Mechanic's Special

[Bicycle Bill]

-"BB"-

[eddieq]

"Don't lowball me. I know what I've got"

[Big RR]

[ex-khobar Andy]

Just please don't kick the tires (or tyres if you prefer).

[Bicycle Bill]

-"BB"-

[Big RR]

When I first got married I had a 66 Chevy Caprice that looked a lot like that car (even the same color); it had three on the tree and a big eight which never provided full power. Thanks for the photo, I hadn't thought about it for a long time.

[MGMcAnick]

My Aunt Mable was a "car guy". She taught 1st grade, and spent summers working alongside her husband in a full service gas station. (Remember those?) After he died, she moved to Arizona. Her last car was a pale yellow 1969 Chevy Impala. She was 60 that year, and died when the car was 13. Yup, it had a BIG BLOCK engine, a 427 cubic inch 425 HP monster. I never got to drive it, but my youngest sister did. She and Aunt Mable and another aunt, Mary, took it to California to visit yet another aunt the summer my sister was 16. My sister did most of the driving, especially on the LA freeways.

[Jarlaxle]

My grandmother had a big Chrysler Town & Country station wagon. It was about 5,000lbs, powered by a 365hp 440 TNT big-block. (Basically: the Charger or Road Runner's 375hp engine, with quiet exhaust.) That car would MOVE.

[Burning Petard]

Move yes, but it changed direction like a modern oil tanker.

snailgate

[Jarlaxle]

Not really...it had the HD suspension and tow package (indeed, it was probably bought new for towing), which gave the exact same underpinnings (minus the Blue Streak tires) used by the CHP on their 140mph pursuit Furys. It even had actual sintered metallic brakes, just like NASCAR ran. The biggest hindrance was simply that it was a very heavy car on relatively small tires. (235/70R15, I recall.)

[Econoline]

Wow...I remember when 15-inch tires/wheels were the largest that you could get on a passenger car...(IIRC, even half-ton pickups once came with 15-inch wheels as standard.)

[Econoline]

[BoSoxGal]

One of these passed in front of me at the intersection today - fine spring day in Massachusetts.

I love that there are people who restore and keep and care for old cars. I suppose they’ll all have to be mothballed when carbon fuels are outlawed.

[Burning Petard]

Nah! by then there will be conversion kits to pull the engine, tranny and fuel tank, and with replace it with an electric motor that has more torque and less weight. And the battery may even give 300 miles on one charge. That Edsel was made for a time when a gallon of gas cost less than a loaf of bread And the engine was very thirsty. There are very few that want to drive that old Edsel on the weekend and need to change the oil and clean the spark plugs every thousand miles. Modern conveniences are preferred for old cars just like old houses.

snailgate

[Bicycle Bill]

Nah! by then there will be conversion kits to pull the engine, tranny and fuel tank, and with replace it with an electric motor that has more torque and less weight. And the battery may even give 300 miles on one charge. That Edsel was made for a time when a gallon of gas cost less than a loaf of bread And the engine was very thirsty. There are very few that want to drive that old Edsel on the weekend and need to change the oil and clean the spark plugs every thousand miles. Modern conveniences are preferred for old cars just like old houses.

snailgate

But at that point, will it still be an Edsel?

It's the "Ship of Theseus" quandary.   How much of something must remain original — what parts can be repaired, replaced, or improved? — before it is no longer original?

-"BB"-

[datsunaholic]

But at that point, will it still be an Edsel?

It's the "Ship of Theseus" quandary.   How much of something must remain original — what parts can be repaired, replaced, or improved? — before it is no longer original?

Well, in the car restoration world it's not considered "original" if anything has been modified outside of normal wear/maintenance items. A "restored" car can have pretty much anything replaced as long as something original remains... as long as it's with "as original" type parts. It's a "modified" car (rather than a full restoration) if something like a different engine is used.

Cars live and die by the VIN (or serial number, before 1980). For instance I have the title for a 1976 Datsun. I also have the frame. So technically I own said 1976 Datsun, even though the paper title and the frame are pretty much ALL that's left (I acquired it for the cab, which I used on my '79 which had a wrecked and rusted out cab). A buddy of mine has a 1990 Nissan Pathfinder that for all the world looks like a 1940 Packard. Well, it's a Pathfinder frame and drivetrain under a 1940 Packard body.

Personally I'm hoping for some sort of affordable retrofit kit or such that I could use to turn some of my old Datsuns electric- replacing the ICE with a motor but retain use of the existing drive axle, and a light enough battery pack but still a usable range (200 miles would be OK) AND the ability to use commercially-available charging stations. Right now, the only refits of older cars seem to still use forklift motors and big, thousand-pound banks of lead-acid batteries that take hours to charge for maybe a 30 mile range.

[ex-khobar Andy]

It's the "Ship of Theseus" quandary.   How much of something must remain original — what parts can be repaired, replaced, or improved? — before it is no longer original?

-"BB"-

AKA Trigger's broom.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56yN2zHtofM

[BoSoxGal]

It's the "Ship of Theseus" quandary.   How much of something must remain original — what parts can be repaired, replaced, or improved? — before it is no longer original?

-"BB"-

AKA Trigger's broom.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56yN2zHtofM

[MGMcAnick]

I'm that old.
I remember going to the Edsel dealer to see the wonderful new Edsel when they first came out. I got a model of one in solid turquoise plastic. It had an inertial motor that made it glide across the floor after I pushed it a foot or so to rev it up. I played it to death.

[Big RR]

I don't recall alll the models, but one guy in our neighborhood had an Edsel and I recall hating the look of a toilet on the front (I later found out it was referred to as the toilet seat). The only other thing I recall is a push button transmission in the middle of the steering wheel, which I thought was cool (since almost everyone I knew had three on the tree manual transmissions).

I saw one fro sale at a gas station once and nostalgia tempted me to get it, but I'm still waiting for the right GTO to come up for sale. that was the car I wanted most in high school.