I beg to differ. I had a 1982 Datsun 310GX that got about 40mpg, but it only weighed about 1500lbs. You needed a calendar to measure its 0-60 time and you couldn't put it in 5th gear unless you were doing at least 70 mph or you'd lug the motor. Today's equivalent subcompact weighs almost 1000 lbs more, gets less fuel economy, and is very zippy up to 60mph, and is much, much safer in a crash. Everything in life is a trade-off.
Boy, there is some bad information here... That's not how a catalytic converter works. In fact, too much fuel DESTROYS them.
Hey swifster please don't get me wrong, what I was saying is that your investment of $2125.60 is well protected, if for some reason you had to sell the Stude right now you would get every penny back + because you bought right and your choice of vehicles are popular I wasn't implying that your Stude was only worth $2125.60. Now the baby boomers that go down to the local auction house and buy a vehicle hoping to turn a profit in two or three years might loose their shorts if the car they purchased falls out of favor. If they were to resurrect (recycle) one like you did and were willing to put in a little sweat equity and build one from the ground up I think they would have a little better chance of recouping their investment as long as they bought right. Shoot off a pic of your Stude I would like to see it. Gene
Henry Ford had it right with the Rouge complex. Ship in bulk raw materials-Ship out completed vehicles. Todays plastic mobiles are certainly not going to entice the imaginations a generation or two down the road, everything is going to be broken on them. My work vans are plastic city inside, they crack panels in the cold, clips going into plastic slots just waiting to snap. Compared to a previous work van with stainless/aluminum trim, at least you only got a dent in it rather than a jagged plastic edge you can't repair unless you replace it for big bucks. Its all a conspiracy anyway... they figured out old tin is tooo good, so now they make it all that it won't last and in a few generations, all you will have is old tin that escaped the crusher, falling apart "modern" vehicles, and the latest new sheep-mobile that needs replacing long before it should be. Just try to buy a stripper model car today. You want cloth seats and electric locks? Sorry, electric locks only come in a package that has goof-ball entry lighting, and electric gadgets out the wazoo... Wadda ya mean you want hand cranked windows!? Sorry, we don't have this model with manual windows, you get electric windows! <steam> =-) Alex.
Hey porknbeaner I agree with you I grew up with one parent and when she needed to purchase a vehicle it was never newer than 3 to 5 years old and I know her decision was purely based on economics and since we lived in the burbs she needed a reliable car, but my brother and I thought we had a new car. Naturally when I grew up I gravitated toward the classics even though they weren't classics at the time, my first car was a 1956 Chevy 150 with a 235 six and a 3 speed, and then 5 '57's and 1 '55 and with the exception of 1 new 4X4 Chevy truck I have always liked older vehicles. I continue to drive old vehicles to this day for 1.) reason i'm trying to help our mother earth and 2.) I feel safer driving older vehicles and 3.) older vehicle are just so damn cool. I'm currently working on a '51 Chevy wagon (tin woody) it is in pretty rough shape but nothing that can't be fixed, I have no problem running out and buying a new vehicle now that i'm retired, but I choose not to for the three reasons I stated above. My '51 can be seen at my group's link shown below http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/group.php?groupid=515 Gene
Kris Elmer, I was given this information by Chrysler and GM engineers. The engines fuel strategy is to richen the fuel mixture every 40 to 50 milliseconds to keep the cats warm. If you run at a perfect 14.7 to 1 mixture which engine computers could do the cat wouldn't work. There would be no hydro-carbons in the exhaust and it couldn't clean the CO and NOX's from the exhaust.
Yeah, that's still bad info. Cats work on a carb'ed engine just the same and as well as on an electronic fuel injected one. I can see riching the fuel mixture 2 to 3% to keep the cats warm, but 20 to 30%? No way. Trust me, I've been working on new cars for 20+ years.
Hey dante81 98 Do you really believe that crash test is the only one they did, come on i'll bet their engineers did a stress test on the metal of the '59 and new exactly where the most damage would be sustained to kill the driver which would make their product look superior in the eyes of the government, insurance companies and the consumer. Plus the '59 had no airbags and most likely no seatbelts since the weren't required until 1966. But given the chance by equipping the '59 with seatbelts and a retro style air bag system and redoing the test there is no doubt in my mind that all parties would walk away from this accident. The only thing that I see is the test proved that apples and oranges are different.
Hey radioflyer Yeah and because you were forced to get the electric windows and your car goes into the drink after an accident you won't be able to open your windows to escape because the electric windows don't work. What do you think the manufacturer might say for this senario "maybe the consumer should have purchased the little hammer that cuts the seatbelt and breaks the window".
I like HOT RODS. I don't know what the fuck you guys are talking about, but I like to be a part of things around here.
Hey ratfink49 Were basically talking about the efficiency of recycling. Get on board this has been the best blog I have ever started. Thanks for all your comments, now i'm not saying there good or bad but it starts people talking and this is the first step in how we make changes.
