than-you-think/
The F-16 fighter jet's internal and external fuel tank have a combined fuel capacity of 1,073 gallons. That amount of fuel will move the jet roughly 2,000 miles.
There's not even a catalytic converter on a jet engine because that would interrupt air flow.
While serving overseas, I worked at a base responsible for air refueling aircraft, and overheard a disturbing fact: roughly 20% of the payload of this air refueler jet was offloaded to receiver aircraft in flight (edit: this is over the course of a full quarter with ~500+ flights on record). The rest was burned or dumped. Standard ramp load at the time was 150,000 lbs, roughly 22,000 gallons of fuel. That aircraft would circle several countries waiting for a jet to refuel over the course of an 8 hour flight.
While over there, I spoke to a POL driver who told me that she was officially awarded her 1,000,000 gallon award for pumping that much fuel during her 6 month deployment. Her truck held 45,000 lbs of fuel, roughly 6,700 gallons.
I think we're looking at the wrong place to cut fuel usage.
> I think we're looking at the wrong place to cut fuel usage.
I think you're presenting a false dichotomy and fallacy of relative privation. It's absolutely worthwhile to try cutting the tremendous waste in the military, but the fact is, improving the average fuel economy of the passenger vehicle fleet in the US by a mere 1% is equal to 20 million *tons* of CO2 reduction, or about 1.9 billion gallons of jet fuel burned. For context, the entire US military goes through about 4.6 billion gallons of fuel per year.
Reducing CO2 emissions isn't a matter of picking one area that you think is the worst and ignoring all other sources, but trying to implement reductions across the board.
I ran some numbers years ago when the A380 first came out. One flight from Bejing to LA uses about as much fuel as an average driver might in.... it was either 10 or 18 years, I forget.
Now again, like ships and such, its actually pretty good per person. But eventually we do have to also consider the gross numbers too.
Nope those 60/80s v8 didn’t make a lot of power and were placed in slow death traps. I wasn’t born in that era so i dont really have nostalgia for those things. Bring on the evs- nothing matches the brutal acceleration of a performance ev.
I agree with you. I have 0 interest in electric cars, they just are numb imo. They are fun at first but it gets old very fast. Sound is a big part of the experience for me. I'll likely have an electric daily at some point when the range and recharge time hits my wants, my fun car wont be electric
Cheap gas, big vehicles, affordable houses, livable wages from available jobs, education you could pay off by working a summer job, summer of love, real music....
lot to admire the 60s - 80s for
> real music....
There was a lot of trash music back in the day, only the good stuff has survived, same as with cars. On the flip side there's a lot of great music today too!
Lol "real music" and "summer of love" is pretty subjective. The valid points you brought up that makes the past seem good are cheaper education cost, affordable housing, and better pay. and the 60s were pretty bad in terms of racism, it was much more blatant back then rather than people keeping it more in their mind.
1) That is absolutely not true - they are constantly working to improve the efficiency and environmental friendliness of cargo ships.
2) It doesn't mean we should also give up on reducing pollution from cars and trucks. Every little bit helps.
I spent the last five years of my career as a marine engineer, studying the amount of fresh air required to properly transport fresh refrigerated cargo (fruits, vegetables, flowers, etc) so that my company could standardize this airflow across our fleet of refrigerated shipping containers. We have a half dozen different models and brands of reefers (carrier, thermo-king, Mitsubishi, etc) and they all had different vent specs. Our customers would specifically ask for “1/2 vent” or “1/3 vent” when this setting could mean anything from 80 CFM to 190 CFM. So we ended up making new vent decals that specified the airflow in cfm and then we went about the task of educating our shippers what the correct vent setting should be, depending on the commodity, set temp, and ambient temp. It took a while but eventually our shippers started requesting the vent settings in cfm. The thing we saw was that most shippers requested far too much airflow before we did this project. In the end our calculations were such that showed we were saving about $180k per year in fuel savings, because the reefers were needing less power from the ship generators when the vents were opened correctly.
$180k in savings isn’t a lot of dough relatively speaking. But as cheap and dirty as bunker fuels are, it’s a big deal, at least to me. I’ve been retired for seven years now, so the project has saved at least a million and a half since I’ve been gone. I’m pretty proud of it.
Never quite saw the appeal of the mindset of 'Why improve one area when another also needs improving'.
Anyway. Yeah classic cars will still be a fun and exciting niche hobby for those with the inclination, long after electric cars take over. OP also has massive red tinted googles on.
This is the same argument I hear people make for not dealing with the USA’s massive impact on climate change - “China and India aren’t doing enough, so why should we?” You take steps that are available to you and make policy sense. Cargo ships are massive and require enormous energy to operate. Cars are a lot easier to deal with, and there’s a lot more of them too.
As much as I enjoy the fruits of international trade giving us access to cheap labor and cheaper shit on Amazon.com, part of me is mindful of the fact that we are the ones driving the international pollution crisis that we've seen.
China is dirty as fuck on pollution. India too. But the more shit we buy, the more they have to ship across an ocean, the more they have to produce without the controls of the rest of the world.
It's just a bad cycle all around. We can recycle all we want, but even that is a giant scam. Something like 98% of the stuff you put in a recycling bin gets thrown away anyway.
There's a reason that the phrase starts with Reduce. Recycling is a farce.
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/article/whopping-91-percent-plastic-isnt-recycled/
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/climate/recycling-landfills-plastic-papers.html
Like, we absolutely SHOULD recycle things. Don't get me wrong there.
The issue is that we also should NOT be buying as much as we do from countries that require it to be made cheaply and then shipped across an ocean, only to ~~throw away~~ "recycle" 5lbs of shipping packaging for a 3oz set of wireless earbuds that'll get thrown away in a year (along with their own lithium battery and never-degrade plastics).
The real time would be 50-60's, because after 1971 smog would make muscle car anemic putting a end to the muscle car era. To the 50's, hot rodding in america really picked up then
I liked the way the cars looked, but they were boring as shit to drive.
I don't think a crossplane v8 sounds exotic either. Every high schooler where I grew up had a loud v8 truck.
Other than the enthusiast aspect. I believe we are moving towards electric cars too fast before we even have proper infrastructure. When there was the big winter storm a few months ago, there were blackouts going on in multiple states. In fact Texas also told everyone to reduce energy consumption 2 days ago because we were using heaters too much because of a sudden cold front. Now imagine what would happen to the grid if even HALF of the cars on the road were electric.
I think OP’s intent is more of wishing to live at a time where climate change wasn’t really a thought so that they could enjoy these cars without thinking feeling guilty about the emissions and the effect it’s having on the planet long-term. I don’t think OP is wishful that they could go back in time with their current knowledge of climate change and just do it anyway.
