Can a vintage car still be driven as a daily driver?

[tonyb]

^^^^^
And remember, the coupe is not a “coop,” it’s a “coo-PAY.”

 

[2jakes]

^^^^^
And remember, it’s not a “coop,” it’s a “coo-PAY.”

Also the “coo-Pay” was given a pet name as part of the family.

I can recall my dad saying at times,
“Old Nellie was actin’ up again this mornin’ ”

 

[3fingers]

My father's generic name for any motorized vehicle was Bessie.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"That SOBing piece of S." was my grandfather's pet name for whatever truck he owned at any given moment.

 

[MondoFW]

Whoa, did not expect this to get this many replies. I am heavily occupied on a vacation right now, so I lack the time to address everyone. So, the general consensus is that many older cars are severely limited in functionalities, compared to modern cars, and driving one may require the same diligence of driving a motorcycle?

I have also heard of people retrofitting seatbelts into their cars, which seems like a very smart idea to me. I would probably replace certain mechanisms that absolutely would need to be replaced, like brakes for instance.

Vitanola mentioned that driving a Model A would be a suitable daily, because they're resilient and do not rust easily. This reminded me of a discussion I had with my next-door neighbor, whom collects antique firearms. He is very against the idea that just because something is old it cannot be used. He boldly claimed that any car manufactured after 1929 could be a daily driver, and he cited the Model A as an example of a relatively early car that could get the job done.

The flathead six cylinder Chrysler products (Chrysler 70, Windsor, Airstream Six, or Royal, any 1929-52 Dodge, any pre-1952 De Soto, and any 1932-52 Plymouth) are legendarily reliable, and parts are not too difficult to find.

These are relatively early cars, and many would find it asinine that they could be considered dependable. Can anyone vouch for any of the models Vitanola mentions here?

 

[Just Jim]

He boldly claimed that any car manufactured after 1929 could be a daily driver, and he cited the Model A as an example of a relatively early car that could get the job done.

Well (says the man who's current favorite shotgun dates back to Lincoln's presidency), yeah--but. It comes down to what you are going to do with it. Drive around a small town, maybe occasional trips of 30-40 miles? Sure. If I still lived in my home town, I wouldn't hesitate to drive one. There's a guy back home who has been driving a mid-30s Ford since I was in high school. (Probably hasn't put 10,000 miles on it in 30+ years, but it is his only motor vehicle.)

Drive it in Dallas traffic? Not me!

These are relatively early cars, and many would find it asinine that they could be considered dependable. Can anyone vouch for any of the models Vitanola mentions here?

Well, they're slightly less complex and difficult to work on than a chainsaw. I can vouch for the Dodges (in grade school, a buddy and I returned one to service that had been parked for 20 years). The Plymouths? I know of a few still on the road.

But they are daily drivers in small towns. Trips outside town are taken on backroads, with minimal traffic.

 

[MondoFW]

Maybe I should have prefaced that I live on the outskirts of a city, and not in the backcountry

 

[vitanola]

Maybe I should have prefaced that I live on the outskirts of a city, and not in the backcountry

City driving is generally not a problem, as long as one can easily avoid interstate highways. I found the Model T cars just fine on the surface streets of Cleveland and Boston. New York City was OK, too, as long as one stayed off of the Roosevelt, the BQE, and the Cross Bronx. In West Coast cities one often cannot get from here to there without using a limited access highway. In such places a T is not suitable as a daily driver, though many folks find Model A cars to perform acceptably in this service.

I suggest the A and the various Mopar machines because they are common and cheap. A really good restored example of these can be had for between $10,000 and $15,000 at any time in almost any part of the country. One would be advised to save one's pennies and buy the best fully restored car that one can find and then drive it. Project cars never serm to work out.

 

[vitanola]

Here is an example of what is available in the middle of this range:

https://jxn.craigslist.org/cto/d/1948-buick-roadmaster-series/6625216903.html

I know this car. It is a fine, meticulous restoration which doubtless cost two or three times the asking price. The big Buick Eights are nice cars, pleasant to drive, able to keep up with most modern traffic, but they have one major flaw; the floor boards rust out when they are driven in salt.

