mmarshall

As we approach this national day of Thanksgiving, many of you, of course, in your places of worship, will hear, from your religious pastors and leaders, all of the blessings we have to be thankful to God for and for the fact that we are Americans. Since most of you already know that, in this post I want to focus on something different to be thankful for........the many blessings we have in the modern car and the major improvements that have been made in auto design and construction just in my lifetime alone.

Many of the older people in CL, like me, and the Baby-Boomers, will always be somewhat nostalgic for the cars we grew up with from the late 50's to the early 70's.....the chrome, tail fins, massive ladder-frames, smooth luxury rides, big-engined muscle cars with hood scoops, street rods, bright and pastel colors and two-tones, and the much better driving conditions than we have today...you could actually get in your car and GO somewhere instead of sitting still like you do today. Yes, that was truly the Golden Age of the American automobile.

But what is missing....and often overlooked......in this 50's and 60's nostalgia are all the problems that afflicted these cars and made owning them often a less-than-pleasant experience. Sloppy steering and handling, rust, fading and peeling paint, regular ignition tune-ups, chassis grease jobs with every oil change, unreliable cold-starting and warm-ups, balky carburators, squeaks and rattles, push-and-pray drum brakes, tires that wore out faster than you could replace them,, spark plugs constantly getting fouled with lead, oil and carbon, skidding and spining out all over the place in the snow, indifferent dealerships, and of course, the lack of modern safety devices that often made these cars dangerous.....and sometimes rolling coffins.....in any kind of significant accident, despite their generally large size and weight. ( The Federal motor-vehicle legislation of the mid-late 1960's began to address these long-standing safety problems ).

So, while it is true that many of today's cars, with some obvious exceptions like Mazda's Miata, Ford's new Mustang, and the upcoming Dodge Challenger, don't have the personality and nostalgia factor of the cars that I and my colleagues grew up with, and tend to be rolling appliances, nevertheless there is much, and I do mean MUCH, to be thankful for with them. And, in this post, I want to do just that....focus on the major improvements in the auto industry that have made modern driving, auto ownership, and safety SO much better than in the nostalgia days that we all keep reliving over and over again. There have been many, many improvements, of course, and I could not possibly cover them all, especially in one post, but I want to focus primarily on those that I feel have made the most significant differences.



ALL-WHEEL-DRIVE.

I used to dread having to drive almost anywhere on slippery roads, though I was a careful driver and generally avoided accidents. Most of the American-market cars in the period I grew up in were heavy, front-engined, and rear-wheel drive.....a perfect Slip-O-Matic formula in the snow and ice. Studded tires helped but were outlawed in most places. Chains, while they also helped, were a pain in the a** to put on and off. Starting, steering, and stopping were the proverbial exercices in keeping eggs between your foot and the gas / brake pedals, and your hands and the steering wheel ( a wheel usually made of hard, uncomfortable plastic ). And sometimes even THAT didn't help......even featherfooting it, you could not force the car and the tires to make traction that they simply didn't have, or were incapable of having. A few American-market cars like the air-cooled, rear-engined VW's / Porsches and the front-engine, front-drive Oldsmobile Toronado / Cadillac Eldorado bucked this trend and made winter driving more tolerable ( except that with the air-cooled German cars, you had to drive a hundred miles in the winter to get any HEAT out of the engine, and exhaust fumes and carbon monoxide often mixed in with it ).
Four-wheel-drive systems that made winter driving easier were available, of course, on Jeeps, the Ford Bronco, the International Scout and Travelall, and were an option on some pickups, but were of the rather primitive, unsophisticated, part-time-4WD design that locked both axles together, forcing all four wheels to rotate at the same speed, and precluded use on dry pavement. That was fine, of course, as long as you knew what you were driving on at all times, and what was underneath your wheels. But a paved, plowed road, after a snow, can be snowy one second, wet the next, and dry the next, especially where the sun hits it and is shaded in other spots. So...you were OK as long as the road was straight, dry or not, but hit a dry curve and you placed a lot of stress on the tires and drive line...the sharper the dry curve, the more stress, because the 4WD system wouldn't let the outside tires roll faster than the inside tires around curves as they naturally want to do. In addition, the transfer-cases were primitive, required a lot of driver input, and sometimes required you to stop, get out of the vehicle, and manually engage the front wheel hubs to hook up the front axle to the system.


Though the advent of more widespread Front-Wheel-Drive cars in the American market in the late 1970's and early 1980's, starting with the notoriously unreliable VW Rabbit-based Dodge Omni/Plymouth Horizon and the even more notoriously unreliable GM X-Body compacts, started a general trend toward more winter-friendly drivetrains, it was the development of the auto-based, center-differential-equipped All-Wheel-Drive system, pioneered on the AMC Eagle of the early 1980's, that, finally, promised a REAL solution to the winter driving mess and the nonsense of manually engaging and disengaging 4WD transfer cases. AMC engineers developed the viscous-fluid center-differential system with lightweight components that not only allowed their use on smaller, lightweight cars, but could be used full-time, on any on-road surface, anytime. It was not well-suited for off-roading, where the more robust truck-type Part-Time 4WD had durability advantages on rough terrain, but of course regular passenger cars are not designed for that kind of use anyway. The higher ground clearance of the AMC Eagles, compared to most other cars, also helped driving in deep snow.

