Now that you're 44, would you boink an 84 year old?

And back then you could work on cars with basic hand tools instead of a laptop!

Remember when you wanted to add horsepower, you would install a pair of headers...not a computer chip!

How much money are we talking of again? :D Probably not. 60 would be my current limit still

I like the way the new benzes (most of them) look but am put off by the lack of servicability of them. I like the 123s best because I can work on them. It is getting harder now though to find good ones.

The US cars of the fifties are what I grew up with and can name year and model of most of them....sixties too but in the seventies I start losing out. I can come pretty close on the year and make of a lot of the cars of thirties and forties too if they are fords or chevys, but the minor makes I can only come close.

I like em all pretty much.

If I buy a new car though I want the warrenty.

I do think it is a function of age but not necessarily in the way you mean. I think it is the age of the design - some of them stand the test of time and just look good / better as they age. The Ford Mondeo is a good example (in my opinion) - I thought it looked really really crap when it was launched but now it seems to have a bit more character about it.

Army,

I doubt that there are very many people here who know what a Mondeo looks like. It is not sold in the US.

In the Summer of 2000 I was late for a flight late in the day from Eindhoven to Hamburg. I got in touch with the off field rent car people asking if they had any cars that needed to go to Germany. I ended up with a Mondeo station wagon with a reasonable amount of power and a five speed manual.

I knew that I wasn't far from Germany and that I could turn it loose on the Autobahn. When the car they came up with was the Mondeo, I thought "oh no, this will be a long night." I was fooled. That was a GREAT Autobahn cruiser and if I remember correctly I made it to Hamburg in about five hours. I don't remember how far it was but it was certainly well over 400 miles. By the time I got to Hamburg I was a fan of that car.

Well I did a mapquest to try to find out how far from Eindhoven to Hamburg and I guess I must have been thinking 400 KM. I remember it was before dark when I left Eindhoven and before midnight when I got deep inside Hamburg.

Anyway, it was a great Autobahn cruiser.

Crap! Sorry folks - I thought the meaning of "mondeo" was an insinuation of "world car" and that it was a world wide sold Ford...

Here's a picture

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...0308_front.jpg

from Ford Mondeo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Perhaps they only used the floor pan in the US? (I'm not too bothered to read all about it in Wikipedia though even if I did post the link!)

Yes Larry they are pretty good at what they do - there's a chap in the UK called Honest John (Honest John) who says they are currently one of the best built cars on the market (well for that type of car)

Army, as memory serves me the basic car was sold at Lincoln/Mercury dealers under a different name.

Oh thanks - sorry I edited in between!!!

Ford Contour?

"........New safety features are standard equipment, among them the new GM developed energy absobing steering column" !:rolleyes::eek::D:D

Too funny!!!
First Chevy Camaro Commercial - YouTube

Yep, that steering column was cutting edge safety equipment at that time. Seatbelts had been mandated only one model year earlier.

No wonder they're worth so much money now-- they're forged by Hephaestus himself!

I'm not sure. I just don't follow front wheel drive cars at all.

I had a '63 Dodge Dart once that didn't have seatbelts.

I don't know if it's a function of age so much as a function of taste. I'm of the opinion that Detroit for the most part stopped building cars around 1972. European manufacturers were better at meeting new safety and emission standards without having to build a car that sucks. Still, there are very few new cars that interest me. Automotive styling today seems to be a contest to see who can build the ugliest vehicle and the technology in new cars (some market driven, some mandated by the .gov) is adding weight, cost, and complexity without improving the driving experience. I don't want or need SatNav, a twelve speaker stereo, ten airbags, TPMS, ESC, ABS, DSG, DPF, SLS, traction control, or any of the other silliness that has crept into cars over the years. I will admit to having a certain fondness for OBDII, EFI, and the general incorporation of overdrive to new vehicle designs.

I was born in 78 BTW.