Things are subject to change

Yep whether they are good or bad times, they are subject to change. I talk about cars a lot, I love the old cars. I know it is nostalgia, in all fairness those cars seemed to be tougher, but they did not last as  long.

 

(Dad squeezed 120,00 miles out of his 1951 Buick very unusual, Shirl nearly wrecked this one)

My dad loved his cars. He would have the oil changed and actually sit down in the drivers seat and say to his car, “now don’t you feel much better?”  How many miles do you have on your car? 80K or 180K miles? Well for many years the best the average Joe could get out of an engine was 60,000 to 80,000 then it was using a lot of oil and needed an over haul.

(The 2011 Buick Regal quiet a change in 60 years, huh?)

Now it is not unusual for a car to go 200,000 miles and never be in the shop. I had a friend who bought a new Cadillac. He drove it 175,000 miles and never even changed the spark plugs. In reality, the new technology, and oils allow better performance. However, there is not that ‘romance’ with the newer cars, they appear to be sort of ‘cookie cutter’ design, at least for me.

When we buy a car now it usually has near a 100,000 miles on it, and it doesn’t bother us.

 

It is the design and memories of the old cars that I love. The excitement of the new models coming into town covered with tarps, no one could see them until the day they were to be shown all over the USA.

It was a festive occasion, we could NEVER afford them, but we went to see them. many dealerships gave out hot dogs and sodas, it was a free lunch or supper, who could pass that up?

Remember the old rust buckets? You seldom see these newer cars ‘rusted out’. But there is a boy’s love still in me. I loved being able to pull the spark plugs and clean them, whether they needed it or not. I learned to set the points, even more technical, wow.  Then getting a timing light and ‘setting the timing’, now that was really a bragging point.

Then someone taught me the ultimate, cleaning your valves without taking the engine apart. (haha). Fill a coke bottle with water, hold the carb at a fast idle and pour the water in the engine. Too much and you kill the engine, but when you got it right you could fog the area with steam coming from the tail pipe. Impressive, I don’t think it done anything, but it was fun and really showy.LOL

Thanks for coming by the log.

Nite Shipslog

PS: Medical terms from down here:

Colic............................... A sheep dog
Coma.............................. A punctuation mark
Dilate.............................. To live long
Enema............................ Not a friend
Fester............................. Quicker than someone else
Fibula............................. A small lie

Todays car:

Our present Van, 2004 Honda Odyssey, I believe it had 80,000 on it when we bought it last year.