The car-based AWD system that AMC initially developed truly set the stage for a winter driving revolution.....offshoots, refinements, and additions to that initial system were developed and pionered by Audi and Subaru in particular and today by many other companies as well. Subaru, today, generally does the best car-based AWD systems under $35,000, and Audi and Acura, particularly the superb Acura SH-AWD system on the new RL and some of the new Acura SUV's, in the $35,000-and-up class. Subaru is, today, the only manufacturer that sells every vehicle in the U.S. market with AWD....they use five different center-differential systems depending on engine and transmission.

Thanks to all of these companies.....and more.......winter driving, today, is a piece of cake compared to the slip-and-slide days I grew up with. However, it must be emphasized that AWD is NOT an excuse to drive carelessly in the snow, as some people do. It vastly improves starting-up, steering, and cornering, but will NOT necessarily shorten stopping distances. You still have to pay attention to what you are doing, and drive as conditions require.





ELECTRONIC ENGINE CONTROLS

The second-most important automotive advance in my lifetime, IMO, has been the development of electronic controls for things such as fuel injection, ignition, spark timing, and regulation of turbos and superchargers. Though it has made the days of shade-tree-mechanic work on such systems a thing of the past, and has increased the price of replacing these items, this, IMO, has more than been compensated for by the greatly improved dependability and refinement of these computerized systems. All of you older guys, no doubt, can remember what it was like coming out to a cold ( or partly-warm ) engine and dealing with balky carburators, butterfly valves and chokes that choked too little or too much, accelerator pumps that didn't work right, stalling, hesitation, surging, flat spots in the carburation, carburator icing in cold and wet conditions, and in general a touch-and-go situation until the engine was fully warmed up. Sometimes you would have the opposite.....a good-running cold engine that would lean out too much when warm and surge ( like on my 1984 Mazda ). Other times, on many cars, the butterfly valves would occasionally stick open or closed, and and you would have to take the air cleaner off and move them manually and un-stick them while cranking.

The main problem was that the carburator, as we knew it, was basically a device of the 1930's that the industry stuck with far, and I mean FAR too long. After emission controls came along in the 70's and 80's, attempts were made to have " electronic " carburators that had electronic feedback systems and electrically-operated chokes, but all those systems did was screw up the engines both cold AND warm....the chokes cut off too quick for emissions reasons, and they often ran too lean after they warmed up as well.
Needless to say, this could be a real pain in the a** trying to get smooth warm-ups and even throttle response, especially trying to get across a busy intersection, for example. If you got carburator icing during warm-up ( manifold heat-riser valves were supposed to prevent this but rarely did ) it wouldn't idle at all until the ice melted.....you had to shift into neutral and keep your foot on the gas to keep the engine from stalling. Fast-idle stages were controlled by cams on the butterfly linkage....often they didn't work very well either or were undependable.
In short, carburators, as far as I am concerned, were a mess, and diminished the driving experience on those cars I grew up with more than any other single device outside of slippery roads.

Likewise with the old mechanical breaker-point ignition systems. The distributors and spark plugs of the time, though wired to 12-volt battery ignition systems like today ( some cars will soon get 24-volt systems to accomodate more electronics ) simply could not furnish the ultra-hot sparks needed for dependable cold-weather starting. The mechnical breaker-points in the distributor, the distributor rotor, the plugs themselves........all of these things wore out with regular frequency and had to be replaced every 10,000 miles or so.....more often with some Chrysler systems. Spark timing was adjusted with a hand-held gun with a flashing strobe light that lit up timing marks on the engine block, with mechanical fly-weights that actually did the spark-advance. Get the timing set correctly for one condition and you often wound up with pinging or reduced power in another.

Of course, not all cars were the same either. In general, Ford and GM carburators and electrical systems were somewhat more dependable and smoother-operating than Chrysler systems, but that was somewhat compensated for by the greater durability of the Chrysler six and V8 engine blocks and of Chrysler automatic transmissions...but even those Ford and GM systems did not have the dependability and flexibility of today's systems.


Finally, the advent of electronic ignition systems in the early-mid 70's and electronic fuel injection systems in the 1980's ( both of, which, in my opinion, were delayed far too long ) made engines smooth-running, dependable, and pleasant to drive, both on cold start-up and while warm. You can come out to any properly-maintained engine now, in almost anything short of full Arctic conditions, ( especially with synthetic oil ) and depend on reliable starts every time, with smooth idle, smooth warm-ups, and an almost complete lack of the annoying.....and sometimes dangerous.......stalling and hesitation of yore. The engine computers of today calculate, thousands of times every second, the EXACT amount of gas each fuel injector needs, based on engine load, temperature, air temperature, pressure, humidity, density, etc.....and send current to the spark plugs and adjust ignition timing completely automatically, without the problems involved with the old timing-lights and mechanical weights that could get screwed up or malajusted. And there are NO breaker-points any more to wear out or have to be replaced every few months. Engines also run far cleaner than the engines of the 1960's, with fewer deposits on spark plugs and valves, thanks to unleaded gasoline, hotter combustion temperatures, and more precise fuel delivery and ignition.





