Old Cars vs. New Cars

As long-time readers of Militant Ginger might have realized, I have an allergy to modern automobiles (with some notable exceptions.)

While the style and character of older cars is inarguable, the practicalities of driving vintage (and in my case, not-so-vintage) vehicles is debatable. They're not as reliable, they often cost more to run and definitely cost more to maintain. But how much more?

I'd always lived by the assumption that my classic car saved me money. Running a clunker meant no monthly payments to make, cheaper insurance and no big outlay when you bought the thing. But how does that pan out in reality?

Well, for the first time ever I challenged my assumption and ran a comparison between my wife's fairly new Toyota Rav4 and 'The Locomotive' - my '89 Town Car.

You won't be surprised to learn that I was right - I do save money driving a 'clunker' - but not nearly as much as you might imagine. In fact, over five years, the cost of driving my classic is only a couple of thousand dollars short of what my wife pays.

It makes for astonishing maths. I've broken it down here - obviously, rounding up some of the figures and balancing others out (the Rav4 doesn't do the mileage The Locomotive does, for instance, so I did a miles-per-gallon comparison based on my commute.)

The assumption is that the sticker price on a 'new' car is ten times higher than that of a classic - meaning you're out of pocket from the very beginning. In fact, it doesn't mean that you lose out - especially since a newer car runs leaner, cleaner and more reliably than a clunker.


I'll clarify a few things from my chart. 'Monthly costs' includes maintenance bills spread out over the year, along with any car payments - for example, The Locomotive's two visits to the shop totaled $1,950 - a monthly cost of $163 - while the combined maintenance costs of the Rav4, plus the monthly hire-purchase payments, came to $250.

At the end of the day, I do come away almost $500 richer a year thanks to driving my Lincoln instead of the Rav4 - even taking into consideration the fact that it's thirstier and less reliable. And while I'm very happy with a 'monkey' in my pocket each year - that's still not nearly what I expected to be saving - especially given the fact that my car's paid for outright.

In fact, if we'd walked into the Toyota dealership and bought that car outright, instead of on hire-purchase, it would have ended up costing us less money than my Lincoln after five years. We'd have been saving $165 a year.

Mind you, when I'm in the financial situation to walk into a dealership and buy a nearly-new car in cash, perhaps I won't feel the need to quibble over a few hundred dollars - in which case, I'd still pick classic style over Japanese reliability any day of the week.

Can a reproduction ever come close to a classic?

Bond - a man who knew his motors...

Readers of Militant Ginger will know my feelings on modern cars: They bore the pants off me. Especially modern American ones. To me, they embody everything James Bond sneered about American motoring back in 1954's Live and Let Die.

Most American cars bored him. They lacked personality and the patina of individual craftsmanship that European cars have.

They were just ‘vehicles’, similar in shape and in colour, and even in the tone of their horns. Designed to serve for a year and then be turned in in part exchange for next year’s model.

All the fun of driving had been taken out of them with the abolition of a gear-change, with hydraulic-assisted steering and spongy suspension. All effort had been smoothed away and all of that close contact with the machine and the road that extracts skill and nerve from the European driver.

To Bond, American cars were just beetle-shaped Dodgems in which you motored along with one hand on the wheel, the radio full on, and the power-operated windows closed to keep out the draughts.

Back in the 'old days', I'd have disagreed with Mr Bond - there were certainly some loin-girding muscle cars being produced in the sixties and seventies. But modern American cars? Show me a lincoln mks and I'll show you an armchair on wheels - a modern vehicle that packs so many luxuries, its headunit even plays DVDs.

Even foreign cars are falling foul of the corpulent cushiness of American motoring. Take the lexus rx for example. It comes with everything - built-in Bluetooth, hand-free satellite navigation and even keyless entry. The only thing they haven't perfected is how to make the damn thing drive itself.

That's why I crave classic American cars - the old Detroit steel that made this country great. That old cliche, 'they don't build 'em like that any more' has come true. Hell, you can't imagine Bruce Springsteen wailing 'Oh, Sweet Lexus!' with the same enthusiasm he garnered for that old rock 'n roll classic 'Mustang Sally.'

But there is a car on the market at the moment which is at least attempting to recapture the testicular fortitude of its American muscle-car lineage - the chevy camaro. The 2010 Chevrolet Camaro definitely looks the business - with styling cues clearly taken from the 1967 original. But can it possibly live up to the classic that made the 'Camaro' name so evocative? Look at these car pictures.

The wicked looking muzzle of the 2010 Camaro

The original Chevy Camaro was introduced after a secretive development - specifically to nail the 'pony car' market that Ford had created with their highly popular Ford Mustang. When the Camaro was unveiled to the public, people often asked: "What does Camaro mean?" To which the marketing bods at Chevrolet responded: "A small, vicious animal that eats Mustangs."

Camaro combined the stability of a front-engined, rear-wheel drive coupe with the flexibility of accepting pretty much any of Chevrolet's current lineup of engines - from the inline straight-6 to their monstrous 396 cubic inch V8 (displacing six and a half liters.)

That, combined with the car's light curb weight, made for one hell of a performer.

The original - and still the best?

So forty years - and five incarnations - later, the modern Chevy Camaro has a lot to live up to.

Limiting your appraisal to the specs, things might look good. The new Camaro is seven inches shorter than it's chubby predecessor (the limp, forth generation) and the base model is driven by a 304hp V6. Pair that with a six-speed manual gearbox and you've definitely got a car to write home about.