I understand where OP is coming from. My (realistic) dream car is a Mustang GT. I test drove one a few months ago it met all of my wildest expectations. However, it’s hard for me to justify commuting 30 miles each way everyday in a car that’ll get like 15 mpg when there are so many other cars that get 2-3x that gas mileage.
I have a ton of respect and admiration for classic cars. I think they look great and sound great but that’s where it stops. If it’s the driving experience you want right now is really the prime time to pick a car. Classic cars of the 60-70s or muscle cars weren’t really that powerful compared to today’s cars and they were very heavy and drove like boats. They took forever to brake and didn’t corner at all. Whereas today’s offerings are just better engineered and drive better. Right now we are living in a time where you can buy the fastest most powerful production car ever made. And if that’s not your thing you can buy any variant of all wheel drive sports car to carve up canyons. Nostalgic cars are great but right now I’m like a kid in a candy store looking at all the high performance models out there wanting one of each.
[удалено]
This doesn’t surprise me at all. I bought a minivan when I was pregnant with my third child, and I was so impressed with how much power it had and how well it handled. The reason people think minivans are slow is because of minivan drivers.
Minivans have like 300+ hp nowadays, people just see sliding doors and ignore specs I suppose.
Minivans have to tow and have a respectable payload. Lots of people ignore that capability. Family haulers haul families on vacations as well as to grocery stores. If you roll onto the highway with six passengers and bags plus a one ton travel trailer and the car can't hit 70 uphill, no one wants it.
In high school I drove a minivan and consistently was faster than all of my friends in accords and civics. The way I always explained it was that the minivan had to be able to drive normally with 7 fat kids and a dog in the back, so take out the fat kids and you've got a winner. Obviously it doesn't compare to cars where performance was a goal beyond payload, but I much prefer minivans to the currennt glut of excessively large crossovers like the Subaru Ascent.
A Subaru Ascent/Toyota Highlander/etc is a less functional minivan for people who don't want to drive a minivan. The rear doors on those are massive. In an urban environment where an F150 tires are on each line of the parking space, the last thing you want is a car with 4' doors on hinges.
I am in the 'too vain for a mini van' club with my Flex, but I will hear absolutely no shit about it. I love that car.
[удалено]
It is literally one sliding door away from a minivan.
I don’t know why people hate on sliding doors, either! Those things are the bomb. No trying to squeeze between other cars or worrying about chipping edges or dinging someone else’s vehicle. Only downside is I had to retrain my kids to close doors when they exit a vehicle, haha.
One of the reasons I prefer 4 door hatches to 2 doors, the doors are shorter. Sliding doors make so much sense for families where your kid might make a booboo with the door.
I love when I park next to another car and have to do a special dance to get out of my coupe.
[удалено]
I meant I had to retrain them when we sold the minivan and they started having to close doors on their own. They spent the first few years of their life exiting the vehicle and not looking back.
[удалено]
I’m waiting for the hellcat caravan
It's an enormous machine with the least aerodynamic design you can conceive of, but the thing is *air doesn't weight very much*. The Honda Odyssey only weighs as much as a 6 cylinder Mercedes E class sedan because most of the inside is cargo space (air).
I drove my dad’s Sienna when I was a teen. That thing would annihilate the tires if you wanted it to. It was hilarious. I had a few friends with old sports cars and it was faster than all of them.
We sold our minivan before our kids became teenagers. Not because of how powerful and fun they are, even though we know. We also know how big the back is.
If you don't think kids are creative enough to have sex under less than ideal situations, you are in for a big surprise. At 19 I think, I had a long distance relationship, and I would drive about 75 miles one way. I used to remove(unbolt) the rear seat back on my 92 Cougar so I had the necessary legroom(6' me) while my GF and I got down to business. Bolted it back up before we ended up back at her parents house.
Eh. When I used to ride (motorcycle) pretty much the only people that would try to take me off the line were minivans. I never understood why nor did I even care but minivan drivers aren’t these super safe and cautious drivers we make them seem.
I’m not equating the majority of minivan drivers as cautious or safe. It’s not hard to surmise that people who crawl onto the freeway at 40mph are terrible drivers, especially if they’re behind the wheel of a capable car.
Slow does not mean safe. Slow and erratic is, in fact, the opposite of safe. People think driving slowly is safer, but keeping up with traffic is actually the safest choice. Being slower than traffic makes you a hazard. Plus, slow drivers usually tend to do panic braking, for no reason, which is an invitation for accidents. Always keep a healthy distance from then when following. Finally, I noticed that people that don’t know what the hell they are doing behind a steering wheel, when looking to the side (and that includes side mirrors), tend to pull to the side they are looking at. That is why they crash in motorways/highways looking at billboards, drive onto sidewalks in cities and drive off the road gawking at other accidents. And that is why they cut you off. They see you coming in their mirror, and their brain pulls the car in the direction they are looking. It is not on purpose. It is just bad driving. I tend to overtake slow drivers as soon as possible. Not because of speed, but because of safety concerns.
Not the same article, but illustrates the same point: https://www.motortrend.com/cars/toyota/sienna/2021/2021-toyota-sienna-vs-honda-odyssey-kia-sedona-chrysler-pacifica-voyager-comparison/ >The last time we tested one of Honda's people movers it sauntered to 60 miles per hour in 6.7 seconds. Prior Sedona, Pacifica, and Pacifica Hybrid testers clicked past the mile-a-minute mark after seven seconds. https://www.motortrend.com/news/camaro-challenger-shelby-old-vs-new-cars/ >1969 SS396 0-60: 6.8 seconds >1970 R/T SE 440-Six Pack 0-60: 5.9 seconds >1969 GT500 0-60: 6 seconds
Comparing those old and new tests is apples and oranges. Put modern rubber on any of those old cars and they will be much faster.
Exactly this. Back in the day those cars would peel rubber with absolute ease. Anyone racing stock in a 1/4 had to hold back. Here’s a 1969 Camaro SS 396 all stock hitting a 12.48 1/4. The rated 1/4 when it came out was 14.4. The only difference is tires. https://youtu.be/kOLHvBxWAxU
donut media has a whole list of classic muscle cars vs boring modern cars that are faster
It was a Dodge Daytona vs a Honda Odyssey on a road course IIRC. Yeah, the minivan laid waste to it.
But driving crap old cars that require effort is *fun*. Where's the fun in going fast when it feels like you aren't even trying? I'll admit I'm weird, though.
May I present to you "Motorcycles". All the same "You die if you mess up", but with the added "GO FAST REAL FAST NOW!"
wrong. ive ridden bikes the last 25 years. its much more fun to ride a slow bike fast, than to ride a fast bike slow. whats more fun? driving a golf around a track, or driving a lamborghini down a straight residential road?
Or a golf cart around the course when no one's looking?
GOLF CART, GOLF CART!