DISC BRAKES


The old drum brakes of the 1960's were often referred to as Push-and-Pray. There were some exceptions, of course....some cars, like the Studebakers, Corvettes, and Thunderbirds, already had front disc brakes either standard or as an option ( the Corvette was the first American car to get them on all 4 wheels ), but in general, especially the awful drum brakes on some Chrysler products that faded almost immediately, the drum brakes on most cars of that period did not inspire much confidence...especially when you were in the mountains and faced a long downgrade. Most automatic transmissions of the period had either two or three speeds, so you usually downshifted one gear to help the brakes out a little by engine compression-braking. A Plymouth or Dodge compact, despite its relatively light weight, was especially tricky in the mountains, with its much-poorer-than-average drum brakes.
Drum-brake lining life, of course, depended on several factors, but in general was longest with GM cars and shortest with Chrysler products. Ford disc brakes, on the cars that had them, were clearly the best...some of the stopping distances of the late 1960's Ford muscle-cars with high-performance brakes were comparable to what we see even today on new 2006 and 2007 cars. Drum brakes also had the annoying......and sometimes dangerous......habit of losing a lot of effectiveness when you got them wet. This was because water would get in the spaces between the linings and drum interior, soak them both, and greatly decrease friction between them when you applied the pedal....you had to wait until heat in the brakes dried them out before they would work normally again. Sometimes the drums would get out-of-round and would cause drum-brake " chatter "......more or less comparable to rotor warpage and shimmy in disc brakes.

Though they are not a complete, 100% improvement over drums ( more on that in a minute ) disc brakes, in many areas, are in general, a great improvement anyway. They usually resist fading much better ( fading being defined as the decreasing efficiency that comes with heat build-up, requiring greater pedal effort ), resist loss of efficiency from water-soaking much better because water usually can't get in between the pads and rotor, make brake inspections much easier because you often don't have to take the wheels or drums off to see how much pad life is left, and in general are easier and simpler in design to work on. However, despite their many improvements over drums, disc brakes are not without their quirks. Because of cable-stretch issues, they generally don't make as good parking brakes as drums do ( some rear disc-brake-equipped cars have a small drum brake on the rear axle that serves as the parking brake ). Disc-brake rotors are prone to warping from heat build-up and causing vibrations and shimmies when the pedal is pressed...a common problem even on high-quality disc brakes, although the new ceramic rotors on some ultra-high-performance cars eliminate heat-related warping. Warping, when it does occur, has to be eliminated by either shaving the rotors on a metal lathe or replacing them, depending on how much metal is actually left on them. Pad life may or may not be greater than equivalent drum brakes due to several factors in design and use.

But, in general, disc brakes, despite their quirks, are a big jump over drums in overall braking quality.......and something to be genuinely thankful for
in new cars.




RACK-AND-PINION STEERING

The old recirculating-ball steering systems of the cars I grew up with.....and still in use today by some pickup-truck-based vehicles and by Mercedes and BMW for their larger-engined cars until just a few years ago, combined with the less-responsive bias-ply tires of the period, can best be described as pure slop, although the newer Mercedes and BMW ones, are, of course, quite refined and much less sloppy than the American ones of the 1960's. Still, the recirculating-ball system was never really the best from a driver-centered or controllability point of view, especially as they aged. As miles built up on them, they inevitably developed slop and free-play across the center of the steering wheel....you could sometimes turn the wheel several inches left or right with no response from the front end whatsoever. I drove a lot of two-lane roads with these old systems, and keeping the nose of the car pointed where it should be, especially in some of the sharper turns, was often a chore....and the larger and wider size of cars back then meant less clearance, and less room for error, when you met oncoming traffic in the left lane. It was a common thing for cars that entered curves too fast to plow straight ahead into the ditch...or worse.

Rack-and-pinion steering, pioneered on racing cars, solved most of these problems by having no play across the center of the steering wheel, much quicker response, and much better road feel with power-assist. ( all unassisted steering systems, of course, have generally good road feel ). Rack-and pinion systems, at first, though, were not well-suited for heavier vehicles with big engines placing a lot of weight on them up front.....hence the persistence of recirculating-ball systems on trucks and some larger M-B's and BMW's with V8's. But new steering racks have been developed that can now stand the weight of heavier engines and front ends...and soon, the few vehicles that still have recirculating-ball systems......even trucks........will convert to racks. In fact, some new trucks have them now.



