Better Beaters - Building Cars and Daily Drivers

 I didn't get  my first car until after high school.

Yes, you have seen this image before.

It was a '66 Mustang with a V8 and a four speed. My Dad advised me that I should buy an appropriate young person's car. I had other ideas but I took his advice, it was the last time! 

The Mustang wasn't what I wanted at the time, I wanted a Cadillac. It would have to be over ten years old, but that wasn't going to be a problem, I liked fins. What I didn't like too much was that Mustang, so I sold it quickly enough. 

My second car would be what I had really wanted. I found a '64 Cadillac convertible on a used car lot. It ran well, was straight and fairly clean. I spent a lot of time rubbing out and waxing the paint, cleaning and repairing the interior, and replacing the oxidized rear plastic window. It only took a bit of mechanical repair during the time I owned it. It was reliable enough to drive all around the Bay Area.  All the bright work shined up well and the car looked really good. This set my direction with used cars; maintain, preserve, and improve where you can. 

I made the mistake of selling it when some guy on the street offered me twice what I paid for it. I figured I'd do the same thing again, find a decent car and fix it up with the money I'd made. 

The Cad was replaced with a more troubled '66 Lincoln sedan. 

After I sold that Lincoln it was awhile before I replaced it with a '70 Coupe de Ville. 

This was a pretty good car. It was what I expected from a Cadillac big, sleek, and fast. I later read a contemporary road test of the '64 Cadillac that stated "If there is anything this big, that goes this fast, we haven't tested it yet." The '70 was even more impressive.

Say what you will about these old Cads and Lincolns, but they were road burners. There wasn't any need to improve the performance, they were already faster than your average Chevy, Ford or Dodge. They were at least a match for a new Buick or Chrysler. 

It is pretty apparent that I have never had to suffer with under powered cars. I only drove slow motorcycles for a couple of years in the beginning. After the Honda 305, every bike was genuinely fast. 

My Dad preferred his cars with a V8 engine and an automatic. He had a fling with a Corvair van but he found that unsuitable. He couldn't stand that his brother drove six cylinder cars just to save gas. Later he bought an old '60 Dodge with a slant six and three speed. I drove it quite a bit, but thought that it was too slow. Later he bought a really nice '55 Chevy Bel Air sedan with a six and Powerglide, he did not like it. Neither did I. 

Even my Dad liked his cars to have a little pizazz!

It's not that my Dad was some kind of hot rodder, his cars were usually equipped with the standard base V8 paired with an automatic transmission. He never liked manual transmissions, "standards" he called them because that was what they were. I guess he figured that the base V8 set up was good enough. This was the Pony car and muscle car era. He always thought of these as just fancier versions of the base models. Once you had a V8 under the hood, what else did you need? 

My Dad gave me some very practical advice when he told me, "If you want a faster car, just buy a faster car." Which has become my view also. 

If anything this viewpoint has become even more solidified as of late. It's pretty hard for me to justify that an older muscle car is really worth all the money that they are asking. If I was to buy a '70's Mustang would I try to make it perform like a new one? Probably not. Would it be worthwhile to improve it's abilities? Within reason.

At one time you could buy this '70 Mustang for a small fraction of a new cars price. The clever hot rodder could make some real improvements and end up with a car that closely matched or in many cases exceeded the new vehicles performance. But those days are long passed. It's not that the older car can't be improved, it's that the "value for the dollar" equation is so out of wack.

For example, my favorite Mustang, a '70 Mach One, can be purchased for around 35 -50 k. A very nice late model 15-20 Mustang can be bought for that, or quite a bit less. 

Why am I writing about all this? Because I've been examining my attitudes about the old car hobby. Especially as the price of entry has risen so much. It used to be that old cars were for the everyday enthusiast, now they are for the wealthy enthusiast. So many categories of cars are no longer of interest to me, because they are not accessible to me.

Of course it all comes down to supply and demand. The availability of certain vintage cars remains fixed as the demand for certain vintage cars continues to increase. For a time it was '50's cruisers, and classic muscle cars have enjoyed a high level of popularity for quite a few years. 

For me, it's kind of "where do I go from here" moment. 

I've already had quite a few 50's 60's and 70's cars that were older when I acquired them. I had a '70's car that was only a few years old at the time. Lately I've mixed vintage with current models. I don't know that I'll ever want another 50's car, there are only a few 60's and 70's cars I'd seriously consider. 

Right now I'm in the middle of quite a few car problems. I missed a post deadline, so I decided to run these two autobiographical pieces. There is a lot of car activity, enjoyable or not (!) happening around my garage. Events are making me question my established car guy philosophy.