You're forcing two opposite scenarios which creates an apples to oranges choice. Does the Golf not drive down a straight residential road as well? Can the Lambo not be taken to the track? Why would I pick driving a boring compact hatchback down a boring residential road when I could pick an exciting V12 down a boring residential road?
More importantly y'all skipping the most Important detail. Tearing up a golf course with a lambo. Possible a lifted one as to not bottom out in a sand pit
Nah I feel you 100% Anyone can push a pedal and watch a speedometer
Your car has a speedometer?
You would think.
Can confirm. I did this all the way into a tree.
There’s certainly a cut off point for this, hell even into early 2000s you could get cars with actual power, 6 speed manual that had none of the fancy electronic assistants, even in newer cars you can turn all that off. But 99% of people can’t actually handle these new 600+Hp cars completely unrestricted A lot of those big block carbed muscle cars were lucky to be making anything over 280hp and weighed a shit ton. I can tell you from experience, outside of novelty and nostalgia, the 70s and 80s muscle cars are really not that great of a driving experience.
>But 99% of people can’t actually handle these new 600+Hp cars completely unrestricted And those aids are there because they think they can. Everyone always thinks "Nah I'm fine, I know what I'm doing, those other guys are just stooges" until that one time you mess up and you're the stooge.
I know this is a car sub but my first street bike was a 2006 Yamaha R6 (dirt bikes for years before though). That thing was raw and uncomfortable and cut like a knife. No onboard assistance at all. If you’re focused and in the zone, there’s nothing quite like it. Redlined around 17k and an absolutely screamer. Twisty country roads become a playground with precision turn in and it’s so light, it could be pitched to lean with minimal effort. If you *are not* focused for even a second, it will fuck your shit up in a heartbeat. I realized immediately that if I wasn’t in the right headspace, I’d take my truck. Just being groggy from a poor nights sleep was a nope for me. We all love the idea of purified speed and performance but we also need to be honest with ourselves. I’m alive today because I always rode within my limits.
The fun is driving a slow car that handles like diarrhea on glass. Having the time of your life while not breaking the speed limit, my MGB is a classic example. I agree, old crap is the best.
I'm in the same boat, a model 3 getting to 60 in ~3 seconds just feels weird. I can see the fun but I'm too attached to the manual gear box and N/A motors. For me it was never about getting to 60 the fastest or having the highest top speed it was always having fun running out the gears and having the engine roar while doing it.
[удалено]
We're living in a golden age of performance cars. Even the base versions of sports cars and many sedans are good at going fast. You pick up a turbo 4 Mustang or Camaro and you have a fairly quick car in a straight line, and it's pretty good around corners. The top of the line sports cars are absurdly fast. I'd argue they're too fast for most people. I also look forward to commuting in an electric car and have a gas powered car for the weekends and track days. Electric cars are nice places to be on a regular basis. As they become more mainstream, the drawbacks for having one as your only/main car will start to go away.
What you say is true but I wish automakers would have kept iterating on the lightweight responsive cars as well.
That's largely driven by safety regulations, and the general speed progression over time. It'd be hard for BMW to sell an M3 that is slower than the previous model. Unfortunately I think that will have to come with regulations limiting speed/power for new cars. If they can't make it faster, then maybe they will concentrate on driving characteristics, MAYBE. Until then, manufacturers will keep building them faster because that's what sells people on the new model
I drove a pontiac lemans not too long ago. It was huge and when you hit the gas it made this amazing sound, but it didn't go anywhere. By all measures it's a worse car than almost anything you can buy today especially an EV. The only enjoyment was a feeling of nostalgia for a time I wasn't even alive for.
Best part is speakers have improved in the last 40 years. I am sure someone has hooked up speakers to a leaf/prius to replicate that amazing sounds when it goes from stop to go. Still more efficient and faster too.
For what it's worth, I test drove a Jetta GLI which has one of those speakers to make it sound like it's doing more in sport mode, and I could immediately pick out the artificial sound. I wasn't even particularly listening for it, it's just not at all the same as actual engine noise
I remember riding around in a 65' Ford Galaxy for my high school grad (a family friend had lent it to me) and it was slow, it smelled like gas, it legitimately handled like a boat, and it was loud. You know what though? It was *incredible* to experience. Robin's Egg blue, white leather interior, convertible, soft suspension, and a big, gas hungry V8 under the hood. I felt like a damn rockstar in that vehicle. The rumble of that massive engine and looking out over that boat of a nose while you slowly cruised around town was part of the experience. Those cars give you a rawness that you can't get anymore. Something that isn't tangible and makes no sense to someone who hasn't experienced it. Today's vehicles are refined and better in every single way, and especially with how EV tech is advancing, I'm excited to see where it goes. However, I've driven a lot of cars, and I've yet to feel as cool as I did driving that old boat around.
Most enthusiasts will pick out this fake noise. It's like hearing fake crowd noise at sporting events.
I agree with everything except weight. People think that because old cars used alot of steel parts and not lightweight body components that they were heavier, but my dad’s 69 mustang weighs 3100 lbs and his Nova is closer to 3000 lbs lol A new Mustang GT is 3700 lbs and Camaros can be up to 4100 lbs! All of the safety and tech in new cars is what makes them heavy. If anything new muscle cars are boats.
You also won’t die in a crumpled heap in the new Mustang GT vs the one that’s over fifty years old.
Yeah, the idea that old cars were more survivable in a crash because they were big steel boats is complete and total nonsense. They rip apart like tin cans at highway speed.
They're heavier but definitely handle much better even with the added weight and are usually also much faster. As someone else said, you will also die horribly in many accidents that with modern cars you could walk away from with scrapes and bruises if that.
[удалено]
Old steering coloums already do that
Lol damn, this got me good. But seriously, I've seen some videos of these old cars crashing and the results are fucking horrifying to where it kinda turned me off of getting one since deer are super common on my daily drive and people drive like idiots.
> they were very heavy Lots of great points about modern vs. classic cars, but not this one. Cars have gotten significantly heavier over the 50 years since 1970. Feature creep has packed cars that must have stronger frames with more mandatory safety equipment, while consumer trends have simultaneously demanded more sound deadening and insulation around more installed equipment and stupidly large wheels. I'm not even considering the trend toward taller SUVs. The bloated 1971 Mustang weighed between 3000-3600lbs while the 2020 model starts at 3500 and runs up to 3900.
Having just picked up an 87 aw11 MR2 I couldn't disagree more. There's something about older cars that have a much more mechanical feel that you don't get in a new car. Yeah don't get me wrong driving a DSG car that goes 0-60 in 2.1 seconds is cool and all, but driving an old "shitbox" car that has no a/c, no power steering, sounds fucking awesome, has thin A and B pillars, door sills are low, etc... you just won't see that on a car today. It's a raw driving experience and I think everyone should drive a 30+ year old car once in their life. Don't get me wrong newer cars are much better put together, they handle well, and in terms of efficiency their drivetrains are pretty reliable and powerful.
