Thank you Allen, for pointing out that some – maybe all – of the new Honda Accords develop warped rotors after 10,000 miles of use. That's news; and something Edmunds.com shouldn't have tried to gloss over. Which brings to mind a point. Braking systems are much better than they were on cars of the 1950s and '60s, for the most part.

Some cars – Chevrolet's Corvette from 1965 on (as I recall) and Volvo from 1966 on (with the onset of the 140 series) came complete with four-wheel disc brakes. The rear brakes could admittedly still lock up. However, you didn't have the brakes completely go out on you – as happened to me one rainy night, after my 1965 VW Beetle (which I owned as a student in the late Seventies) had gone through several deep rain puddles. That's when I found out what a "bootleg turn" was, by grasping on the hand brake, out of desperation, and doing a 180 in front of a line of cars – fortunately, stopped at the bottom of the hill I was coming down from (at a five-way stop).

I have to wonder how many children and dogs, cats too, died in the Fifties and Sixties because Detroit kept selling cars with ever bigger engines, but brakes that were hardly adequate to the task. I do believe these are the "good old days," maybe the final ones, for using the automobile, at least in the city. As the American population grows, and politicians (such as Seattle's mayor) keep allowing developers to creat more density, the roadways become so problematic, that it is oftentimes easier to either just walk some place or, sadly, take the bus.

I had two cars at my disposal, on December 11, and needed to get to downtown Seattle from north Seattle, in time to meet some people for a dinner presentation. Since the rush hour traffic was upon us, and wind and rain was coming down like a Biblical epic, I walked a quarter of a mile and caught an "express" bus to the inner city. I got there in about 20 minutes, from the time the bus came and without giving the finger or swearing at another motorist. A fellow journo drove from his home, 15 miles east of Seattle; and it took him an hour and 45 minutes. I don't have that kind of patience anymore; and how many of us, in a Corvette, 911 or Lotus Elise (when we have 'em) do?

They will put expensive and heavy ABS components in a car and offer it as standard equipment, but they will not put front disc rotors that are massive enough to prevent warpage after 10k miles.

This stupidity is further propagated by some automotive journalists. Edmonds.com wrote about a long term test of the Honda Accord, dismissing the warped rotors as the fault of the number of miles driven in a short period of time. Nonsense! If enough people (and journalists) complain about this then the car companies will fix this. Instead, we get more of the same.

(I am starting to believe that auto manufacturers do not listen to customers. They listen to automotive journalists.)

Also, why is a six speed manual tranny better than a five speed? Race cars go from 0 to 200 MPH with six or seven forward gears, so if I am gonna go 75 MPH on the interstate then why would I want to row through six gears? Sometimes less is more; four forward gears would be ideal for me. And if you prefer auto trannies, then waz up with the Lexus eight speed? We are now going back to the future, the ’70’s era of kitchen blenders with 14 different speeds (the beige button was the “speed doubler”.) I don’t get this “more speeds is more” thing.

Todays engine management and VVT are far superior to the carbs and compromises of the past.

One of the things that I’ve always liked about carbed motors is the fact that when you start them, they come up more gracefully than FI mills, what I mean by this is that the engine comes on gradually, accelerating itself up from whatever the starter speed is over a couple seconds, instead of “Turn over Starter, Bam!, It’s running!” with FI

I don’t really know _why_ I like the behavior, there seems to be something less hurried about it, or something. I don’t know how to describe it.

It takes exactly 26 hours to drive from Denver to Seattle, if you stick to the Interstates (minus a cut on a US highway, mostly divided, through Price, UT), allowing reasonable speeds – meaning you occasionally break the law, and stops for meals. I know because I’ve done it many, many times.

–chuck

Nonetheless, the average car today is far more responsive and durable than the average car of that era. The parental ‘57 Chevy was a POS, bad handling, bad steering, no power (it was a six, but still…) and was falling apart well before 100k.

There is a sad paradox about cars and driving then and now. In those days, twisties were plentiful, and roads were far less crowded than today.

In ‘52, my father drove the family studebaker from Boston to Seattle while my mother and my older brother flew to our family’s new home. (I wasn’t around yet.) In his rush to get out there my father had planned to drive from Denver to Seattle in a day. He did manage to make it to the Wash State border, a distance of probably around 1000+ miles. He crossed at least two mountain ranges, probably praying for the engine not to overheat on the way up, and for the brakes on the way down, and probably fighting with the steering wheel the whole way.

I would love to make such a trip in a modern car.

A couple of weeks ago I was relacing in one of Cambridge’s finest coffee houses, luckily parked right in front, when I noticed a big ol Suburban backing slowly towards my car. To my horror, she kept coming, and I finally got up, ran out, and had to bang on her window to get her attention.

I wish you’d been around a few years ago when my old ‘93 Saturn had electronic problems. It would die on me while driving. Fortunately, I could usually start it up again, and it would be fine until the next incident. It took 5 trips in and out of the dealer for them to repair it, by trial and error. One time one of the techs spent an hour with me, driving the car up and down waiting for it to die. It didn’t. Instead, it died as I was leaving the dealer. They had no diagnostic equipment that could tell them exactly what the matter was, and they claimed it didn’t exist.

the irony of flying in Commerical Aviation jets today, many of which date back to the sixties, does not escape me. but that is just too much CA money going into too many congressional pockets.

