Les Jones

Tech > Paul Boutin's "I Hate My Classic Car"

Wired's Paul Boutin runs down the disadvantages of classic cars and why "they don't make 'em like that no more." It struck a chord with me.

A couple of cars ago I had a bright idea. Instead of buying a modern car that would depreciate I'd buy a classic car that would hold it's value or even appreciate! What a genius I wuz.

I started looking at classic '60s Ford Mustangs. A funny thing happened when I started driving them. I noticed that I had to stand on the (non-power) brakes to get the car to come to a stop in a hurry, and even then the stopping distances were long. There was no AC, unless you lucked into one, and then that one feature added a couple thousand dollars to the price tag. Naturally, you could forget about airbags, and some Mustang models needed a modification to prevent the gas tank from coming out of the trunk and landing in the cabin during a rear-end collision.

Lots of the Mustangs for sale around town were "project cars," meaning they needed lots of TLC and do-re-mi. When one used car salesman said his offering would be a good project car I told him "Right now I've got a fixer-upper house and a fixer-upper girlfriend. I need a car I can count on." (I hasten to add that that girlfriend was one before Melissa.) I gave up on the classic Mustang and bought a Toyota Camry. It turned out to be the world's worst Toyota Camry, but that's another story.

My first car in 1985 was a 1976 MG Midget. Neat car, but the carburetor vapor-locked in the summer up in the mountains, the rubber hoses were rotten, the radio clicked when the blinkers were on, the PVC valve went out, the clutch hose went out, and my brother and I came out of the movie theater one day to find a big puddle of gasoline under the car when the fuel hose sprang a leak.

I wouldn't mind having one as a third car if my mom would still pay for the parts and my brother would still install them like back in high school, but those days are long gone.