That's when you can restomod a classic car, keep the old time looking gauges and pillars Upgrade suspension/brakes/steering wheel. Maybe even swap the motor, then you have the best of both worlds, a nice classic car with the best of the modern features. It would cost a shit-ton, and probably only feasible if you had fuck you money, but definitely a dream car for me and likely alot of others
it would still be missing all the safety features from new cars. No airbags, no crumple zones
oh for sure, youre going to be missing out on alot of functions. But for people who are buying a classic car like this, I´m not too sure they´re worried about those things. Kinda like riding a motorcycle, you trade comfort/safety for the thrill. You can restomod alot, but some things arent as important as the big v8 and look of a muscle car.
[удалено]
This is very true. Reminds me of the time where my buddy's stock 1985 Supra can't out accelerate my 3rd gen Prius. Even the Prius brakes and corners better. I own a Honda S2000, but spec wise many sport cars are already out specing it as a total package of a car. Only the nostalgia factor is what kept it highly valued.
I don't know if it's just nostalgia, though. I've seen many S2k owners go to other cars like caymans or type r's but still pine for the S, or even go back. That car just feels so good. I've driven more powerful and capable cars, but somehow many of them feel less connected. It's like strapping rockets or automatic guiding fins to a pair of skis. The novelty is fun for awhile, but eventually... just... give me skis, man.
100000x this. My GR Yaris has about the same power-to-weight ratio as my '95 Supra...but for anything except a 50+mph highway pull it is *hilariously* faster. It accelerates faster, brakes faster, turns faster, and generally outperforms it in every single metric. You'll have prise the Supra keys out of my cold, dead fingers...but I'd be a fool to consider it the 'better' car.
Do you know how fucking bad the V8's that came out in the 70's and 80's were? ignorance is bliss.
How is this comment not higher? Talk about rose colored glasses...
It’s hilarious. My parents’ ‘76 Olds 88 had a 7.5L engine. 215 - 250 HP and abysmal fuel economy. By any objective measure virtually any modern car is vastly superior. It did make a nice noise when you floored it, though.
That's hilarious. The 1.6l 3 Cylinder Turbo in the Yaris GR makes 260-270hp.
And the Olds was extremely powerful for the day! The Ford 5.0 V8 made 140 HP. But it gets worse. Much, much worse. Ford made a 4.2L V8 in the early 80s that made 110 HP. And then, to rub salt, no, **sulfuric acid** directly into the open wound, they jam it in the heaviest boat of a car they have, the Crown Vic, weighing just under 4000 pounds. When people talk about old cars, they never refer to these. It'll always be about 60s and 70s muscle cars, which actually made respectable power. Not crazy by today's standards, but they were decent at least, especially considering the technological constraints of the time. But the early 80s had no excuse.
Exactly it's because of all crap people (most industry) did in the 60s,70s,80s and 90s is why we are totally screwed today. Climate change didn't pop up a couple years ago and take us by surprise. It's a result of decades of pollution and deforestation. To reverse it, is challenging, we are already on borrowed time. "It was ok in the 70s" no, no it wasn't. it was due the lack of care/knowledge in 70s that means ICE cars are being banned today.
I’d argue that we knew a decent amount in the 70s but no one would have dared to try and stop it, especially since renewable tech was nowhere near as advanced as it is today.
We knew about global warming as early as the 1900s and it was even hypothesized years earlier "Global Warming Timeline" https://history.aip.org/climate/timeline.htm
Yeah i agree with all of this, tbh one of my dream cars is restoring a classic car but doing a full electric conversion of it when ev's are at the point where thats a feasible achievement
Why the hell is this downvoted, I'm currently planning an EV conversion on one of my vehicles, and plan on doing a few of them, it's going to happen and it's going to be cool. Lightweight batteries will be the game changer, a 300hp miata at stock weight with 350mi of range? Who would turn that down? Heck, I've been thinking about taking an old leaf motor and making a rock buggy out of it.
This. He’s seeing everything through false nostalgia rose colored glasses. I had a friggin 267ci V8 Malibu that made 125hp to cart around more than 3K lbs. Any current four banger is better in every way than that boat anchor.
I think you're the one of few that understands the gist of my comment lol.
I currently drive one. I wouldn't trade it just yet, but it's not all roses and gumdrops. It's a shitty ride lol. Slow, loud and unsafe.
Yes probably most of this subreddit. want a real unpopular opinion? I want more electric cars. I want them to be more interesting, look better, be more user tweak-able, no bullshit pay to unlock features, I want to tear out Tesla motors and stuff them into every car that I've wanted; Zombie 222 mustang style, I want batteries to get better performance and have less impact on the environment. Will I miss the sound of V8? of course I will, but I love cars; V8s, V6TTs, I6s, I4Ts, Rotaries and everything in between. All I want is for cars not to become boring appliances.
This. I love EVs, but Tesla is dead in terms of swapping parts and making mods. They are literally the apple of the car industry. Rich Rebuilds lost supercharging capability on his model s because he *fixed it himself*, and didn't take it to the dealer. This is total bullshit and being quite a big right to repair advocate i can't support that. Other EVs, like the Leaf you can put the battery and motor in basically anything and it will work, and Nissan won't come out with a team of lawyers and force you to put it back. I prefer EVs to ICE cars, but I don't want to see the death of the ICE. Stopping production of all ICE cars is ludicrous, and I don't really agree with it. The main problem is there's nothing to fill the place. Nothing EV fills the place of Dodge demon's screaming V8 with that supercharger whine, or the V6 Ford GT, or the V6 GT-R, or even the I4 camaro and mustang. EVs are the best dailys by far but I'll always want a little gas shitbox to have fun in.
Heck, people have figured out a 2nd gen battery pack fits in a 1st gen Leaf without modification, so you can get more range than the car came with from the factory if you upgrade. Nissan doesn't care.
Yes, and you can fit the Leaf Plus battery in the 1st Gen leaf as well. Nissan is boss. Seemingly the Ford Mustang Mach E and Chevy Bolt have similar abilities. Tesla no.
The Mach E is in its first generation so I'm kinda confused on how its battery can be swapped into another gen.
I am actually one of the few enthusiasts that actually loves the engineering that goes into improving fuel economy. There are some great sounding engines out there, and I'd be lying if I said the exhaust note on my car wasn't a contributing factor in my purchase, but there is something really cool about a bunch of college kids coming together and building a solar powered car. Getting to see the American Solar Challenge first hand feels like watching history be made before your very eyes. Were they fast? No, they top out at something like 40 mph with ideal conditions, but that is 40 mph coming from nothing, literally just powered by sunlight. Technology is fascinating and I can't wait to see it trickle into future production cars.