This Dodge might or might not be a good candidate. It is presentable and cheap, but these MOPAR sixes are so reliable that they have seldom been rebuilt, and a survivor car may only have ten or twelve thousand miles left in its engine. Of course the price is low enough that one can arrange foe a rebuild at when one comes necessary.

https://chicago.craigslist.org/sox/cto/d/1950-dodge-meadowbrook/6603625012.html

 

[GHT]

My father's generic name for any motorized vehicle was Bessie.

My missus named our car Jessica almost from the day it arrived. She explained that like her famous namesake she's a redhead, she has a great body and she's got a cracking pair of hooters. Of all the gizmos & toys that go into modern cars the one that I miss the most is the sensor in the neck of the fuel tank. When our car was new an attendant would fuel it up for you, self service was unheard of. Nowadays it's all self service and as there's no fuel level sensor, the only way that I know that the tank is full is when the petrol splashes over my shoes.

 

[scottyrocks]

Well, I'll just throw this into the mix, as well.

My 1963 VW. Simple to work on, and the added luxury of many parts being interchangeable with many other years, assuming you are not concerned with complete authenticity. And there is a huge aftermarket, again, if you're not too concerned with NOS authenticity. And there is a huge supply of used OEM parts floating around, as well.

My car is what's known as a survivor, which is a car that has been taken care of its whole life. Not every part on it was stock when I got it (although it was really close). It was running, almost rust-free, and overall in very good daily driver shape. It still is pretty much stock, although I when redid the interior I went for a less expensive carpet kit, and solid color door panels, mainly because I never cared for the skunk stripe pattern of that era. I did brakes, cables, front transmission mount, rebuilt the speedo, changed its cable, and have been futzing with the electrics since I got it. But it starts every time, runs perfectly, and has been rock solid dependable this warm weather driving season, and I'm very happy.

This car requires more periodic maintenance than your average 'modern' car, which I do myself. In addition to oil changes, which all cars require, I do oil filter screen cleanings, valve and points adjustments, brake adjustments (drum brakes are not self-adjusting like disc brakes and require manual adjusting), plugs and distributor service, etc.

If you buy an older car, these maintenance items will have to become part of your routine, even if only a couple of times a year. I only put a couple/few hundred miles on my bug per year so I do this stuff yearly (mainly oil changes), but if you truly daily-driver your car, you will be doing them more often. Or you can pay someone to do it for you, but I don't believe in paying someone for things I can do myself, and enjoy doing.

As vitanola said, get as good a car as you can afford, because a good, complete one will be driveable now, whereas one that needs restoration will take time and money - often more money than the car will be worth.

 

[tonyb]

... One would be advised to save one's pennies and buy the best fully restored car that one can find and then drive it. Project cars never serm to work out.

Oughta be in all caps, bold.

Buying a good runner in solid (minimally) overall condition saves piles of money and years of aggravation in the long run. Bodywork alone can easily run into more money than most old cars would be worth after the work is completed. And if the interior is asking for much attention? Well, maybe you’ll decide you can live with horse blankets after all.

On the upside, there are online communities of owners of all but the most obscure old cars. Members are generally true enthusiasts happy to share their hard-won knowledge of the old machines.

 

[LizzieMaine]

These are relatively early cars, and many would find it asinine that they could be considered dependable. Can anyone vouch for any of the models Vitanola mentions here?

Mine's a 1941 Canadian Dodge with the long-block 218 flathead-six engine. I bought it when the car was at 91,000 original miles, and drove it for almost three hundred miles with a broken piston rattling around in the oil pan before I took it to get the engine rebuilt. Since then I've put over 10,000 miles on it without a single engine problem. It uses less oil than my 2013 Subaru, and as long as you understand how to use a manual choke, there's no problem starting it during cold weather (I drive it usually from March to December, or until the snow hits, whichever comes first.)

Mopar flatheads do not require leaded fuel or lead additives. They came from the factory with hardened valve seats.

There are things you do have to watch. This era of Mopar featured a brake master cylinder that is extremely fussy about where the piston rod is set -- you can't adjust the height of the brake pedal by changing the setting of that rod the way you can with other cars, because doing so will block the tiny little hole that allows the fluid to flow back into the cylinder, and your brakes will lock up. You have to make sure anybody who works on your brakes, ever, knows about this, or you will be very very sorry, with your brakes smoking hot and locked solid. The rod setting *must never be changed from its factory point, by anyone, ever, for any reason.*

I'm still running on the original three-speed transmission. As long as you keep it filled with oil and don't mind a bit of drippage on your driveway, it will give you no troubles whatever.

