Hey I'm not trying to be a jerk at all just prescribing the Red Pill on Old Cars, but just exactly who are we preserving these cars for??? Anybody who wants to preserve them is a senior citizen or fast becoming one and even my own offspring couldn't care less about my old beast. The time has come and gone on old cars, I say make 'em the way you want driving the heck out of them now while we still can see and walk because they are going to be legislated out of existence in the name of climate change within the next decade.
LOL... you hot rod guys need to check out the "Save this Canadian Pontiac" thread and find your hot rod projects there... there are plenty of neglected cars just waiting for big blocks and 4-speeds!
Hey I'm not trying to be a jerk at all just prescribing the Red Pill on Old Cars, but just exactly who are we preserving these cars for? Anybody who wants to preserve them is a senior citizen or fast becoming one and even my own offspring couldn't care less about my old beast. The time has come and gone on old cars, I say make 'em the way you want driving the heck out of them now while we still can see and walk because they are going to be legislated out of existence in the name of climate change within the next decade.
You make a good point in that the younger generation typically doesn't care all that much about cars. However I don't see that entering much into the debate as it's a personal preference among people who are now in the hobby. If you have a survivor and want to keep it original, then keep it how you like it. If you want a hot rod, then go to it, fill your boots.
My comments are just reflecting my preferences - I like nice original cars and hate to see one messed up when they probably only constitute less than 1% of the cars out there. The vast majority of old cars out there have been used, abused, modified, rebuilt, etc. already, so I don't see a problem if somebody wants to build their car anyway they want to. However, and this is just my preference, when I see a low-mileage original car that looks just the way it did 50 years ago when it was new, I like to see it continuing to look that way, and work the way General Motors intended it to work.
However, what I think isn't important because the owner can do whatever they want with it. They can send it to the crusher if they want (though I don't know why they would), and none of us can do anything about it.
Just a discussion for a car enthusiast board, nothing more, but I say we should enjoy the cars for what they are while we can, and let the next generation decide what they want to spend their time and money on. If they want to play with cars, then that's fine. If they want to send them all to the crusher, then I'll be dead by that time so it won't matter to me.
Legislatively, I can't say what will happen with our cars in the future - maybe at some point non-autonomous vehicles will be illegal - but that's many years off IMHO. I think in some way, at least the better-preserved examples will be saved as historical artifacts of our time, though, which could be conceived as yet another reason to preserve survivor examples...