RADIAL TIRES

The development of radial tires, pioneered by racing and by the Michelin company more than any other tire firm, has greated extended not only tread life but has made possible many of the vast improvements we have seen in the last few decades in acceleration, braking, cornering, and ( along with AWD ), foul-weather traction. The construction of the radial tire, with its flexible sidewalls and greater road-contact patch, allows more flexibility while cornering than a bias-ply tire, allows better water-shedding characteristics while cornering because the water-displacing tread grooves run part-way up the sidewall, and in general, allows far superior steering response and roadability. However, it must be remembered that radial tires are less-resistant to punctures of the sidewall than bias-ply ones and do not have as gradual a loss of traction at cornering limits that warn you of an impending skid or spinout.......but tracton and stability systems ( see below ) have generally compensated for the lack of adhesion-warning at the tire limit.
Radial tire science is quite complex, with different tread compounds required for different purposes, and every tire, of course, will be a compromise to some extent. I won't get into all the different characteristics of tires designed for different purposes ( I've already covered that, to some extent, in other posts, and that is not the purpose of this Thansgiving write-up ). But in general, the modern radial tire, for several reasons, is a big improvement over the older bias-ply tire, and one more thing to be thankful for.




ELECTRONIC TRACTION-CONTROL DEVICES


This area is, of course, to an extent, is self-explanatory and really doesn't need a big explanation on my part. However, a few points need to be emphasized....and I'll give a brief history.

Anti-lock brakes were first offered on the 1971 Lincoln Continental and Chrysler Imperial, but were soon dropped.....safety just didn't sell well back then, and in general wasn't a big priority with a lot of customers. Mercedes, more than any other company, pioneered the modern ABS system in the late 1980's, and, in the mid-90's, in conjunction with BMW and Cadillac, developed the natural outgrowth of the ABS...traction control. Both use essentially the same hardware working in reverse....one electronically keeps the wheels rolling ( with steering control ) while braking, and the other keeps the wheels FROM spinning too much under acceleration. Then, in the late 1990's, stability systems were developed ( the natural outgrowth of traction control ) that automatically brake one or more individual wheels to control understeer or oversteer, depending on steering-wheel input and vehicle response.

The main thing with these systems, however, to remember, though, is that while they improve foul-weather traction and handling on front-engine, rear-drive cars and less so on front-drive ones, they make little or no difference on all-wheel-drive ones in normal driving, and can only improve RWD and FWD ones to the extent that the tires can already grip....they can't add any potential traction that isn't there. And they cannot overcome the laws of physics.....you still have to drive with common sense.





CLEARCOAT PAINT


Remember the old days when you waxed your car with a combination wax-cleaner and the car's color inevitably came off on your rag? Well, that's because auto paint, in those days, was simply a primer and a couple of coats of the body color on top of it. Each time you waxed it, you took off a microscopic layer of colored paint.....right onto your rag......and left a fresh layer of unweathered paint underneath...and some wax on top of it. so you could only do that a certain number of times before the paint was all gone....or faded.......and the car
needed to be repainted. Certain colors were more problematic than others. Red and silver were always troublesome and faded quickly due to the small, microcsopic iron particles in them that faded and oxidized when exposed to air. You had to wax them constantly to keep the shine up.....and keep taking off a layer of paint, so it didn't last long either. Another color, one of my favorites, was also quite troublesome, for reasons which I don't know and can't explain ( the purple Plum Crazy / In Violet color Dodge and Plymouth used in 1970-71 ).

Well, modern clearcoat paint solved most of those problems by putting one or more layers of clear, transparent paint over the top of the factory colors, essentially sealing the colored layer off from the effects of air, weather, acid rain, pollution, and sunlight. Paint jobs, today, last much longer than in the past, and while pollutants and acid rain can still damage finishes, it usually takes longer on surfaces that have been clearcoated. It also makes wax jobs a little neater.....you don't have all that color staining up your hands and the waxing cloth ( except, of course, the color and odor of the wax itself ).
But one word of caution with clearcoat paint and surfaces.....you cannot use highly abrasive waxes and cleaners like with the old paint jobs. You have to use low-abrasive, clearcoat-safe cleaners and waxes to keep the clear layer of paint on top from being scratched with swirl marks. One of the best products for this...and a product I have used myself for years and give it out as gifts to new-car purchasers......is SCRATCH-OUT by Kitwax.




STIFFENED BODIES AND FRAMES

Except for the lousy carburators ( which I have aleady covered ), almost nothing drove me more batty, on a daily basis, in the old cars I grew up with than the inevitable squeaks and rattles that developed with age. Here Chrysler and VW products, with their mostly unibody structures, had somewhat of an advantage over Ford, GM, and AMC products with their less-rigid body-on-frame design.
However, even Chrysler products eventually developed them as well....just took a little longer. The down side to the old Chrysler unibody design, however, was poor isolation from road and suspension noise.

Well, most of that is long gone now, thanks to the modern design of super-stiff automotive bodies and frames. Cars today are far more resistant to squeaks, rattles, and air and water leaks, a direct result of today's much more rigid body / chassis platforms. And they hold that new-car freedom from such annoyances much longer as well. New metal alloys, computer-enhanced frame designs and testing, new ways of designing in rigidity with light weight.....all of this has made a huge difference over the years in vehicle frame solidness. And the new, stiffer platforms have enhanced steering and handling as well, by allowing the steering, suspension, and tires to do their job more efficiently without interference from the body flexing.










