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Ironic Questions
Maybe it's a sign of age, but I've got some questions I've been wondering about:
Have you noticed how cars used to be big, heavy, body-on-frame, V8 powered and rear wheel drive. Then American car makers built only small, uni-bodied, V6 powered cars with front wheel drive. And everyone started buying SUV's that were big, heavy, body-on-frame, V8 powered and rear wheel drive?
Why is the new Caprice (Chevy's biggest car) smaller than the Nova (Chevy's smallest car) of the sixties yet the weight of the 2004 Caprice is more than the sixties Caprice? Or another way to say it, half again as much as the Nova of the sixties. I know the structure is stronger because we now expect the doors to close with a "thunk" and not a rattle, and the crash worthiness has dramatically improved but new plastic weighs a lot less than old metal. Have we come to expect that much more gadgets and gee gaws?
Have you noticed that the new thing is a stiff "backbone" frame and the stressed-skin unibody is old school? Wasn't that what was on small cars of the thirty's? Was Detroit so enanmored of the Beetle that it made all their cars like it regardless of size? There's a reason why an ecto-skeleton insect can only get so big.
Yes, cars are magnitudes better now than they were. My first car was an "old, high mileage beater" that needed a complete rebuild of the drive train because it was 8 years old and had over 50,000 miles! Now, thanks to new EPA regulations, drive trains must last 100,000 miles and usually last twice that. And they have. at the same time, both fantastic proformance and unheard of gas milage. And the standard features would make a Caddy owner green. But, the price has sky rocketed when compared to percentage of adverage annual earnings.
But, I'm still dreaming about my new Solstice, my first new car in 10 years (she always got the new one)!
Just some spare time and idle ramblings. :cheers
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