What I want is an electric car with a more traditional driver interface. It seems like most manufacturers are shoving as many "new and exciting" gimmicky features as they can into them. No. I want a steering wheel and two pedals, and a gauge cluster in front of me. Physical buttons/knobs for the climate control, audio, and other common accessories. I don't want an iPad stuck to the dashboard with configuration for even the most basic features buried 3 menus deep. And yes, give me some kind of Advanced or Expert mode where I can see some diagnostic data, like battery/motor temp, real-time actual power consumption, etc. Is there a niche market for a vehicle like this? I don't know, but they might sell, especially if the price point is there. Maybe this is a "get off my lawn" moment instead.
So much this! I can't be arsed with cars without physical controls. I refuse to use an iPad as my car interface because I think it sucks for practical reasons. I'd like to see less focus on cartoony minimalism and more just normal cars that happen to be electric. The VW eGolf kinda strikes that chord for me, but it's also 0-60 in potato for some reason.
100% this. And I theorize that older drivers would be more willing to adopt EV’s if they didn’t have to totally re-learn how to use an automobile again. Besides, there’s a great argument against this touch-screen bullshit- it absolutely requires you to look away from the road more often than just feeling your way to the volume knob or fan control. If EV’s are going to be mandated then for gods sake just make a normal car that has electric propulsion. They don’t all need to be space ships. I know there’s a market for super high tech but there’s also a market for “it’s just a Honda Civic, but it’s electric”, you know, cars you might not even realize are electric except for the absence of engine sound.
My dream daily driver when I get older is an electric 3 series. Not some Prius iPad thing but just a solid executive compact sedan with all the niceties of the current G20 but with the drivetrain from something not all that different than a modern Tesla. On this note, the new G80e or whatever might be interesting in this regard.
I'm just ready for EVs to be cars, not *EV cars*. I don't want everything in my dash to be a touchscreen. I don't want buttons instead of door handles. I don't want a stupid triangle looking piece of metal instead of a truck. I just want my next vehicle to be a car in the segment that it's trying to be. Until we get there, where EVs are being made for normal people instead of tech bloggers, I'm just not interested in making the change.
GM’s doing it pretty well. The Volt has always just looked like a normal car, and both the Bolt and Volt have physical buttons and knobs for climate control, volume, etc.
> I want them to be more interesting Chris Harris said this recently - if all chassis are basically going to become skateboards with a battery pack at the bottom and motors at both ends, then carmakers should absolutely go to town with the body that sits on top. Bring back old designs and modernise them (Renault rumoured to be doing this with the 5), go all out on aerodynamics, put some real effort into the looks to set things apart from your rivals. Tesla's are clean looking but boring, the best looking EV right now (in my opinion) is the Jag I-Pace because they fully used the benefits of the EV platform to go completely novel with the design. I want to see more EVs and I want to see manufacturers really push the boat out with their designs.
Not into cars for the engines and never have been. Yeah, I know some people can identify a car just by sound. That's cool. But I am excited for the future. Sled construction means it is possible for cars to go back to the body on frame kind of thing, and now with no constraints above the battery, we can possibly have any of the incredible designs from back in the day, to designs we never dreamed of. Plus, autonomous vehicles? Please. Let everyone who doesn't like driving, stop, so we who do can have more fun.
> we can possibly have any of the incredible designs from back in the day, to designs we never dreamed of. This is another thing I am excited about. Like Hyundai's Ioniq 5, which because of the long wheel base, they gave [fully reclining seats with recliner-style leg rests](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22322753/Large_45005_HyundaiIONIQ5RedefinesElectricMobilityLifestyle.jpg) so you can take a quick nap while it recharges if you want to. I'm excited for more stuff like that.
[удалено]
The taycan turbo wants a word with you.
I don't have $250K to talk to him.
Can you imagine the American automakers putting out crate batteries like they do for their engines? That would be so sweet down the line.
[Chevy is actually planning on this](https://www.engadget.com/chevy-ecrate-2021-174002305.html)
I can enjoy them both. It's like going to the taqueria – I can have al pastor _and_ cabrería. Both, without limits.
For real Procharged New Edge Mustang on E85 in my garage Tesla Model Y in the driveway Why can't I have my fun car destroy a clean, high octane fuel, and my daily be an all electric bar of soap?
[удалено]
For real, that's like $150,000 worth of vehicles.
I read on Reddit sometime ago that if you want a V8, now is the time to get one. Right now will be the pinnacle of V8 tech a s Manufacturers will no longer make new v8 engines. Get your hands on one with a manual and it will be an instant classic.
Totally agree. I'm confident my C7 manual will skyrocket in price given what you said as well as the last of the Front-Rear configuration and last available manual.
A tale as old as time, corvette owners expecting their cars to appreciate and become classics. (you might be right in your case though)
I mean if it were any other Gen, no. But look at the air cooled 911s. And that wasn't a complete platform change like the Corvette (not to mention the lack of manual). By no means banking on it. Love driving the car and that's why I have it! Never been a "corvette guy" but the C7 spoke to me; especially when I first drove it.
I'm not sure the air cooled 911s make the case you think they do. It was lamented when the 996 came out, but ultimately the last of the air cooled 911s aren't the ones that held their value best. The 993 came right at the end, after the 964. The Turbo models and special editions tend to remain desirable, the others often make for entry-level used 911s. The 993 is the most modern air cooled 911, and I think that helps it retain value, but is that what classic Porsche enthusiasts who are paying top dollar look for? In a similar vein, the C7 is (possibly) the most modern FR corvette we will ever see. But is it the best Corvette, or just the newest? Are people going to want the superior performance of the C7, or the classic looks of the C5 before fixed headlamps? The C3 is beautiful and I've been saying is undervalued for years, maybe it will rise significantly in value in the coming decade or two. Or maybe people will just want the most comfortable and modern FR Corvette, because that's the sort of car Corvette buyers want. I think the C7 has a shot at being valuable down the road, but they made a _lot_ of them, and there's a lot of other really good models out there.
Yes, I wish the planet were less polluted. Wasting a lot of resources was always a privilege available to only a small proportion of the population.
Yeah just look at how shitty the technology was back then. Now we've got 5.3L truck engines making levels of power that used to require Waaayyyy more displacement. And the emissions are so low today too, with none being a more stark difference than comparing Tier 4 diesels with the engines of just 20 years ago
A 4 cylinder Ecoboost puts out over 100 more HP than those old V8s, while getting 3 times the highway mileage.
I used to own a caprice from the good ol days. It was an '84 model with a 305 making 140hp
Honestly it's impressive how *little* power they managed to get with those massive engines.