BELTS AND AIRBAGS


Accidents, of course, at least to some extent, are always going to happen, no matter how good a driver you yourself may be or how careful you are. Despite the fact that we are warned, as teen-agers and young adults, about the evils of drinking and driving, driving with poorly-maintained vehicles, excessive speed, aggressive driving, driving while multi-tasking, etc...., some people still choose, unfortunately, to do these foolish things......and make things unsafe for themselves and others. So, in spite of the obvious necessity of driver education and common sense of those behind the wheel, cars have to designed for the times when accidents DO happen. One of the greatest benefits of the modern car is well-designed restraint systems.
In this, we have much to be thankful for today. Even small, low-priced, entry-level cars today have three-point belts with modern pretensioners, air bags for both front-seat occupants, and often for the side doors as well to protect against side-impacts. Air bags built into the areas above the side windows, known as " curtain " airbags, help shield the head and neck from side impacts.
Still, despite the proliference of airbags in modern vehicles, the primary restraining device always has been, and still is, the belts. Bags or no bags, you MUST wear your belts....and wear them PROPERLY.....if you want the most crash protection your vehicle can give you. Crumple zones in the front and rear frame and sheet metal, safety glass, energy-absorbing steering columns........all of these things help, but nothing takes the place of a proper seat belt / harness system and proper use of it. For these modern restraint systems, we can thank Mercedes and Volvo......traditional auto safety pioneers.......more than any other companies. They have done more to bring us these new bags, multi-stage bags, and restraint systems than anyone else in the industry......though GM offered air bags on 1974 Oldsmobiles and, as usual for the period, there were few takers.




So......overall, we have MUCH to be thankful for in our new vehicles......in addition to many other relatively new features as no-haggle pricing, Certified Used Car programs, multi-use transmission shifting aids, turbos to give more power to small engines, active head restraints, trunk-safety devices for children, child car-seats, no-commercial satellite radio, programs like GM's ON-Star and Lexus-Link that send automatically send help when needed, ....the list of things to be thankful for in today's automobiles is almost endless. So............ let's not forget that, on this Thanksgiving Day, when we fittingly give thanks to God for so many other things as well.

rai

my gosh you said a mouthfull.

I agree with much of what you said.

My first car was a carburated 76 Nova which was much like a boat, it didn't give any feel or fun. It was very sulugish and unsafe, if I stopped to fast the car would stall.

It was so bad that when I stepped up to a 1988 VW Fox it was a real step up. Not that the fox was any great car, today it would be the worst car on the road, but the difference b/t a 76 Nova and a 88 Fox was to me a big. Even tho the Fox was not a performance car, I could feel the road and trun and stop with confidence. Also in the snow the fwd was much better than the front heavy rwd Nova.

Well in the 22 years I've been driving they have got better and safer and faster and dare I say cheaper? Consider the VW Fox cost me $8800 in 1988 bring that to 2006 dollars and it's like what I'd pay for a Fit or a Rabbit that would murder the Fox in most ways, with features out the wazoo like abs, airbags, power everything, larger and alloy wheels, CD stereo etc.. for similar real world dollars..

mmarshall

Yes, I did, because we have a lot in today's cars to be thankful for.....and if you think that post was long, there are many other features in today's cars I DIDN'T cover.

trent

Whew!! that was a lot of informative reading

tuan92129

I'm thankful for my es 300 which is my first car (whats a carburator??? lol)

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

Great post mmarshall. When people try to convince me of some 'good old days' about cars I just smile and think their memory is obviously not very good.

mmarshall

Thanks, bit.

I have to start paying more attention to my spelling and punctuation, though.
I went back through this long post this morning.....even after all the work I did on it yesterday......and had to correct numerous misspelled words and punctuation marks.

Ice350

iTrader: (1)

Great thread subject. As a getting older guy, I have fond memories of the older cars. For all the problems, there was a good side if you were a car guy. My first car was a 69 Plymouth Satellite. Great car but always had problems, mostly electrical. The good part....I was able fix most everything myself....with my grandfather or cousins' help when needed. With today's cars, I wouldn't touch them. You need fancy electronic equipment to diagnose most problems. But my old Satellite, my Monte Carlo's....I did most of the repairs. That created a bond with the car. I used my hands to care for them. That's special.

mmarshall

It is interesting that the all-time record in Consumer Reports for the number of factory goofs and defects they had to deal with in a new car upon delivery was a 1970 Plymouth Satellite........52. Many of the Chrysler products from the late 60's through the early 1980's looked ( and sounded) like they were just thrown together at the factory by people who were almost blind.....this, after the great quality control and durability they had in the early-to-mid 60's except for, as I noted above, the lousy drum brakes and balky two-barrel carburators.