But most Americans, despite being transfixed by the car's racy looks, will probably plump for the automatic transmission and that, in combination with the StabiliTrak electronic stability/traction control system, means the driving experience will be resolutely safe. Hardly the tyre-squealing, white-knuckle thrill-ride getting behind the wheel of an original one was.

The soft 'clunk' of the doors, the big, airbag-equipped wheel and the fully-featured headunit all conspire to make this a sporty-looking, but sedentary vehicle. There's no scent of gasoline, or tinny-reverb from the twin exhausts. The window panes don't rattle and the tachometer doesn't twitch. Really, what the bods at Chevrolet have done isn't to civilise the Camaro - they've damn near domesticated it.

I'll stick with the original, thank you very much.

A new perspective on Drinking and Driving...

Recently, I put together some commercials for the Sussex Police and the Hampshire Road Safety Team. I was concentrating on the changes in the law that make driving with a mobile phone a serious traffic offence.

Now, if you get caught using your mobile while driving, you'll get an automatic £60 fine and three points on your licence. They justify this by proving that using your mobile while driving makes you four times more likely to have an accident.

Additional statistics prove that using a mobile while driving makes you twice as likely to have an accident than if you drove drunk - and your reaction times while talking on a mobile are 30% slower than if you were over the drink drive limit.

Basically, you're more likely to get involved in a serious accident if you're driving while phoning than if you're driving while drunk. Yet the penalty is considerably more lenient.

If you drink and drive, you'll face an automatic year's ban - yet you're less likely to cause an accident than if you were on your mobile. That doesn't seem sensible.

Put it this way. I'd never consider drinking and driving on British roads - yet I'm ashamed to admit I occasionally use my mobile. I'm not alone - so do an apparent 25% of British drivers. Until the penalty for driving-while-phoning matches the penalty for driving-while-drunk, a considerable number of people will continue to drive while they're on the phone - and present more of a risk than drink drivers would.

Monster Truck!

After a brief jaunt in my brother in law Justin's truck, I was grinning so hard my cheeks hurt.

He's got a limited edition Dodge Ram Viper. That's a Dodge Ram pick up truck, powered by the V10 engine of the Dodge Viper - a 200mph sports car.

Justin's added his own special touches to this incredible beast, including a supercharger and drag racing slicks. It's an incredible machine. It can do a standing quarter mile in 11 seconds! And it still has three seats up front and a flatbed for moving your mate's wardrobe!

Here's a video of our standing start!

.

It's Red. It has Pop Up Headlights. Have we been here before?

Well, Bebop the Renault it no more, so for a couple of days I was left using what in Britain is laughingly referred to as "Public Transport." The trip to and from work cost almost £30 a day and I didn't get home until 20h30 one night!

Tina and I spent this weekend looking for a new 'ride.'

Ironically, we found her in the next door parking space. In fact, actually IN our parking space more often then not. Our neighbour has an impressive collection of cars (three Volvos and two Minis) and Tina was inspired enough to ask if he had any for sale.

Behold a maroon red Volvo 480.



When I was a kid, I remember my father having a turbo edition of this same car and telling me how he once got up to 120mph in it. When I discovered The Saint I always wondered if an eighties version of Simon Templar would drive Volvo's only 'sports' car since the P1800.

And it was red and had pop-up headlights.

So we bought it.

Helas! Mon pauvre Bebop, elle est mort!

Radiator. Head gasket. Roly's roadside repairs.

One of the above, or maybe all of them, contributed to the death of this lovable and reliable little car.

I will admit, she'd been slowly sliding from "reliable driver" to "clapped out banger" over the last couple of weeks, but she'd taken us across France happily enough and have been clocking up the miles over the last few weeks.

Yesterday, on the M27 on the way to Brighton, she gave up the ghost. Some roadside surgery was attempted, but I can honestly say it's never worked in the past, so I wasn't surprised when she failed to spring back into life merely because I'd refilled the radiator and looked at the dip stick.

You'll be missed, Bebop.

Bad Bebop... No Cookie!

Bebep, the loyal Renault 19 who was bought specifically to bring us to France.... Died...

It turns out her starter motor went. I'd pretty much guessed this when we turned the key outside Gifi and the engine refused to turn over. Fortunately, T and I managed to get her bump started after pushing her down the hill three times.

Three times?

First time, Tina didn't realise she had to let up the clutch to 'bump start' a car.

Second time, Tina switched off the engine as soon as she started.

Third time? The charm.

Fortunately, we had (of all coincidences) a spare starter motor in the boot, so we drove off to Renault in Niort and they got us back on the road in less that a day, and for less that one hundred euros.

Here is the offending item:

Since then, Bebop drove me a 250 mile round trip to Nantes, where I needed to get my Police Municipale report for the U.S. Government. Then, today, she drove 100 miles round trip to La Rochelle for oysters and wine, so hopefully she's fixed.

In other news, we've been walking around Lac Lambon, which looks stunning.

We've also been lucky enough to enjoy some incredible weather and some delicious food!

We're back home on Tuesday.

It's off to France we go!

Tomorrow, Tina and I head out for France for 11 days... I'm REALLY looking forward to it.

Sadly, there is no WinFM bug to cart us across the ocean this time. Instead, responsibility falls to Bebop, our little Renault 19 Bebop. We bought this as a second car because it was French (plenty of spare parts) it was diesel (forty to the gallon) and it was, like the budgie, "cheep!"

We've got about 400 miles to cover, so wish us luck!