One thing you might want to watch in any old water-cooled car is that they don't much like bumper-to-bumper on a hot day -- they don't have electric fans, so they are very dependent on the motion of the car to drive air thru the radiator. You can get aftermarket electric fans to add to many older cars if you need them, or you can avoid situations where you're going to be in slow-moving traffic at the height of summer. I've had my car in parades, but it doesn't like them very much. Today's antifreeze is better and has a higher boiling point than the stuff you could get in the Era, but it's still nerve-wracking to watch the temperature gauge edging past 212.

 

[GHT]

I'm still running on the original three-speed transmission. As long as you keep it filled with oil and don't mind a bit of drippage on your driveway, it will give you no troubles whatever.

Buy yourself a big cat litter box, the large flat tray type. It sits perfectly under the car, you can see at a glance any sudden leaks, whether it's oil, water or hydraulic fluid and it keeps the drive and garage floor spotless.

 

[scotrace]

Now I have the garage space for an old car, but it's full of boxed up books, vintage clothes and coats with no closets in which to live, a cat pee destroyed mattress, and the crate from a 1920s Edison Diamond Disc no one wants and I can't bear to send to the landfill.
Having one to drive often is a lifelong dream.

 

[MondoFW]

Now I have the garage space for an old car, but it's full of boxed up books, vintage clothes and coats with no closets in which to live, a cat pee destroyed mattress, and the crate from a 1920s Edison Diamond Disc no one wants and I can't bear to send to the landfill.
Having one to drive often is a lifelong dream.

Tell me about it. When I'm ready to buy, clearing garage space will be half the battle.

 

[tonyb]

“Come to kindly terms with your ass, for it bears you.”

That’s the epigraph in “How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot,” first published — by its author, John Muir (no, not the John Muir they name schools after) — in 1969.

That’s among the better advice in that volume — advice largely wasted on me back when that book was still in wide circulation. No, I didn’t treat cars so kindly then as I do now. (There’s a reason many young men’s car insurance premiums exceed what I paid for housing when I was their age. Boys will be, um, boys, even when they’re really getting too old for that sort of behavior.)

Most cars are consigned to the scrapyard long before they would have had their owners taken better care of them. The original owner typically maintains it well, but with each subsequent owner, who paid progressively less (safe to assume in the large majority of cases), the car becomes a little less precious and repairs and maintenance are too long deferred. So the car craps out at 150K instead of 250K, or more.

Whatever the car, but especially the truly old ones, drive it and care for it like you’re the one who will pay for whatever goes wrong with it. Come to kindly terms.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I loved that Muir book. I still have a few ragged grease-dappled loose pages from my copy.

 

[scottyrocks]

I have one, too. It's a good first read before going to a proper service manual (when necessary).

 

[scottyrocks]

“Come to kindly terms with your ass, for it bears you.”

That’s the epigraph in “How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot,” first published — by its author, John Muir (no, not the John Muir they name schools after) — in 1969.

That’s among the better advice in that volume — advice largely wasted on me back when that book was still in wide circulation. No, I didn’t treat cars so kindly then as I do now. (There’s a reason many young men’s car insurance premiums exceed what I paid for housing when I was their age. Boys will be, um, boys, even when they’re really getting too old for that sort of behavior.)

Most cars are consigned to the scrapyard long before they would have had their owners taken better care of them. The original owner typically maintains it well, but with each subsequent owner, who paid progressively less (safe to assume in the large majority of cases), the car becomes a little less precious and repairs and maintenance are too long deferred. So the car craps out at 150K instead of 250K, or more.

Whatever the car, but especially the truly old ones, drive it and care for it like you’re the one who will pay for whatever goes wrong with it. Come to kindly terms.

Interesting thing about VWs. When they were sold as new, they were simply the cheapest of cheap transportation. Nothing glamorous about them.

1960s counterculture made them more celebrity-like, but aside form some flowers and other various customizations, they were generally not treated better than any other cheap car. Up until a few years ago they were just cheap old cars. It's only been in the last few years that their collector status has escalated to beyond what cheap used cars used to sell for on the used market.