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Detroit, 4:46 PM
Sat Nov 7
15 posts in the last 24 hours
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07/31/09
Also, really fancy cars had ashtrays and lighters on all 4 arm rests. Cheaper cars, of course, had them on the back of the front bench seat--what better place, eh? You have the potential to start a smoldering fire IN the upholstery Oh, look, the vinyl's gone all melty.
08/01/09
And there were multiples not that long ago, either!
My '89 420 SEL had one lighter/ashtray for each rear door, but a shared for the front seats.
The '73 Coupe deVille had four of each, which was great for running multiple 12V items without a splitter.
Even my '95 E320 has ashtrays in the rear doors, though no lighters, which is kind of a drag when, while road-tripping, you want to charge a phone, run a 12V-110V inverter, and a GPS.
07/31/09
Are we going to have a contest to identify the car in #11?
07/31/09
Nor, in their innocence, will they have a choke knob (oo er missus!) to help start them on their way during those wintry morns.
Future Mini owners will have no conception of the sliding window (no, not even a winder), or the length of cable that passed for an inside door handle (that was how they were built, son) or the bucket sized door pockets.
And who amongst has not shed a tear for the frame mounted, flip-up indicator light?
Or the starting handle in the boot (just in case...)?
And the feel of the road that only cross-ply tyres can give (I spit on your - your - radials!)?
But most of all, they will never see an almost incomprehensible array of individually labelled (sometimes) black toggle switches, apparently fired on and around the dashboard by a sawn-off shotgun.
07/31/09
Unless, of course, said kid turn 16 and start driving.
But yeah, some of those things are just so important in my mental image of idyllic motoring. They can always check out what they are missing by looking at pics on Jalopnik and watching Top Gear old car episodes.
07/31/09
I heartily agreed.
07/30/09
Hey, I once had a car that had wind up (out?) windows and vent windows.
07/30/09
3. Window cranks... check!
4. Key, just a key... check!
6. Manual transfer case + 6spd manual tranny... check!
8. Get lost... check!
10. Arm out the window (if doors are attached, otherwise use foot)... check!
Bonus: Removable top, removable doors, windshield folds down and solid axles (if you like that kind of stuff).
I'm pretty sure most of these apply to the newer Jeep JK too if you stick to the basic models.
07/30/09
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07/30/09
1. Sat Nav units.
2. Air Conditioning being used.
This has cleared up 99% of the problems I have experienced in the past. Such as, the "are we there yet?", and the annoying brother in law who thinks it is hilarious to shit his pants with all of the windows up. Ok, so I am usually the one shitting my pants, but, short of having the dog with to blame it on, I have found my brother in law a great scapegoat.
Jokes aside, both of these items seem to, at least from my experience, disengage everyone from the world around them. Open up that map. Look what might be close. Take a detour! Get lost! What stories will you have to tell your children if you don't? I imagine they will go something like this:
"On one of our vacations, your father forgot to replace the batteries in the sat nav, and we had to stop at Wal-Mart and pick up an extra pair! We had to drive a few miles down the interstate, and look out the windows to find the Wal-Mart. I was so scared we were going to get lost. It was so hectic!"
My father traveled the country from the late fifties, right up until I was born, in the early 80's. He camped, and rarely stayed in any establishment, such as a motel. His beautiful slides and incredible stories that he has are what I grew up on.
A truism that I have lived by is that part of the joy of going somewhere is the actual getting there. I have tried my best to travel as many of my journeys as my father did when he was my age. Those travels I have made that remain in the forefront of my memories as being the most fun and enjoyable were the ones that remained true to my father's roughing it style.
07/31/09
07/30/09
But the other stuff... hell *I* haven't even experienced a car with 'no-draft' windows... and it looks like a good idea to me.
And I haven't experienced vinyl seats since my brother got rid of his Chevette in the late 1980s.
But other things my kids won't experience:
-Playing in the back seat or rear trunk area (in a wagon) because everyone needs to be strapped in now
-cars that stall regularly
-Needing to press on the gas pedal the right way to get the car to start (I was good at that... and my sister was terrible at that)
-Cars without headrests
-Cars with front bench seats that make it easy for someone to slide over and with seat backs low enough that you can rest your right arm on them while driving
-Three On The Tree (was mostly phased out when I was little in the 1970s... still remember my neighbor's blue Chevy pickup with 3 on the tree)
-cars without daytime running lights
-cars without high mounted center brake lights
-car stereos with less than 4 speakers and only having AM
-driving a car with the high-beam headlight button located on the floor to the left
-cars with decent trailer tow ratings
-cars with manual steering (no power assist)
07/30/09
07/31/09
07/30/09
To this list I would add double clutching... I don't know how many cars apart from the new 370Z do this, but they're starting to blip the engine for you now in these computer cars. That's one reason alone that I would never buy a 370Z. I mean, if you've bought the manual transmission, chances are, since it's anything but a rock-bottom Daewoolet Aveo, you probably know how to double clutch.
That's just me being an angry old-ish 28-year-old; I remember how annoyed I was when BMW started featuring the SMG transmission on their M cars... now it was possible for poseurs to drive an M3 as well! Ugh. And they're almost always Pheonix Yellow or Laguna Blau.... Go figure.
07/30/09
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07/30/09
I once rode 400 miles in the rear jump seat of a Nissan Hardbody, driven by a guy who didn't need a tach to properly drive standard. The truck never had one from the factory.
My other friend's Jeep still has vent windows.
I always hang my arm out the window.
And yes, the danger of death was present in all of those glorious machines.
07/30/09
07/30/09
No common cigarettes for me!
Also, how about foot-operated high-beam switches? Any 60s British car afficionado can vouch for the impracticality of these...
07/30/09
07/31/09
07/30/09
1. How to drive a manual transmission. I saw a statistic somewhere that about 95% of new cars sold in America are automatics, and I don't really doubt it.
2. Driving without synchros (related to #1). Try not to cry if your kid doesn't know what double-clutching is.
3. Driving at a steady speed without cruise control or some crazy laser-following-distance-monitoring... device. Self-explanatory.
4. Manually-operated convertible soft tops. Since cars keep getting bigger and bigger, it would be accordingly increasingly difficult to open and close a soft top by hand, so it seems like everybody has switched to powered tops.
5. Convertible soft tops. An increasing number of people are opting for retractable hard tops now, and they are becoming more readily available. Who cares that they look goofy, weigh a ton and take up all your trunk room?!
6. Cars with under 100 hp. I have mixed feelings about this - of course I like and appreciate that car companies are able to wring more power out of an engine while maintaining fuel efficiency, but the mere fact that they are compelled to do so in order to compensate for model bloat is tragic.
07/30/09
Not in my family. I'm only going to buy cars with manual transmissions. When I got married, my wife had the choice of learning stick or not driving. She learned... it wasn't a big deal. And my kids are going be learning to drive in a stick shift car... which will make it harder for them to get their licence... which is exactly my intention.
As for cars less that 100HP... there's still the Smart Car... and as fuel economy regs get more stringent, we should see more lower-powered cars... especially once cars start coming over from India and China. The cars being sold now reflect design decisions made 5+ years ago before we had the big gasoline price spike of last year and before CAFE got tightened up in a meaningful way.
07/30/09
My partner's Scottish, so he's better with a manual than I am (he learned on one, I didn't). No children are planned. Stick-shifts for all!