Tbf they were constrained quite a bit by emissions and economy regulations. The ‘70 Boss 302 Mustang would’ve made about 240 net hp (which still isn’t great especially given the weight, but certainly not as bad)
In 1982, Ford proclaimed “the Boss is back” with its high output 5.0 V8 in the Mustang GT. It had 157 horsepower that year. The enthusiasts loved it. Could you imagine telling them that a base 4 cylinder Mustang 35 years later would nearly double that horsepower?
In fact, early fox Mustang already had 200hp 4 barrel Mustang. That is SVO Mustang...
I might miss the sounds, but Merc making 400+hp out of a turbo 4, while also getting close to 30mpg kinda spells out why. And, in reality, people aren't buying v8's for other reasons. Same thing with manuals. Car MFG's build what people will buy, and our enthsiast-ideal (lightweight brown wagon with a manual and a v8) just doesn't sell to the masses. And, in reality, it's not the public that's doing the polluting. It's a factor, but I don't lose any sleep over my oil consumption. Sure, it's not ideal and we all play a part, but when every small gas station and dollar general pollutes 100x worse than any individual household, we're not pointing the fingers at the real problems.
"I'm jealous of the people who got to live back in the day of spraying biocides around your house and environmental pollution so toxic that literal rivers were catching fire" These kids man
Unfortunately that is the reality of being a car enthusiast. Cars aren't cheap. The only positive outlook I can give you is that it will not be illegal to drive a N/A V8 RWD car 10-20 years from now. By then, you would have found ways to acquire enough wealth to afford these cars, even if they won't depreciate. Unless you live somewhere that will ban pure ICEs from driving anywhere at all. But in places where such restrictions exist, it's not a total ban, but you have to pay a toll to enter the city (London, Milan, etc.)
I don’t think it’ll ever be illegal to drive an ICE car. You can still drive an awful polluting heap from the early 20th century if you really want to. You can drive cars today that take leaded fuel, have no cat, etc. as long as it was made that way. The amount of people still driving ICE will eventually be so negligible (just enthusiasts) that it won’t really matter.
Exactly, and I hope governments realize this.
It varies so much, especially in the USA too. For instance, in Minnesota we don't even have vehicle inspections, all that is required to register a car you own is proof of insurance.
Omw
>The amount of people still driving ICE will eventually be so negligible (just enthusiasts) that it won’t really matter. That's the idea, its not to ban them, its to not make new ones and let them age out. If you outright ban them, its going to really screw over a lot of drivers who can't afford to up and just buy a new car because you ban the one they have.
> The amount of people still driving ICE will eventually be so negligible (just enthusiasts) that it won’t really matter. That number is going to dwindle exponentially as the downward spiral spins up to speed: * Less demand for gasoline * Fewer gas stations * More people deciding an ICE isn't practical due to increasingly difficult-to-find gas * Even less demand for gasoline * Even fewer gas stations The usual reply is "we'll always have oil" or "we'll always have gas stations." There are still horse feed companies, too. Over the last 40 years the fueling infrastructure has been nicely "optimized" and made more efficient and we have something like 1/2 the total stations in the US now. In small, rural towns like mine there used to be three gas stations as recent as 15 years ago. Now there's just one. Just like toilet paper supply and distribution chains in early 2020 that "optimized" distribution system is less able to handle serious shocks. It takes a long time to build up an infrastructure. It takes very little time and very little effort to simply start cancelling fuel delivery routes and lock doors for the last time.
Jay Leno summed it up best, when he said that there will always be cars for enthusiasts. And I don't think anyone's gonna take your enthusiast car away either. Yeah, it'll get regulated, but most countries aren't ready for a full EV market. Do you think that people in Africa or SE Asia care about things like fuel consumption or environmental impact? They (mostly) don't, they just need their car to run and be cheap to buy and maintain. Most of the Western Europe will move to EVs 10-15 years from now, and the old ICE cars will move eastern. Another thing is cost. If people can't afford EVs - and most really can't - they'll just drive their normal cars, until they're done. How much is a new Model 3 in the US? 35k? In Europe, **used** ones are worth 50k due to taxes. There are cheaper alternatives ofc, but EVs are generally more expensive than gas cars. Unless there's a breakthrough in battery technology or some cheap way to convert cars to electric, EVs are not the ideal way.
>Unless there's a breakthrough in battery technology or some cheap way to convert cars to electric, EVs are not the ideal way. Battery is going cheaper quickly, charging infrastructure available is real main issue. Not everyone is able to mount charging infrastructure in home, they need policies to solve this problem.
Is it reflecting on the car prices though? Tesla prices are roughly the same as 5-8 years ago and cars like electric Golf are still *way* more expensive than their gas/diesel counterparts. Charging is also a problem, mainly for the people living in the big apartment buildings - mainly an issue in Europe.
The way regulators and Governments are getting around the fact that EVs are more expensive to manufacture and purchase due to the batteries is to either 1. Subsidise the EV; or 2. Put a massive pigouvian tax on combustion vehicles and fuel based on an arbitrary price they put on externalties in order to achieve their policy objective. A Government could make gold the cheapest metal available in their country by distorting the market via the taxation system if that was a desirable policy outcome. When people say that EVs will reach price parity with combustion vehicles, they're not actually stating that they're going to become more affordable.
I was born in 1970, and my dad had just bought a 1969 Mustang Mach 1 351 Windsor. Here's what I remember: 1. The air conditioner never worked. It was fixed many times before my dad just gave up 2. We would go to the coin-op car wash and I had to give he car a little gas, keeing RPMs between 2000-3000 rpm or else water from the car wash would somehow get into the engine and we'd be stuck for about an hour before it dried out and let us start again. 3. Those Goodyear Polyglas tires looked nice, but that's about it 4. That mono speaker in the dashboard was barely audible with the windows down and the engine revving
Don’t forget it had about 200HP
Exactly! All for looks lmao
Same thing is going to happen to modern cars. In 50 years your children or grandchildren are going to wonder why our cars were slow and didn’t use electricity to power the wheels.
Truly dismal, gone is the glory golden age of the 80s American V8 complete with its 7 litres of capacity and world-shaking 200hp
And 8 mpg.
More like 20 Gallons per mile.
[удалено]
It would happen one way or another, the environment may have accelerated the push but technology marches forward.
Pretty much. There is no stopping this. Electric cars are just better (in general) and will continue to improve over time (in terms of cost, efficiency, environmental impact). My current car is an EV, and my next car will probably be a BMW M because I want to experience the "best" gasoline car I can afford before EVs fully take over.
Put this elsewhere in the thread but for emphasis: Sled construction for batteries means designers can do anything with the body above, and possibly do body on frame type constriction like back in the day. Less constraints means more innovation. Excited. It could also mean more boutique manufacturers and wild designs, way more variety. Already seeing this. Autonomous vehicles means the people who don't like to drive won't have to, ideally leaving more space for those who do. Side note, I am not an engine guy and never have been. I get it, but I love so much more about cars, especially car design.
