Posted: Aug 09 2013 at 7:23am | IP Logged

I remeber cars with "270" air conditioning and owned a few.  Open two windows and go 70 mph!  Also I am sure you remember the high beam switch as a button on the floor that you operated with your left foot, the vent doors that opened when you  pulled knob on the dash and even vent windows.  I once drove a car with cable, not hydraulic, brakes.  (And even cars with hydraulic brakes had drum brakes on all four wheels.)  That was a real thrill.

And remeber "Kendall, the 2000 mile oil."  That was a big deal that you could go up to 2000 miles on an oil fill!  And with leaded gas, you had to replace the exhaust system  every few years as it would rot out from the lead acids. And then there was the 50,000 mile carb and valve job where the carb had to be rebuilt and the head pulled so the valves and valve seats could be ground.  It was a real story if you could get a car to 100,000 miles in the good old days.  Steering wheels were huge as most cars wieghed a lot and had no power steering and so you needed the leverage of a large steering wheel to turn the car.  Many of us attached those little knobs to the wheel to get the extra leverage they provided.

And there were the oil bath air filters where the air going into the engine passed over a pool of motor oil in the aircleaner.  And blowby was directed into a breather tube that allowed all of that stuff to blow right into the atmosphere.

Ah, the good old days!  May they never come again....W. C. Fields

Posted: Aug 09 2013 at 11:24am | IP Logged

Oh, yes.  And the points and plugs every 10,000 miles as the plugs got lead fouled and the little fiber block on the points wore down and changed the dwell angle.  A big thing to own when I was a young man was a dwell meter..then you did not have to set the points with a feeler gauge!

You are right about tires.  Less expensive rayon or nylon bias ply tires only went 10,000 miles...you put new ones on every year. I remember in the 60's when glass belted tires showed up.  And then radials in the late 60's and early 70's....nobody believed at first that they would go 40,000 miles. I also remember having tubes in the tires.  They ended up in the swimming hole after they got numerous patches on them.

And metal dashboards, no seat belts and a steering wheel post that would puncture your chest if you got hit head on. The guys in the back seat at least had the driver and front seat passenger as their  "air bag in a collision.

And now we are having 9 speed auto trannies.  What happened to the old GM Power glide tranny that had two speeds and only shifted once?  Or the three speed manual with the shifter on the steering column?   And buy a vehicle from a Japanese company?  Are you crazy?

Times are different, my friend.  I now have a Japanese truck (Nissan Fronty), a german car (VW Passat diesel) and an American car that is made no more (Saturn L300 coupe).