Haha, yes! I recently worked at a Honda dealer, and about once a month they were on my case about my late 80s daily driver pick up, about gas mileage and the harm on the earth cause of it's exhaust. My whole time there I made it well known that I'd never own a FWD import pos, and they all thought it was funny and told me to get with the times. I quit.
Wow, it is worth subscribing to this thread to hear more about this conspiracy theory you have figured out. Do you have seatbelts and retro style air bag systems in your car? How many old cars on the road today do you think have been retrofitted with seatbelts and air bags. I bet there aren't many. I can't say that I even know what a retro air bag system looks like, how it works or where to get one. Do they even exist?
But being able to recognize the make and model of a vehicle after an accident isn't really an indication of crash survivability. If the front sheetmetal absorbs energy by crumpling and all that's left is an intact passenger compartment, then the safety features of the modern car have performed as intended. Besides, new cars have become heavier as a result of added safety and convenience features (the modern car in the crash test video actually has a slightly higher curb weight than the Bel Air). Hot rods are dangerous in comparison. For some it's part of the appeal.
Hey dante81 98 I'm not saying there is a retro system out there and I don't expect any old vehicles have them but I do know that a few have switched over to newer steering columns and have retained the airbag systems so it is possible to do it. But if the government made them mandatory like the seatbelts you can bet companies would make some sort of retro kit. All i'm saying if your going to be fair in regards to this test you should be comparing apples to apples not apples to oranges. Also once the government made seatbelts mandatory in the 1966 year model cars the testing showed a survival rate of the driver increased by 42% percent, so if the driver had been wearing a seat belt he most likely would have walked away or maybe limped away. What do you think of my theory? do you think it's possible for the engineers to run stress tests on the strength of the metal prior to the test. When a company spends $250,000 to a million dollars per crash you better believe they do all the preliminary testing they can prior to a crash test. These test are done by the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety. The statisics they had before the test crash on September 9, 2009 between the 1959 four door Chevrolet Impala and the 2009 Chevrolet Malibu were as follows Highway Safety Then & Now: 1959 2008 Registered Vehicles: 71.5 Million 255 Million Miles Driven: 700 Billion 2.9 Trillion Fatalities: 37,910 37,261 Fataities Per 100 Million Miles Driven: 5.41 1.27 So you can see the fatalities are almost identical. But if you divide the fatalities into the miles driven there seems to be a higher rate but why do you suppose there are so many fatalities in 2008 if they were all wearing seatbelts and had air bags? and in 1959 they had neither.
Older cars aren't safer, truth be told, they're deathtraps compared to modern cars. Back in '59 the idea of crumple zones and energy absorbing body structures was swahili to most automakers. Look at the videos on YouTube related to that one with the Bel Air, one shows two 1960 Plymouths smashing into each other, you see seats ripping loose, doors flying open, it's a joke compared to a modern car. When my mother was 17 she was rear-ended by a Corvair doing about 30mph while she was parked in a 63 Cadillac. She was very seriously injured and the girl that hit her needed reconstructive facial surgery and was in the hospital for a month. Meanwhile I was in a similar accident a few years back in a modern car, I had a sore neck for a day or two and the guy that hit me was fine.
I personally think your theory is very flawed, but that is my opinion. Do I think they can do those pre tests, sure. Do I think they did the tests, yes. Do I think they did them in order to conspire to make things look better than they are, not a chance. You say I am not comparing apples to apples. I say that I am not trying to compare apples to apples. I am not trying to compare two cars that are the same. If that was the case I would have posted a video of two late model cars crashing. You are saying that people should save old cars and drive them daily and I posted a video showing what can happen if you drive that old car and get hit by a new car. I wasn't trying to compare apples to apples. I was trying to compare apples to oranges, which is the scenario you are advocating. Now lets take a look at your numbers. You ask why the fatalities are the same in the different years. The answer is that they are not. You actually give all the information to prove that they are not by giving the fatalities per 100 million miles driven in your post. You yourself are comparing apples to oranges when you only look at the number of fatalities without consideration to the other variables. So lets do a little word problem. Lets find out how many of those 2008 fatalities there would be if they only drove as many miles as they did back in 1959. This is an easy one since you already gave us the rate in a common denominator of Fatalities/Per 100 million miles driven. Here is how it will break down: (2008 Fatality Rate) x (# of 100 million miles driven) = (Relative # of fatalities of 2008 model cars in 1959) (2008 Fatality Rate) x (Miles driven in 1959/100 Million) = ?? 1.27 x (700 billion/100 million) = ? 1.27 x 7,000 = 8890 Just to be thorough lets look at the exact opposite. How many fatalities would have occurred if the 1959 model cars drove as many miles as they did in 2008. (1959 Fatality Rate) x (# of 100 million miles driven) = (Relative # of fatalities of 1959 model cars in 2008) (1959 Fatality Rate) x (Miles driven in 2008/100 million) = ?? 5.41 x (2.9 trillion/100 million) = ? 5.41 x 29000 = 156,890 So by using your own rates that you gave, I just proved that driving the 1959 car as many miles as the cars did in 2008 there would have been approximately 120,000 more fatalities. ***DISCLAIMER*** I know that these calculations make a lot of assumptions, including that only that year model of car was driven in that year. It is not my intent to give 100% accurate information as to the number of fatalities there may or may not have been. I am simply trying to use the numbers given to show that the previous comment about the number of fatalities being the same is incorrect when compared to the number of miles driven.
