Comparisions between old cars and the new ones of today

Let's face it. Today's cars are very relaible. One could almost imagine a Kia Ceed beating Jim Clark's time around Watkins Glen in his Lotus of 40 years ago. Well, Maybe. But the point is that today's cars, regardless of maker, are reliable, comfortable, fairly powerful with more than adequate brakes and just don't break down the way cars used to break downin the past usually when you really needed to be somewhere. When I was growing up, a car with 60,000 miles on it was a JUNKER ready for the Scrapyard. 100,000 miles on a car was virtually unheard of and cars with more miles than that they were rare as hens teeth.

Today, prestige cars with over 150,000 miles sell for thousands.

I owned an Morris Minor for 15 odd years and strange years they were. I have lots stories about that car and every one of them has to do with a time when it broke down for one reason or another, in its job of getting me from Point A to Point B. And yet, I would not trade ONE of the those stories for a better car. That car had PERSONALITY. It would let you down when you least expected it and then win you back the next day with a moonlight ride under the stars. It was exquisit. It was undependable and more than once did it get kicked in various places but never hard enough to dent the body.

When I owned that car, I performed every mechanical function known to man, from rebuilding the engine to adjusting the rear brakes. I changed motor mounts, fuel pumps, steeering racks and lever shocks. I rewired it and replaced the floors block tin when I was in danger of having my arse drag on the road. I hated that car, and I loved it at the same time. Today's cars, despite their exellence, just do not inspire the level or emotional involvement that the cars of yesterday did well the late 60s early 70s for me.

When you have had the brakes fail in mountains on a 4 mile downhill run to the sea in Wicklow, you have established a connection with the car that you can never forget. 4 miles is a LONG time to be downshifting and using the hand-brake to slow down in the corners. Especially when your wife and kids are screaming in the back. When you go to the River Shannon County Westmeath in mid July and on the way back the clutch slave cylinder suddenly decides it has given its all and you're 2 hours from home, you establish al bond with that vehicle and usually with your foot, or when your daughter is driving to Drogheda and calls from the road because she broke down again and got stuck under a bridge and had to get pushed to the nearest gateway and then get a lift to the nearest phonebox to let you know she is safe and sound. THAT is when you connnect with a car.

Old cars can be a pain in the arse. And there lies their beauty and their charm. Today's cars are almost perfect. But perfection has its price.

Article Source: http://tk4.org

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