You’d have to drag me kicking and screaming, even if offered a 66 Shelby Cobra 427, to get me back to the bad old days.
The best Porsche 911 ever made rolled off the line yesterday, the greatest one rolls off the line tommorrow. Stay right here, for these are the good old days. 49 years young today and the cars just keep getting better.

I absolutely cannot wait for fuel to get expensive enough so that people will not drive those monster trucks as everyday errand mobiles. The busy mom in her monster truck has nearly run me down in parking lots more times than I care to think about.

Professional users of trucks for the most part know what they are doing and are careful about it. The fashion buyers seem to be the scarry ones!

Well, I happen to have a 1965 E-type. It is a family heirloom of sorts. One thing about old cars though, the worst thing you can do to them is park them. If you don’t drive them, they die.

The problem with driving them is all the people on the road, safely ensconced in their multi-airbagged, climate-controlled, DVD-equipped, overweight 5000lb, Family Truckster… paying more attention to their cell phone than what is happening on the road around them.

Look again at the brake lights of an E-type Jaguar. Now imagine the cell-phone yakking soccer mom in her Yukon behind me. I’ve had to run stop signs to avoid being plowed into.

Look at the height and usual poor arrangement of mirrors on the average SUV or Pickup. Now look at the height and overall size of an E-type. I’ve been backed into by pickups and SUVs now twice. I’ve had many near-hits in parking lots (once I had to hurl an object into the rear window of an SUV to get the attention of the driver, obliviously backing into my car.

I love to drive my Dad’s old Jag, but man, it is a tough world out there! =\

–chuck

The difference might be that I enjoy hearing these engines work a little, as long as they sound good and never feel strained. Which is true of both engines.

My ‘98 VW GTi can top 140 mph and gets about 25 mpg (the way I drive it), and has power everything and leather seats to boot. It needs minimal maintenance, and if something does go wrong I just plug my laptop in. How can THIS not be the golden age of motoring?

Absent goverment regulations there is little chance that the improvements in safety and the reduced environmental impact per vehicle would have happened. Just look at the vehicles sold in the developing countries with few regulations.

Also, the salutory effects of choice are a diminish returns games. For all practical purposes, Japan has far fewer models on sale in it’s home market than does the US. Even so, the Japanese home market has an overall superior ecological footprint as compared to the US market. Choice and competetion are important drivers of progress, but they don’t get the lion’s share of the credit for the improved safety and reduced ecological impact of today’s vehicles as compared to 1965. Both regulation and a more informed buyer have a great deal more to do with this progress than does the number of models offered for sale.

Now I am going out to the garage to play with my 1966 Jaguar, which has more soul than anything I could buy today :).

What, exactly, makes for a “Golden Age?” In many cases, I think romance and nostalgia have more to do with any “Golden Age” memories than the actual vehicles. To be sure there are great cars back there, from any given time in the age of the automobile. But there were plenty that were awful, too, from the same model year and even the same manufacturer.

What I like in modern cars is that they do seem to be more durable, which I like given my propensity to keep a favored chariot longer than average. I like that I can, within reason, do things I didn’t dare attempt in cars of the ’60s and ’70s. I love the higher level of comfort, handling, safety, etc.

They are immeasurably more complex, but electronics aside, you can still tweak suspensions, do a lot of work yourself and have a helluva good time doing it. And as someone has pointed out, ODB II and other systems do make diagnosis much easier. Times change. And we all do, too. My current stable ranges from ‘96 to ‘03 and I’m happy with all of them. And much as I have fond memories of cars since put out to pasture, I wouldn’t go back, except maybe to have one or two of them as a temporary portal to different places and times.

I dont get why some people prefer a neurotic chihuahua in front of them with a wailing calf behind them (Honda). (A neurotic doberman behind me (Porsche) is OK though).

Ill take a long stroke V8 everytime.

We came upon a used classic car place – the kind of place that had the rusted remains of great cars all over the place, and some nicer ones for sale. We got out of the Subie and looked longingly at the wonderful Buicks, Caddys, Dodges, Chevys and others from the 60s and 70s, in various states of disrepair.

It occurred to me that when I owned these cars, they were almost never air conditioned, they didn’t have seat belts, the steering was iffy at best, the suspensions were awful, the brakes were faith based. I owned a 442 Olds that lost any steering ability when you stepped on the gas. It was frightening, even to my then immortal teenage mind.

These cars needed constant tune ups, constant tire replacement, and endless preening.

We got back in the Subie, turned the air back on, stepped on the gas, and in a few completely controlled seconds were up to speed and chatting about all the “wonderful old cars”. In the STi, the sensation of acceleration comes from the scenery passing quickly and you being pushed back in the seat, not from being unable to steer any more.

I also remember all the fancy designed cars, the tail fins, the impossibly long fenders, the HUGE engines. The chrome, ah the chrome! I had an olds 88 that had the hugest chrome bumper ever!

Yes, cars are better now, thank god.

But it was nice being young and not knowing any better.

I agree–what counts is effortless acceleration. And in my case, I don’t need blinding speed and it matters little whether the car can exceed 60 mph. It’s the feeling that the car isn’t working hard or straining at any point within the normal and occasionally urgent speed range, merging requirements, and road grades, of my urban/suburban world, that matters most.