gemnewt, the numbers you've quoted actually show a marked decrease in the fatality rate. They show a slight decrease in overall fatalities while the number of registered vehicles has increased by over 3.5 times, and the miles driven has increased over 4 times. So I'm not sure where you're going with your comment about the number of fatalities. As for the crash test, I'm sure the results would be slightly different if they'd chosen a 1959 with a ladder frame as opposed to the x-framed Bel Air, but the testing methodology is pretty standard (i.e. offset frontal impact). I think it does clearly show a significant increase in the rigidity of the cabin in modern cars. Seat belts won't necessarily prevent a fatality if the a-pillar, dash, and floor pan buckle like that...
Or if maybe IF the unbiased testing agency they left the motor, transmission and crossmembers in the 59, INSTEAD of removing them the test outcome may have looked different. While I believe that modern cars are safer (in general), I think that test was complete bullshit. It has been discussed here at length.
Getting back on subject,there is plenty of recycling going on in my garage right now as I just unloaded a trans and front suspension parts for my O/T full size bronco 2wd daily driver project that I got from the junkyard and somepone parting a truck on craigslist. The only new parts I use are the maintenance parts (brake parts,tune up etc) and the rest are sourced from the local yards and motor heads trying to finance their projects and sometimes the internet.
I do remember reading about it here several times, and I agree that it's far from a conclusive test and that the results can't and shouldn't be applied to all older cars. As I recall a lot of the threads on the topic went nowhere and got closed so I won't comment further, since it isn't really the focus of the topic at hand, and will probably only serve to derail the discussion.
dante81 98 A person can project figures into infinity but that wasn't done, I think the point is that almost the same amount of people were killed. We don't actually know how many may or may not have been killed we only know the actual amount and I would like to see a study from 1966 after the introduction of the seatbelt, and i'm sure those statistics would be greatly improved. My big question is why did they pick a 1959 Chevrolet 4 door Belair sedan to test? And why was the 2008 Chevrolet 4 door Malibu chosen for the test?, when they know perfectly well that the 2008 Chevy has front wheel drive meaning engine and transmission is located in the front thus having more mass located up front giving the driver a better chance due to the amount of energy it could absorb vs. the 1959 Chevy that has it's transmission located in the middle of the car and due to the very large engine compartment that will surely buckle from the more compressed mass of the 2008 Chevy. And by the way those statisics were not mine I have better things to do with my time then to monitor traffic patterns and fatality rates, I believe the study was done by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety the same people who administer the crash testing. As much as I have injoyed all the posts from you and everyone else I think we have veered off course from the primary objective and that was recycling. I don't have the answers what do I know i'm just an old retired truck driver and i'm not sure who the winner is in all of this I would like to think it's all of us and that all these test are for our benifit and if we are involved in an accident I hope we can all walk away. My Regards Gene
If it were possible, I'd like to go back to live in the 1950s and 1960s and drive the cars of the time. I'd probably look pretty silly wearing the three point belts that I'd install, though. It'd be comforting to know that my fellow motorists wouldn't be on their cellphones, yapping or texting away, and they would potentially be watching the road and traffic. I guess I'd take my chances back then rather than now, with low technology cars driven by people who are at least marginally attentive.
I am not saying that you made up those numbers at all. I am just saying that those numbers do not support your theory in any way shape or form. Regardless of the crash test video, those numbers that you posted from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety do nothing to prove your point.
On a related subject-support and promote materials recycling (especially metals) to drive down the cost of raw materials. If there is an abundance of scrap metal fewer "junkers" will get crushed. It does make a difference. For awhile our local recyclers would not take paper because there was a glut. Let's try to make that happen with metal!
Hey dante81 98 I'm not sure if I even had a point to be honest. I added those figures not to better any theory but to provide fodder for the fire for the members to see if someone could come up with a logical explanation to all the controversy regarding the crash test, or old car versus new car. I know most people will drive older vehicles strictly due to economics and for those that have the higher salaries will most likely drive the newer ones. But for people like me that love the old cars and trucks it will be hard to convince them otherwise. I can't remember when the last time I saw an old car in an accident with a new one, most likely because the majority of the old vehicles have already been taken off the road and based on the laws I don't think the manufaturers have any worries with a boom in old vehicles hitting the road anytime soon. This is my last post to this subject. Gene
Hey zerk You have a good point I believe the majority of our last generation was more respectful of others and they didn't have the technologies that we have today to distract us. When people or families went out driving they just cruised, they weren't in any big hurry like the people are today. If I had my choice I would love to go back and live in the 50's providing I could take my money with me to stash some Tri-5's away.
The Jalopy Journal