Today it is unusual for a new car, from most manufacturers that sell cars in the American market, to have more than one or two significant problems.....except for some high-end German and British vehicles. Most people just won't put up with it any more...the realities of the marketplace demand it. On new Toyota / Lexus, Honda,/ Acura, Hyundai, and Subaru products, the problem rate on new vehicles is extremely low....but Toyota is starting to show some signs of slipping.

CUMan

Very thorough and well written, mmarshal. You nailed many, many issues that many of us old-timers remember well.

A few of my not-so-fine memories:

1. Powerful small-block GM V-8 engines hooked up to primitive two-speed automatic transmissions.

2. Engines that were not really high compression but pinged on any gas except super-premium. (Poor cylinder head design and carbon buildup, perhaps?)

3. The complexity of changing drum brake linings (which often contained asbestos) and the danger involved in stretching all those springs to get them back in their proper positions. Compare this to today's disc systems where you remove one bolt, flip up the caliper, push the piston back, insert the new pads, flip down the caliper and replace the bolt.

4. A 1975 model Dodge Dart Swinger in which the gaskets in the carburetor disintegrated because of some sort of chemical reaction with the newly-formulated (and government mandated) unleaded gas.

5. Numerous maintenance schedules which called for 1,000 mile chassis lubrications.

6. Nylon cord tires that went bump-bump until the tires warmed up.

7. Carbureted-engine cars that flooded with regularity. You then pushed the accelerator to the floor and cranked until the carburetor finally cleared itself out, and the car would start.

And then, there are some memories that are better:

1. The advent of radial tires in the late 60's. I remember Sears introducing their Allstate steel-belted radials in about 1967-68. I read about them in Consumer Reports and put a set on a 1966 Oldsmobile Delta 88. What an improvement in handling, braking response, and treadwear life. I believe this was about the same time Michelin steel-belted radials also began to be marketed.

2. My first Toyota - a 1978 Corona with a 20R 4-cylinder engine. It felt so well-built and refined compared to the Chevrolets and Chrysler products I was familiar with.

3. My first front-wheel drive car, a 1980 Honda Accord 4-door. I got on a long waiting list to get one, put up a $500 deposit, and waited about two months for my name to come up. I then took whatever color was available and was glad to get it. This car and subsequent 83, 86, and 90 4-door Accords were jewel-like in quality.

4. My first fuel-injected car, a 1986 Honda Accord LX-i. This car had a 2 liter 4-cylinder engine that was extremely powerful, especially when mated with the 5-speed transmission. Abundant power and 32 MPG on highway driving - what a combination.

5. My first Lexus, a 1994 ES300. We still own it today. It has given us 134,000 miles of very trouble-free service. It has been back to the Lexus dealer one time, I believe. And they wanted such a price to repair the air conditioning that I refused to let them work on it. We took a quick trip cross-country along I-40 last week, some 2,000 miles. The average MPG was about 29.0, with a lot of 80 MPH driving.

6. My second Lexus, a 1993 LS400. I purchased this car used in 1998 and still own it. Its performance has been exemplary. It has experienced the trunk hinge wiring problem and the dark dash display; but, thanks to CL, these little glitches have been easy to repair at minimal cost.

Yes, we may have some fond memories of some of those flashy looking behemoths from years back, but these memories are sometimes secondary to the memories of the money and time we spent to keep them running acceptably and looking good.

Nextourer

wow! That's a long post if I ever saw one.

My memory of "old" cars was our Dark Emerald Pearl 1997 Corolla DX Plus with a 100hp 4A-FE 1.6 litre DOHC engine and 3-spd automatic. Oh and only A/C and cruise.. no power win/lock/mirror. Hell, our "new" 02 Camry used less fuel on our Kelowna trips than that 97 Corolla.

That car was reliable though in its short 30,000km lifespan (got totalled by someone running through an uncontrolled intersection) but it was ghetto in terms of equipment. The only safety equipment was a driver's airbag and front seat pretensioners. Oh and it meets the 1997 side-impact standard - i.e. it has two bars in the doors instead of one.

mmarshall

One of the GM two-speeds was not even completely automatic. It was called TorqueDrive. it was a lower-cost alternative to a true automatic. It had a column-mounted shifter just like the fully automatic 2-speed PowerGlide ( which usually did more gliding than powering ). You shifted from low to high with the column-mounted shifter ( no clutch ) at 45 MPH or under.....then back down again to low. It was offered in the late 60's and was installed on some lower-cost Chevies and Pontiacs, but there weren't many takers.


I had this problem with a low-compression, two-barrel carb 1967 Chrysler 383 V8.

Yep....had the same problem myself on a 1975 Plymouth Duster slant-six. Ran OK with unleaded for a couple of years ( but like a slug with 95 HP ), then the carb started to screw up. It affected the acclerator pump seals.


This was normal for the cars of the period... ....chassis lubes with every oil change.



