How many of you boys and girls...

I continue to see this "only" Chevy, and "only" Mopar, and...and...
I don't get it...but...I guess, snobs will be snobs.

In case you want to know...yeah, I've had four brands of cars, and four brands of motorcycles (all late models) over the years.

Any of you folks like me that really don't care about the "brand", as long as it's an old...car or bike ?

Mike

 

Certain styles I prefer certain brands. Late forties on up? Definitely gm. Say 48 and older? Ford wins. Especially 28-31. There are exceptions but yeah

 

Everything is fair game, more the merrier.

 

I don't really see how you can call folks who go for the lowest common denominator, "snobs"

I like Chevys because they work and are pretty easy to understand and deal with. But I've owned a lot of different cars over the past decade, including edsel, hudson, pontiac, mg, mercedes, dodge, checker, fiat, buick, and whatever else I forgot.

 

Every brand has its perks, and its problems.

I pulled wrenches for more then 20 years working on nearly everything built. Along the way, some brands tended to cause me more problems then others, and some brands sure seemed to be a lot easier to work on. I have more or less tolerances with some mechanical issues, some really bug me while other thing don't bother me too much.

After all those years of pulling wrenches on everything that came in the door, when I just started working on my own stuff, I decided I would just work on the brands that made my life more easy.
Its got nothing to do with being a snob and all about what made it easier and more enjoyable to me. If I have to work on it, its going to be that one brand that works for me.

Fortunately, other guys have other brands they prefer to work on, and brands they would rather not work on, probably for the same reasons I have for the brand I like, or don't like. I'm OK with that, as are most of the guys with those other brands. Sometimes its a bit fun to rib the other brand guys about their brand, especially when things go wrong with their brand. I believe most guys do that. I do it in good nature, but to someone with out those bad experiences when working on specific hardships associated with a specific brand, they may not understand, or assume the ribbing is of serious nature. We can go over board with how we speak to friends.

So, if you don't like the brand I like, something must be wrong with you!

 

I love them ALL & I have way too many already but am always looking!

Currently : Chevy, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Cadillac, GMC, Nash, Jag, AMC & Suzuki.

Brand loyalty & the rivalry that comes with it is more just for fun between most rational people. I am a GM man 1st & foremost as that is what I grew up with having a Dad that was a mechanic at a GMC Truck Dealership.

God Bless
Bill
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...ar-transport-hauling-open-or-enclosed.614419/

 

In WW-1, there was no true standardized interchangeable parts of various trucks, between models and brands.
WW-2, GM was a pioneer of standardization and parts interchangeability. That really made a big difference in how things moved and how things got repaired.
@squirrel, his recent Checker adventure is proof of that concept !
Everyone's results may vary greatly !
Thanks from Dennis.

 

Hmm. Let's see what is on the patch right now I can drive. Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Buick, Chevrolet, Ford, VW, Saab, Mitsubishi, Kia.

 

The brands don't matter much to me, as long at it has a chevy motor/trans lol

 

Relax...It's NOT a derogatory term !!!
It's just a term that goes with anyone preferring one thing over another in "mass'...
Used in MANY different "hobbies".

Mike

 

I like what I like, the brand doesn’t matter. All the majors produced some really cool stuff, they each have their strengths and weaknesses. When I was I kid I remember guys saying they wouldn’t drive …. (Fill in the blank) because said brand is junk and a dog. I think they missed out. Pontiac is the only major US brand I haven’t owned, not because I don’t like them.There are quite a few I really like just haven’t seen the right Pontiac at the right price at the right time. Yet! There a lot of cars by all the majors that I can’t understand a righteous car guy not liking, I won’t list because the list is long. Currently I’m a Mopar freak but could change at the drop of a hat or when I see the next car, not sure what ya call Pontiac freaks?
Dan

 

I reckon we all see people with obsessive brand loyalty, sometimes to what some would consider excessive levels. I find that amusing.
On my Ol' Furd pick up, I've even had "Blue Oval Fanatics" criticize me for calling it Furd, and for modifying the front name plate to spell it that way.
To that I say, "Lighten up Francis!"
I love 'em all. The more unusual and out of the box, the better!

 

^^^^^^^^^^^
Absolutely,
Dan

 

When I was young, I worked at a junkyard for about three years. One thing that impressed me about the Pontiacs we got in, was that none of them had an engine we could sell as good used...they were all junk. Including the wrecked cars! pretty weird, and influenced my opinion of Ponchos all my life.

 

Interesting, I don’t have any Poncho experience but weren’t the Ram Air and HO engines pretty stout?
Dan

 

I am a chevy guy by birth but i own a ford truck that kind of fell in my lap. I have built engines for fords, plenty of chevies and one american motors car. Never have messed with any mopar stuff though. Would, but the opportunity has yet to present itself.

 

GM and Chrysler is what I gravitate to. I understand the engineering. Ford always had bad experiences.

 

I've had one or more of almost every brand. Every brand has had some truly great cars and trucks and they've also had some real duds. I don't think I've ever had one that couldn't be made better, at least I thought they could be made better. Some I did make better, some not so much so, and a few I even left well enough alone. It depends on the mood I'm in which ones I prefer that day and why. But to the people that can't find a good one in any particular brand, they aren't looking hard enough. They are out there, or they can be out there as soon as we fix what we didn't like about them before we bought them.

 

That seems strange to me, but I won't discount it. I learned how to drive in a '72 Lemans with a 350. I wound the sucker to valve float all the time, beat on it mercilessly. The body rotted away, and the engine lived on untouched, in another Poncho, for years. A few years later I got a '72 Catalina with a 400. More abuse, and those cast rods took all of it. Maybe I was lucky.

