I guess a Corvette would be a prime choice up north with long winters & lots or road salt. With fiberglass, galvanized steel, & aluminum alloys, there's a lot less to rust out than on other cars. Up here, cars rust & rot out before they actually wear out. But most modern cars don't rust like the old American ones did. Back in the day, just a couple rough winters would cause some severe body rust at least around the fenders, & the bottoms of the doors. By the end of a third winter it wasn't unusual to see the street through a rust hole inside your trunk or the bottom of a door. By the end of a fourth winter springs & shocks may have already broken through the trunk because there was nothing left to support them but rust. But the engines would still run great even long after they were retired to the junkyard.
I question some of the modern vehicle efficiency technologies. Although the black limo was rated at 12.5mpg highway & 7.5 mpg city (the 4-door, not 6-door stretch), on a perfect flat mostly straight long run, with few hills, little wind, & a constant speed of 55-65mph, I could squeeze 17 mpg highway out of it. In the city I would get 11-12 mpg. But unlike most drivers in American cities, I wasn't accelerating as fast as I can to the next stop light or stop sign, flooring it as soon as the light turns green, & never felt the need to pass everybody who's going just 1 or 2 mph slower than I want to go or than the speed limit (just to stop at the next red light with everybody else who just passed by).
1-2mph just never made much difference to me. Was it really worth the trouble, gas, engine wear, & a few risks or hazards to arrive at your destination just 1-5 minutes sooner? It's extra stupid for city driving too. Driving in the city, their destination usually on 1-4 miles away. So for all the effort to go a just a couple MPH faster, they saved only a few seconds in time.
Anywho, my truck, almost 1.5 tons lighter than the limo, with a modern V-6 fuel injected engine, electronic ignition, & less than half the horsepower did no better on gas than my 1970 V8 limo. Thinking I was gonna save a lot of gas, I was surprised my tiny 4-cylinder, fuel-injected VW convertible, with only 90hp (the limo had 5 times the HP & weighed almost 3 tons), only got 24-25mpg highway, & around 21mpg city. You'd think for an underpowered tiny car, it would have got at least 30 mph.
Back in the 70s. The only cars designed with efficiency in mind were fleet vehicles that would probably be used for commercial use, like limos, cabs, police/interceptor cars, & commercial trucks. Although gas was cheap, it still added up to a lot in vehicles for commercial use. Efficient advanced carburetors, more precision bearings, precision engines, & low rolling resistance made those fleet vehicles pretty efficient for their size & HP. Most of the modern engines today are designed for lower emissions standards, but efficiency suffers with strict emission limits. Let's not forget, those huge tires designed for those old cars offered a lot less rolling resistance than the tiny wheels on cars today too. I was able to push my limo on flat ground as easy as the tiny VW. I couldn't push the truck at all by myself even though it was a lot lighter than the limo. It took another big strong guy to help me, to get it to budge.
I didn't buy just any car that fit my budget. It had to be cool in some way so I'd enjoy working on it, & like driving it fixed up. So yeah, I liked doing it. A few of the plain looking Chrysler vehicles were former interceptor vehicles. I forgot to put a Plymouth Fury interceptor in the pictures. All the cars had to be running good enough for daily use as-is when I bought them, & pass inspection, or be able to with only a few days work on them. But I wasn't gonna drive an ugly, unreliable POS. So they had to be in good enough shape, that I could get them looking & running almost like new in 2-3 months in the spring, summer, or fall, on a limited budget. I had no garage or driveway most of my life, so except for new paint & undercoating, all the work done on them was right on the street, & it still be drivable every day as my daily runner.
There was a brief point my other half & I owned the limo, while I also owned the T-bird, & Pontiac all at the same time. but the rest of the time, it was always just 1 car at a time, no shared ownership, & I was the only driver.
With the way work & my handicap is going, I don't know if I'll ever be able to put another vehicle on the road. I'm sure I can find a vehicle & fix it as cheap as I do with my computers. but it's the required car insurance in NY state that's a killer. Even though I have a spotless drivers license, accident/ticket-free, & clean criminal record, the car insurance on a single male living in a city is outrageous. As bad as that is, if you haven't had a car in your name on the road in a year or 2, they put you in a risk pool for 2-5 years, which means the insurance is almost double.
Otherwise, if I shopped around, I'm sure I could find an old junker around that runs for almost nothing, that I can keep running good enough as a basic run-about with junkyard parts. But the $2000-$4000 a year in car insurance required in NY state is a deal breaker. I even thought of putting or building an electric bicycle on the road. The city, county, & state won't allow it.
Interestingly, if I was married, or divorced, had kids in the state (even if they're all grown up), living in the suburbs, I could get car insurance for $450-$600 a year... even with a bad driving & accident record. But just because I'm single & living in the city, I'm considered a very dangerous driver.
Betty's Pub 20.1
Topic: Sissy stuff to keep warm with during the "VORTEX"? (Read 93028 times)