Some of the carburators on the late 70's-mid-80's Japanese cars were worse than those on lean-burn American products....the Accord's was one of the worst....constantly ran lean cold and warm......, but like you say, except for rust-prine front fenders ( there was a recall for that ) the Accord was, and still is, built like a Swiss watch.
By the late 1980's, EFI was pretty much replacing carbs across the board, and some Japanese cars were approaching perfection ( for the standards of the time ).

Lil4X

Thanks Marsh and CUman for the trip down memory lane! Boy that takes me back to the “good” old days when you not only could work on your own car, you were expected to. While the cars of the ‘60’s were pretty primitive by today’s standards, they had actually come a LONG way from those of the previous decade.

To go back to the early and mid fifties, somewhere near the birth of my automotive awareness in about 1949 or so, there arrived on the scene the first cars with something other than a three-speed manual transmission on the column. I actually recall the old three-speed floor shifts on a family friend’s pre-war Plymouth, but this had to be in the mid ‘40’s. After the war, automatics were quite the new technology in "family" cars, and everyone marveled at not having to shift the transmission yourself. Some years later in college, my girlfriend needed a car, so I bought her a 1947 Cadillac (for $40 from a junkyard) with one of the early Hydramatics bolted up behind the flathead V-8. It was really impressive, performing almost as smoothly and solidly as a then-contemporary (early ‘60s) automatic. Considering the heavy load of steel it was dragging around, behind an early V8, it performed quite well despite its advanced age.

I recall the old Chevy two-speed Powerglide transmission – under moderately-hard acceleration it shifted at about 36-38 mph with a distinctive “clunk”, and then staggered its way up to about an 80 mph top end. My mom had a 63 Impala so equipped, and the car was fine around town if you didn’t push it, but it was a real slug on the highway. First gear was too high, and only because of a loose torque converter could it get away from a full stop at all. Top gear was too low, so at any speed over 75, you had to watch the temp gauge for overheating. That 2-bbl 289 was really straining at that speed. Of course in those days the national speed limit was 60, so for the law-abiding, the powerglide was adequate, if not stellar.

Speaking of transmissions, the Chrysler Torqueflite three-speed was a landmark in power transmission. It was probably the closest thing MoPar ever developed to truly bulletproof product. They were relatively smooth and forgiving of my teenage excesses, probably accounting for their use in drag racing for many years. They were capable of handling truly massive amounts of torque, and were even found in three to five-ton truck and motorhome chassis into the ‘80’s.

Chrysler Corporation was not always so fortunate. Their first attempt at an “automatic” was what they called “Fluid Drive”, and came in two versions. For the Plymouth and Dodge “economy” versions, the system consisted of a fluid coupling that replaced the conventional flywheel. The clutch and transmission were mounted to the coupling that provided a soft, smooth clutch feel. You could actually stop the car with the clutch engaged since there was no direct coupling to the drive train except through that ¼ inch fluid gap in the TC. Although it was technically possible to do this, the driveline was not particularly happy to participate, and caused the car to shudder nervously. Better to step on the clutch.

Shifting the 3-speed on the column was pretty conventional, and the fluid drive was in practice pretty transparent. You could still pull off a downshift (double clutching into non-synchro first) with pretty fair results, primarily because the critical need to match engine speed before engaging the clutch was no longer terribly critical. I had a 1952 Dodge Wayfarer as my first car, and it had this rather unique drivetrain. Hooked up behind a big six-cylinder flathead engine, it wasn’t exactly fast, but it was a LOT more entertaining than an automatic. It was a great “trainer” for more (or maybe less) sophisticated gear changing mechanisms to come.

In the pricier lines at Desoto and Chrysler the Fluid Drive coupling included what was really a true automatic. Now realize that GM (Allison) had the patents for most automotive transmissions sewed up in the excellent Hydramatic, so the guys at MoPar had to strike out on their own. The early Chrysler full-automatics were actually 2-speed transmissions hooked up to a 2-speed semi-auto trans. You still had a clutch, but it was seldom needed except to shift to reverse. You put the transmission in Low for starting on hills or towing, but most of the time you started in High.

Low started about where second gear on a 4-speed transmission, and once you were rolling at about 14 mph, you lifted off the gas and waited for an audible “CLACK” that announced the “automatic” had shifted into its higher ratio. For normal driving you put the selector in High and did the same thing – getting a slightly higher starting gear and a good bit higher second. If you consider it much like a primitive Powerglide with a splitter, you wouldn’t be too far off. Could it be used as a 4-speed? Well, after a fashion – and only for showing off.

After shifting into Low/High you had to depress the clutch, floor the throttle (to force a downshift on the auto box, select High Range, and rev the engine again to get somewhere close to the “Low Range” input expected from High range, making you shift from Low/Low – Low/High – High/Low – High/High. It was a nice demonstration of the four gears available, but in practice it didn’t gain you anything for all of the shifting.

Then there was the Buick Dynaflo – the transmission of legend. It was a variable-vane fluid coupling and no “transmission” at all. In effect it was a primitive CVT, but without the electronics and computer supervision. This was strictly a mechanical/hydraulic device that never actually shifted at all, but produced an exceedingly smooth power flow to the rear wheels. It was also rather “leisurely” in its acceleration, to put it mildly.

