I don’t know about anybody else but I miss the days when cars had style.
I also miss the sound of the exhaust on a finely tuned V8 engine.
When I was younger, I could tell the difference between a Ford, Dodge and Chevy V8 going by with my eyes closed.
Now everything is a hideous face on a rolling soap bubble and I can’t even hear the engines running, if they even have one. I have noticed that all of these electric and hybrid fuckers make a ringing sound when they back up.
That’s why I really appreciate one of these when I see them now.
You are so right
I miss the the old land yacht , duce and a quarter, some were some damn big I thought the needed running lights
Those were real cars guys could take apart screw up and spend time trying to put it back together
I completely agree.
Vehicles these days look like something a sick demon would 5hit out.
No more engine music either, only noise they make is when they plow into something while the operator gets lost in manipulating all the goodies and screen within.
Not worth having but gotta haves, God help us….
Miss those days, hang out with friends, no texting each other across the table instead of actually talking, sharing a cold beer down by the lake after doing burn outs in my old rusty 57 Chevy that would fill the car full of tire smoke from the wheel wells, yeah those days when a young man still had dreams and are now only left with what if’s.
Amen Phil
1975 Pontiac Grand Ville. 455 convertible. As a freshly licenced 16 year old, my father would have died if he knew what my little brother and I were doing.
The 610 loop in Houston was new. My little brother in the passenger seat with binoculars looking ahead at every overpass for cops, me behind the wheel.
Smooth flying we were.
I was in the area for Christmas that year, I wondered who that was that blew by us.
I would like to see some actual colors on cars again. I’m tired of gray, grey, white, black, and different shades of the above.
Remember the vivid red, blue, yellow, and green colors? The colors they now have are…. bleagh…
Back in early 70s my father talked me down from a Corvette to a Monte Carlo to a Chevelle Malibu 307 V8 two door, stock black interior but deep metal flake blue. Probably would have gotten killed in the faster cars, but drove that Malibu over 300K before having engine changed out to a 350V8…still a good car until the seats fell apart and my back went out…everyone has memories of your favorite rides – that is mine….redclay
My old balloon tire Schwinn looks better than a Tesla.
problem is:
used to have a high school shop class called “automotive” but today’s kids don’t know the difference between a stainless steel slotted round-head 1″ 8-32 machine screw and a brass Phillips flat-head 1″ wood screw; the only thing the schools think is important is teaching them which pronouns to use
Shop class teaches people to think. They don’t want you to think.
Auto design from the mid 50’s to the mid 70’s was hands down the absolute pinnacle .
I sure miss my ’57 Chebbie(s)- all three of ’em.
I even miss my dad’s 55 wagon. Went all over Europe in that puppy, ’59-’62. Widest car on the roads back then.
I understand you, here’s the list of what I had and miss;
1955 Chevrolet Belair 2door post 283 engine
1963 Impala SS with 409 engine
1969 Chevell SS 396, the fastest car I ever owned
1964 Impala SS with 350 engine( did a frame off restoation)
I would give almost anything to have the Chevell SS but woould settle for amy of the others.
they all look alike now, like soap bubbles. if you don’t look at the badges you can’t tell one from the other. i truly miss the smell of those old cars,
i don’t know if it was the smell of leaded fuel or the oil leaks, but it was a heavenly smell. when you got inside of one you knew that you were inside of a real machine.
A while back, I was walking back to my SUV from the grocery store. There was a guy, I think he in his early 80’s, wandering around the parking lot looking for his car. As I’m walking by him he says “all these cars look alike and I don’t have a clue where mine is”. He did find it after pressing the auto lock button a couple times.
I told him to park on the periphery of the lot near a tree he could recognize in the future. That’s what I do. Saves a lot of wandering around.
YUGOs look better than a Tesla.
Got a little misty as I followed a beautifully kept El Camino this morning. You could tell it was his pride and joy. Ours was powder blue.
My 1976 Cadillac Eldorado convertible was 21 feet long, 7 feet wide, and had a 500 cubic inch engine. So smooth-riding, it was like cruising on your living room couch. The car was 22 years old when I bought it, and had maybe 40,000 miles on it. Everything worked, even the air conditioning.
The horn was really something. There were maybe four horns wired together, to give a rich, full, “Move, you peasants !” sound.
Old men loved it, because they remembered when this was a new model. Little kids loved it, because they had never seen anything like it.
I was driving one day, when a little girl, maybe 10 years old, saw me.
She stared, and then yelled out “Rock Me Baybee !”
I almost wrecked, I was laughing so hard.
I loved that car, and the top and windows were always down, except when it was actively raining.
‘73 Olds Delta 88 Royale ragtop is drowsing away the rest of the winter in my barn. New top but the power lift is misbehaving. 455 is running well though- just converted it dual exhaust with W30 replica exhaust manifolds. Pretty much everything else runs except the A/C. Top is first on the list, A/C is second.
Oh, and the dashboard clock…
Agree wholeheartedly. All you hear today from the cars of youth is the farting sound from the fat exhausts on a 4 banger and they think that sounds cool.
I bought a ’65 Mustang coupe from a lady at work, it was her daughter’s and her BF lost interest in restoring it. Sight unseen I wrote a check for $100. I pulled the 2 into 1 exhaust off and put duals on it. Immediately sounded a thousand dollars better despite only being a 289. Icing on the cake was the receipt I found cleaning out the trunk for the installed rebuilt transmission.