17th Aug 2011, 07:14

To the 22 year old above - I'm 43, and I'm so happy to hear that some of the younger generation are aware! Yes, what has been done to you all is a crime, and what they've done to cars is pretty sad too.

My dad had a union job for the first 20 years of his working career, and he always remarks - "when I left that job in 1971 I was making $11/hour". This was a little higher than average, but a pretty typical union wage. A new full-sized V-8 Ford or Chevy cost about $2,500 in 1971!

17th Aug 2011, 14:46

I agree as well. I'm 28 and I only drive V-8, rear wheel drive, full size, Detroit iron.

I learned to drive in a beat up Caprice, then had a few front wheel drive junkers in college, but nothing compares to the rear wheel drive experience.

Some kids like my younger brother, have never driven a rear wheel drive full size car until I lent him mine.

He was amazed at how easy it drives!

I just love these cars, a throwback to better times, when cars were made without compromise, and the working man could feel like a king in a car he could afford to own.

A time when we were proud to buy American, support our autoworkers and economy, and we drove those products with pride.

People these days could not care less, all the advertising has convinced people that Japanese and German cars are better because they are more expensive to buy and maintain, and that only old fashioned, working class, and poor people drive North American cars.

I catch a lot a flack from my "friends" for driving a full size V-8 land yacht because they all have $20'000 imports and I drive a $1000 1985 Buick LeSabre Limited. They all think they are better than me, and that gas must be "so expensive" for my car. They can all go screw themselves; my car will last forever and is super cheap to operate.

As well, my Olds 307 gets better gas mileage than my friends 2008 Tacoma 4x4. Go figure..

All my real friends, that have morals, values and pride in their country, drive real cars though, full size RWD land yachts or Ford and Chevy pickups. I find people who drive domestics are just better people period, as they care about their country, economy, autoworkers, and are not as pretentious and self centred as import drivers.

Just an observation...

Anyways I will drive full size North American land yachts forever, nothing will ever change that, my car was so cheap to buy I don't care what the price of gas is, I just love my huge couch on wheels and will never give it up..

Happy motoring, and long live the land yachts :)

17th Aug 2011, 15:29

I am 26, and also feel that I really missed out on the "good old days." I feel that the 50's to mid-80's were just a great period in this country's history. Everything from cars to music and television were just soo much better than what we have today. I guess I was born in the wrong era.

18th Aug 2011, 09:56

Yes, you're on to something - people who drive big old cheap cars are 'better' people in the sense that they aren't buying into the foolish consumerism and worship of 'high technology', keeping up with the Jones's lifestyle. Of course the reality is that today these cars are becoming very rare, so people really don't have any option anymore.

And yes, things were way better from the 50s through the 80s, and I'll tell you what is was - American Liberalism. Yep, the (real) Democratic Party dominated the country from the 30s through 1980, unions were strong, we had a good welfare-state, sky-high taxes on the fat-cats, and the country wasn't run only for the rich. The beginning of the end was the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, and it's all been downhill every since - destroying the working people to make sure the rich can have it all.

21st Aug 2011, 13:51

"Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the "truth".

'Buddha'.

And I wholly concur! Thanks for that awesome defining of our downtrodden realities and present bewilderment.

26th Aug 2011, 08:08

I thought this site was supposed to be about reviews of cars, not the electronic soapbox to express one's political views.

Obviously the above writers don't care, and neither does the moderator, sadly.

26th Aug 2011, 13:09

That's the kind of talk I'd expect someone nowadays to say.

26th Aug 2011, 17:12

Well... while we're on the subject of "good ole days", well that notion is useless because there's no such thing as the "Good ole days". Hello? In the 30's we had a depression. In the 40's it was WW2. In the 50's it was the Cold war. 60's-80's it was Vietnam and another recession. Every generation and era is full of challenges as well as good and bad times. Perhaps people tend to forget the bad times and only remember the good, in which case you couldn't be blamed for thinking that times were better anytime in the past.

Also - as someone who actually owns a car from the 50's as well as a couple of other cars - one from the 90's, and another that's 5 years old, I can assure you that cars back then were not as well-made as they are today. It was unheard of to get 100,000 miles on an engine in the 50's before the engine had to be overhauled. TV sets and most radios ran on vacuum tubes that routinely had to be replaced. Granted, things were a bit easier to repair, thus since they were, people could maybe keep things longer.

But today it's almost a given that any car will last at least 200,000- 300,000 miles without any serious trouble. That, and there are far fewer things that need to be maintained. My 50's car has a zillion zerk fittings on the chassis and steering for grease. These have to be re-greased a few times a year. The ones on my "modern" cars are all sealed, and so far after 245,000 miles on one vehicle, everything is fine. New cars have engine coolant that lasts 100,000 miles, not only because the coolant is better, but because metallurgy is also better. You hardly ever see cars rust out like they used to either. Again - an improvement in materials helped.

Do I like old stuff? You better believe it. My house is full of the stuff. But I have no doubt that what's out there today is a lot better than what was made 30, 40, 50+ years ago.

27th Aug 2011, 16:25

Perhaps the new cars have some good points, though I routinely got 300,000 out of the old 70s and 80s GM cars like Caprices, Delta 88s, DeVilles - nothing really new about that. But one thing's for sure, those old cars were a lot cheaper relative to income - a 1970 car was around $2,500, and the median income was around 7,000. Now the median is about 35,000, and a car costs about 25,000!