It did have ONE very impressive feature: you COULD put it in reverse at 70 mph. Yes, this gearbox of mostly urban legend, having no solid connection between engine and wheels COULD be thrown into reverse. Most of the time it produced a lot of screaming rubber and a heavy shudder as the rear axle pounded up and down against the stops in protest. This practice was probably responsible for a number of busted shocks and more than one split u-joint . . . . but it made the transmission famous among us, the youthful and stupid.

Brakes were a matter of some import in those days – although it would be years before the disc brake was adapted for automotive use. One of the qualities that kept drum brakes around for years was their self-energizing feature. Wheel torque tended to help engage the brakes, dragging the shoes into a closer engagement with the drum and providing a mechanical assist. Power brakes were introduced in the mid-fifties in much the same form as vacuum assisted brakes today, but prior to their introduction almost always as an option on all but the most expensive cars (along with power steering).

Hydraulic brakes required a pretty good leg to produce a quick stop, and smaller people and particularly women found that the power options were much needed. That $40 ’47 Cad I bought my girlfriend was all manual – and it required some serious wrestling with a steering wheel large enough for a riverboat to parallel park. She, although athletic couldn’t manage, and I even had considerable difficulty with it. We almost always passed on parallel parking spaces and opted for some place we could head-in park,

Drum brakes also had a problem in the wet. If you got water on the inner friction surface, you had practically no brakes at all, so you learned to drag the brakes for a block or so after crossing a deep puddle to heat them up and drive off the water.

Thinking about the so-called “good old days” when gas was as low as $.17/gal, you burned quite a lot of it. My 6 cyl ‘52 Dodge and its later replacement a ‘61 Valiant, got about 14 mpg in daily service. You could do better on the highway, but 20 mpg was strictly bragging territory, often spoken of, but seldom achieved.

Tires were initially cotton-corded 4-ply affairs. They were smooth enough for their day but rather stiff compared to modern tires, thanks to the 4 plies being carried up from the tread to the bead. Michelin’s “X”- series tires introduced radial technology to these shores by the end of the ‘50’s, but the were only seen on sports cars of the day. Bias-belted tires, in Nylon were strong but very rough when cold. They would develop a flat spot overnight after being parked for a few hours, and particularly in cold weather they would be “square” for several blocks to a mile or more in the morning before they flexed enough to heat up. Other fabrics, including Rayon, Dacron, fiberglass, and later Aramid were tried as belting materials, but met with varying degrees of success. Michelin’s success with steel belts led to stronger, more compliant tires that could be assembled with a 2-ply sidewall.

Sears sold their own house brand of radial tires that were actually re-branded Michelin's manufactured somewhere in Belgium, I recall, for the US market. They were a revelation to most of us driving American Iron, and they soon became popular and available in a variety of brands.

A couple of other changes from motoring of 50 years ago include windshield wipers that were once vacuum powered. Although a great step up from MANUAL wipers, the vacuum wipers would only operate when engine vacuum was high. At cruising speed they were effective, but they would stall under acceleration, then slap away furiously when coasting. You just had to get used to it. If you wanted to see the road ahead in a rainstorm, you had to back out of the throttle for a second or two to clear the windshield.

Headlights were once pretty weak and of variable intensity. Six-volt electrical systems required large wires to carry the requisite current to the lamps for them to function – and it wasn’t unusual to watch the lights brighten and dim with engine speed. I never had a car that did this, but I saw it often on much older models – and I had a motorcycle that had a similar arrangement, running the electrics off of the magneto ignition. Slow down for a turn at an intersection and the lights dim out. Swell.

We tend to think of automobiles of the past with a great deal of nostalgia, but I for one would far prefer to drive something of more recent vintage. For comfort, performance, and reliability – we’ve come a long way!

ES350Bob

I was very thankful for my first ES300 when I owned it and I hope your's continues to serve you well, what a fantastic car the ES300 is.

mmarshall

The first American fully automatic transmission was introduced on the 1940 Oldsmobile.
Not yet fully perfected, of course, it was good for about 25,000 miles and then usually wore out. World War II, of course, ( during which there were no new civilian cars produced at all ) held up development and production of better automatics and semi-automatics until after the war.


Like you, I was a big fan of big Buicks even as a young person. Some other people my age, of course, laughed and called them Grandpa and Grandma cars. Up until the late 60's, they had either the buttery-smooth Dynaflow you mention or the equally smooth Super-Turbine-Drive 3-speed automatic which replaced it.....usually with the big " nailhead" 401 and 445 c.i. engines. Smaller Buick compacts at the time used a version of the lousy Chevy Powerglide.
Of all the features of the 1960's I remember so vivldly, I miss the big smooth Buick transmissions and the bright, pastel-colored Plymouth / Dodge muscle cars the most. Yes, I did like the muscle cars too, like most young people my age....but I was wise enough to drive them with common sense.