 

I have no loyalty to car manufacturers, they all at one time or another have created something I would own.
Currently I own three Fat Fender Fords, one has a Buick Nailhead, one has an Olds 303, and one has a SBC.
A lot of considerations for engine choices, availability, costs, fitment, etc., no rules.

 

only four brands? You need to up your game lol.


Myself I am just a serious car guy I don't know how many cars I've had over the years but it has been a lot, a couple of ramblers, a Pontiac, a couple of plymouths, a few Dodges, a Ford, a few Lincolns even an old Chevy truck. Basically if I see a car that I like and it's reasonably priced I will purchase it and drive it. I'm pretty big on fixing stuff and making it run then enjoying it for a few months to a few years then selling it for a slight profit and then doing it all over again. The itches I still need to scratch I've never owned a studebaker and I really want one of those business coupes (I think it is called a champion from the real early '50s or late '40s), I also really need to scratch the itch for an international pickup truck, Bone stock nice and crude from the early post-war period. Great looking trucks and so underrated and from everything I've ever read and been told about them They just don't die They will outlive their owners if they are taken care of properly. I could go on and on about cars I want both on topic and off topic.
When it comes to pre-war stuff I am also not a snob and I like restored stuff and hot rods, I like it all but I'm partial to Ford's because of parts availability and I've had a crush on Model A's since there was 12 years old if not younger, most guys lust after a 32 deuce roadster or three window coupe but give me a 29 roadster slightly channeled on its original rails and I'm all about it. Give me a Model A pickup with fenders set up early '60s style and I might drool a little... When it comes to the real early stuff I'm also real partial to Dodge Brothers cars, In my opinion they are the best engineered cars of the early twenties or late teens even if I do like a Model T, The dodge is a better car in pretty much every way when we are talking stock to stock.
I also like Chevy truck from the mid '30s I think they got great looks but they are so loaded with wood and everyone I have ever came across that's reasonably priced is basically a pile of sheet metal so that keeps me away from them not because I can't put one together but you need patterns to make wood and that stuff is like non-existent.
Edit: when it comes to 1920s 1930s and 1940s and 1950s cars almost all of them are winners regardless of brand, they're all built well, they're all easy to work on and the styling is so good compared to modern cars that for the last 20 years now all look like mid-size SUVs.

 

To paraphrase Gary Muledeer... we can't all like the same things, or everyone would be after my wife!

.bjb

 

I buy what I like. I don’t care about brand.

 

I get the off-brands for the challenge...and yeah, they're usually a significant challenge....

 

I haven't seen any Studebaker fans here, I've only owned about 10 of them, but my real love is my '49 Caddy that I'm the second owner of, and Yup, it has gone through a bunch of Cad engines, and now getting a LS3...but the car I miss the most and am looking for is a '60 Stude Wagon...call me weird...but with the little Stude V8, twice pipes with Turbos, & three speed with OD, and disc brakes, it was a great driving car.

 

I worked at a gas station that was one of the major auto repair shops in our town, for 7 years between 1972 and 1980. We saw everything that was built during that time, but my boss didn't like the cars built outside of the USA because it took too long to get parts for them back then.

The deal with the Pontiac motors was when GM first started using the plastic timing chain cam gear that had the aluminum coated teeth in the late 60s, Pontiac was the test division. The aluminum didn't hold up well, then when the chain started running on the plastic gear, they self destructed in a very short time. The timing chains were only good for 60,000 to 90,000 miles, very few made it to 100,000 miles. Back then replacing a timing chain was a major job, and the Pontiac motors got the bad reputation. If the timing chains were replace with the old fashioned cast iron gears, or a double roller chain and gears, the motors were actually pretty tough. It was pretty hard to convince a guy that was still making payments on his 60K motor that spending money to replace the prematurely wore out timing chain would solve the issue and he would have a good motor.

The junk yards were not going to sell you a motor that probably was going to need a timing chain soon.

As a reference point, during the same time frame, most manufacturers were experimenting with different cam gears to reduce the noises from the motors. The mostly "accepted" miles for the timing chain to need to be replaced was near the 100K miles range, because most of the cars were usually pretty bad shape by then. Chrysler used a complete aluminum cam gear, those seemed to hold up better then most of the other brands, it was not unusual to see the Chrysler motors in the 125,000 mile range still running with the original timing chain and gears. Doesn't sound like many miles these days, but back then another 25K to 30K miles was huge.

 

By the early 80s, the timing chains weren't the issue....

we would run every engine, and check for smoke and knocks (and if it would start, some didn't). If it was in decent condition based on a test run, we'd warm it up, then do a compression test. So our criteria for being a "good" engine was that it run quietly, not smoke, and have decent compression (I think we looked for being within 20 psi on all holes).

Running engines on dollies in the back of the shop was a fun part of the job. Steam cleaning them, was not a fun part of the job.

 

I was big time into Fords for a while. Especially FE engine powered ones. I branched out into Fairlanes and Cougars (the type with wheels... ). I had a fast '68 Mustang.

Then I started to realize that Chevy stuff was easier to swap parts around.. like SBC to BBC bring a breeze.

I had brief ventures into Oldsmobiles and Cadillacs.

So brands don't hold me back. Right now I have 3 Chevys and 2 Fords.

 

Over the 50 years of street driven or racing Fords I’ve accumulated a lot of spare parts. Plus you know generally what works and fits and what won’t. Also if you don’t have that part you need, one of your Ford buddies may be able to help you out. I’m talking engine, driveline and so on. At 67 years old I’m not going to switching anytime soon.