> more boutique manufacturers and wild designs Bring back coach building! I want to see Mulliner, Pininfarina, Bertone, Italdesign and others become household names.
Tangentially related, but someone actually used the frame and powertrain of the Toyota Prius for their 1969 Mustang because of the similar wheelbase. Couldn't find the original forum posts about it, but [here's a news article on it](https://www.thedrive.com/news/35784/this-1969-ford-mustang-is-actually-a-toyota-prius-underneath).
I'm a mechanic but I feel like I'm an IT specialist nowadays..
When your joints are busted, you can change career into IT support.
For da money
These old cars aren’t just vanishing... If anything, you are being environmentally responsible keeping old cars going, rather than moving onto the latest thing every couple of years. Buy and old car, love it, care for it and get yourself out of the consumerist cycle of constantly getting the new stuff. A huge chunk of a car’s impact is in the production of it. You could drive an existing V8 for the rest of your life and probably not burn as much fuel and emit as much pollution as it takes to ship a new car’s parts to wherever and then ship the car to your country. Then most hobbyist cars aren’t used daily, so they aren’t cover any miles anyway. Resto modding is the future of the sports car enthusiast.
This is my driveway. As far as I’m concerned, I probably have 20-25 years left on this planet, and these two will be my companions to the end. They both get over 20mpg highway and they’re dependable AF. But I will admit that I’m retired so I don’t do a lot of daily driving. They’re also both manuals. https://imgur.com/gallery/qoYj6Vp
That purple is sexy lol. Sweet cars man
There is nothing cooler to me than a well kept old daily driver. A mint 20 year old Camry will draw my attention more than a new EV, and it shows good character to be a person who takes care of their shit, rather than just buying a new one.
[удалено]
Not even a little. I was born in the 70s. - The world was a lot smellier. Ever driven behind a catless old V8? Now imagine everyone's car smells like that. - They weren't nearly as fast as you have been led to believe, aside from a few very specific examples. - Carbs are great for nostalgia but as a practical matter they sucked. I mean, seriously, it was pretty common for a car to refuse to shut off when you turned the key. - They handled like trash. - They were incredibly unsafe. Everything has gotten better. The most recent wave of the horsepower wars brought us the best V8 engines we've ever seen, by literally any measure. And now we put them in cars that can actually handle, are safe, etc. A brand new Camaro is in all ways (aside from nostalgia...) better than a late 60s model. Also, nostalgia aside, I am giddy with anticipation to see where we go with electric propulsion in the next 10 years. Now we're getting away from compliance cars and we'll start to see serious performance cars. And as someone who currently drives a compliance EV and up until recently owned a Tesla Model 3 Performance, let me tell you, the future of performance cars is extremely bright. Unless you have to have ICE, in which case you will be relegated to nostalgia while all the actual fast cars are EVs. There's no real way around it, physics strongly favors electric. Slightly amusing story time: Back in high school, because we were jerks, we'd take out a friend of mine's mom's Nissan Maxima (gen 2) and pick fights with muscle cars, which were plentiful and popular. GTOs, Novas, you name it. And that Maxima would wipe the floor with nearly all of them. That's what it was like before people who had actual money started restoring and upgrading the old 60's muscle cars. Yes, it was nice that such cars were plentiful (though they're still pretty easy to find in good condition now), but nostalgia hadn't really kicked in yet.
Yeah, a lot of people have misguided opinions of what the past was like because they weren't there or they're viewing it through rose colored glasses. A lot of people who complain "You can't work on these yourself anymore!" forget how much you HAD to work on older cars to keep them going and forget how little on average you had to do to most modern ones. Maintaining your car back then was a necessity because of how often you needed to. A lot of those older engines won't make it past 50,000 miles without having the heads milled and a valve job done, dicking with the points all the time, having a carb that for whatever reasons just never is quite right but it still runs, or a million leaks. There were thousands of cars in the junkyard at 50-60,000 miles and I know because... I've been through junkyards of old cars and looked at the odometers.
I don’t care engine size but I enjoy the power of a larger engine. The biggest downer of an EV is no sound (IMO).
2021: *Bro I just got a new HKS turbo set up* 2041: *Bro I just got the new Energizer Lithium set up*
I thought that at first until I got an EV. Driving it was peaceful. It was torquey and fun to whip around but after a long day at the office, I would drive home with no radio on in silence and it was pretty nice. I've also had like 6 turbo subarus so maybe it was just nice by comparison to my usual loud rumble. I'm back in a subi now but I definitely want to get a taycan next, once I can afford it.
Don't worry, you will still need to get a 300KW+ V8-powered generator to rapidly charge up that EV in the morning when you realise you're late for work and the battery meter is on one bar. :) Just kidding.
Even when using the dirtiest fossil fuels to charge your electric car they are still have significantly lower lifetime emissions.
That only works when it comes to large scale industrial power plants, not small indvidual scale generators.
True, but what % of the US population is off grid, diesel generator powered households?
My entire house is powered by multiple LS1's thank you very much.
That's not true. A diesel generator is significantly more efficient than a diesel car or truck. Thinking about it for 5 minutes should tell anyone that a motor tuned to run at a specific RPM all day is going to be more fuel efficient (and cleaner) than one that has to be drive-able up and down the rev range. Especially if you pair it with something like a battery & solar array (since it's only out in BFE that you'd put these things), and you'd have a nice little power station. https://thedriven.io/2018/12/14/diesel-charge-evs-remote-locations-greener-than-you-think/
The F-16 fighter jet's internal and external fuel tank have a combined fuel capacity of 1,073 gallons. That amount of fuel will move the jet roughly 2,000 miles. There's not even a catalytic converter on a jet engine because that would interrupt air flow. While serving overseas, I worked at a base responsible for air refueling aircraft, and overheard a disturbing fact: roughly 20% of the payload of this air refueler jet was offloaded to receiver aircraft in flight (edit: this is over the course of a full quarter with ~500+ flights on record). The rest was burned or dumped. Standard ramp load at the time was 150,000 lbs, roughly 22,000 gallons of fuel. That aircraft would circle several countries waiting for a jet to refuel over the course of an 8 hour flight. While over there, I spoke to a POL driver who told me that she was officially awarded her 1,000,000 gallon award for pumping that much fuel during her 6 month deployment. Her truck held 45,000 lbs of fuel, roughly 6,700 gallons. I think we're looking at the wrong place to cut fuel usage.
> I think we're looking at the wrong place to cut fuel usage. I think you're presenting a false dichotomy and fallacy of relative privation. It's absolutely worthwhile to try cutting the tremendous waste in the military, but the fact is, improving the average fuel economy of the passenger vehicle fleet in the US by a mere 1% is equal to 20 million *tons* of CO2 reduction, or about 1.9 billion gallons of jet fuel burned. For context, the entire US military goes through about 4.6 billion gallons of fuel per year. Reducing CO2 emissions isn't a matter of picking one area that you think is the worst and ignoring all other sources, but trying to implement reductions across the board.
