They sure don’t make them like they used to
My son’s engine in his 1996 Toyota Camry recently blew with 246,000 miles on it.
Give me a break! Is that all you got Toyota? 246K?
I don’t want to hear about how much the quality of automobiles has improved over the decades.
I think of my first car — a 1972 Ford Pinto. Now THAT was a car! A engineering marvel and the epitome of luxury on four wheels.
Yeah, I know the Pinto got a bad rap for some small problems it had … like blowing up when rear-ended. But hey, what car won’t catch fire under the right circumstances, right?
You know I’m right.
Plus my Pinto had ALL the options. Like roll up windows and a lighter thing that you pushed in and it would pop out automatically. Wow, right?
And I know most folks don’t think of performance when they think of the Pinto. But you see, that was one of the best kept secrets about the model.
Why, I remember the time I took the old girl out on a back road. Now keep in mind that she was already six or seven years old by then.
Anyway, I thought I would see what it could do and so I kicked the accelerator and it went to 60, 70, 80… 90…
Man, I wanted to get it to 100. As the speedometer read 96 or so, and the entire car was shaking like it was making re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere, I pressed even harder on the pedal.
She groaned a bit, but kicked in a little more … 100!! Let’s see the cars of today do that, right?
You know I’m right.
But that Pinto was a champ. It survived all my teenage driving habits — including the time I drove over one of those big stones at the entrance of a drive way. If it was ever going to catch fire, that would have been the time. I was hung up on that rock like the S.S. Minnow. But once me and my friends lifted it off, it drove away like nothing happened.
So what if it forever more had a big hump in the floor board. It just added to its charm.
Nowadays, young folks are driving around in cars that are full of amenities that we had never heard of — power steering, FM radio, and something called ‘Air Conditioning.’
I think it should be a law that youngsters have to spend a few months driving an AMC Gremlin or Pacer, a Chevrolet Vega or a Chrysler K-car. Then they would know what a REAL car was like.
Right?
You know I’m right.