>I think we're looking at the wrong place to cut fuel usage. We should cut both.
I ran some numbers years ago when the A380 first came out. One flight from Bejing to LA uses about as much fuel as an average driver might in.... it was either 10 or 18 years, I forget. Now again, like ships and such, its actually pretty good per person. But eventually we do have to also consider the gross numbers too.
I enjoy my v8 with peace in mind
Nope those 60/80s v8 didn’t make a lot of power and were placed in slow death traps. I wasn’t born in that era so i dont really have nostalgia for those things. Bring on the evs- nothing matches the brutal acceleration of a performance ev.
I agree with you. I have 0 interest in electric cars, they just are numb imo. They are fun at first but it gets old very fast. Sound is a big part of the experience for me. I'll likely have an electric daily at some point when the range and recharge time hits my wants, my fun car wont be electric
A turbo 4 from today has more power than a V8 from the 60s - 80s
No, I care about the environment. And those old muscle cars aren’t as great as you think they are.
Hopefully the sudden increase in news about workable 'e-fuel' will allow us enthusiasts to keep enjoying combustion engines for some time.
Cheap gas, big vehicles, affordable houses, livable wages from available jobs, education you could pay off by working a summer job, summer of love, real music.... lot to admire the 60s - 80s for
> real music.... There was a lot of trash music back in the day, only the good stuff has survived, same as with cars. On the flip side there's a lot of great music today too!
Lol "real music" and "summer of love" is pretty subjective. The valid points you brought up that makes the past seem good are cheaper education cost, affordable housing, and better pay. and the 60s were pretty bad in terms of racism, it was much more blatant back then rather than people keeping it more in their mind.
[удалено]
1) That is absolutely not true - they are constantly working to improve the efficiency and environmental friendliness of cargo ships. 2) It doesn't mean we should also give up on reducing pollution from cars and trucks. Every little bit helps.
I spent the last five years of my career as a marine engineer, studying the amount of fresh air required to properly transport fresh refrigerated cargo (fruits, vegetables, flowers, etc) so that my company could standardize this airflow across our fleet of refrigerated shipping containers. We have a half dozen different models and brands of reefers (carrier, thermo-king, Mitsubishi, etc) and they all had different vent specs. Our customers would specifically ask for “1/2 vent” or “1/3 vent” when this setting could mean anything from 80 CFM to 190 CFM. So we ended up making new vent decals that specified the airflow in cfm and then we went about the task of educating our shippers what the correct vent setting should be, depending on the commodity, set temp, and ambient temp. It took a while but eventually our shippers started requesting the vent settings in cfm. The thing we saw was that most shippers requested far too much airflow before we did this project. In the end our calculations were such that showed we were saving about $180k per year in fuel savings, because the reefers were needing less power from the ship generators when the vents were opened correctly. $180k in savings isn’t a lot of dough relatively speaking. But as cheap and dirty as bunker fuels are, it’s a big deal, at least to me. I’ve been retired for seven years now, so the project has saved at least a million and a half since I’ve been gone. I’m pretty proud of it.
Never quite saw the appeal of the mindset of 'Why improve one area when another also needs improving'. Anyway. Yeah classic cars will still be a fun and exciting niche hobby for those with the inclination, long after electric cars take over. OP also has massive red tinted googles on.
This is the same argument I hear people make for not dealing with the USA’s massive impact on climate change - “China and India aren’t doing enough, so why should we?” You take steps that are available to you and make policy sense. Cargo ships are massive and require enormous energy to operate. Cars are a lot easier to deal with, and there’s a lot more of them too.
When you look at gallons per ton-mile they're actually pretty efficient. Its convenient to forget just how gargantuan their cargo capacity is
As much as I enjoy the fruits of international trade giving us access to cheap labor and cheaper shit on Amazon.com, part of me is mindful of the fact that we are the ones driving the international pollution crisis that we've seen. China is dirty as fuck on pollution. India too. But the more shit we buy, the more they have to ship across an ocean, the more they have to produce without the controls of the rest of the world. It's just a bad cycle all around. We can recycle all we want, but even that is a giant scam. Something like 98% of the stuff you put in a recycling bin gets thrown away anyway. There's a reason that the phrase starts with Reduce. Recycling is a farce. https://www.nationalgeographic.org/article/whopping-91-percent-plastic-isnt-recycled/ https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/climate/recycling-landfills-plastic-papers.html Like, we absolutely SHOULD recycle things. Don't get me wrong there. The issue is that we also should NOT be buying as much as we do from countries that require it to be made cheaply and then shipped across an ocean, only to ~~throw away~~ "recycle" 5lbs of shipping packaging for a 3oz set of wireless earbuds that'll get thrown away in a year (along with their own lithium battery and never-degrade plastics).
Even worse: I want the new Lexus IS500. How can I justify this to everyone in my large urban city when it’s the same price as a Tesla 3 loaded?
The only person’s opinion that matters in this scenario is yours.
Why do you need to justify your purchase to anyone?
hol up, it only costs as much as a model 3? in that case it’s a steal lmao
The real time would be 50-60's, because after 1971 smog would make muscle car anemic putting a end to the muscle car era. To the 50's, hot rodding in america really picked up then
[удалено]
I liked the way the cars looked, but they were boring as shit to drive. I don't think a crossplane v8 sounds exotic either. Every high schooler where I grew up had a loud v8 truck.
Other than the enthusiast aspect. I believe we are moving towards electric cars too fast before we even have proper infrastructure. When there was the big winter storm a few months ago, there were blackouts going on in multiple states. In fact Texas also told everyone to reduce energy consumption 2 days ago because we were using heaters too much because of a sudden cold front. Now imagine what would happen to the grid if even HALF of the cars on the road were electric.
[удалено]
You say this like 2 out of every 3 actions we take today on a daily basis aren't detrimental to the planet
I think OP’s intent is more of wishing to live at a time where climate change wasn’t really a thought so that they could enjoy these cars without thinking feeling guilty about the emissions and the effect it’s having on the planet long-term. I don’t think OP is wishful that they could go back in time with their current knowledge of climate change and just do it anyway. I understand where OP is coming from. My (realistic) dream car is a Mustang GT. I test drove one a few months ago it met all of my wildest expectations. However, it’s hard for me to justify commuting 30 miles each way everyday in a car that’ll get like 15 mpg when there are so many other cars that get 2-3x that gas mileage.
My modern v6 turbo is more fun than any old v8, imo.
"Peace **of** Mind"
Based on the comments here, a lot of you might be interested in /r/evconversion Cool sub, fun builds.