Old time cars were not so well built

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Mon 4 Jun 2012 19:38
Old time cars were not so well built - hillman

Looking at these photographs, motor car design has moved in safer directions.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2154369/Crash-bang-wallop-Fascinating-photos-capture-thrills--spills-golden-age-American-motoring.html

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Mon 4 Jun 2012 19:44
Old time cars were not so well built - craig-pd130

Quite - although luckily the owners of those cars weren't restrained by seatbelts, which in some cases enabled them to be thrown clear of the vehicle, helping to reduce their risk of crush injuries ...

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Mon 4 Jun 2012 20:38
Old time cars were not so well built - unthrottled

You can definitely have too much of a good thing though. I'm dismayed by the extent to which new cars infantise drivers with safety technology. All it really does is encourage detachment from the surroundings and create a false sense of security.

Some safety reatures such as very thick A and C pillars are hopelessly flawed. Yes, the car might fare better in a collision but you're more likely to have a collision in the first place if your vision is obstructed!

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Mon 4 Jun 2012 23:58
Old time cars were not so well built - Leif

You can definitely have too much of a good thing though. I'm dismayed by the extent to which new cars infantise drivers with safety technology. All it really does is encourage detachment from the surroundings and create a false sense of security.

That might be true for some people, but I can't say it is for me. I like the fact that my new car is safer than my old one. In fact my driving is probably more boring and safe, because the cost of fuel and insurance is so high that I don't want to go fast and/or take risks. The fact that the number of people killed on the roads each year is declining and has done so for many years is probably due to improved cars, and not to speed cameras, or 'safety cameras' as some people prefer to call them.

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Tue 5 Jun 2012 01:36
Old time cars were not so well built - unthrottled

I think the only thing that makes any difference is the nut behind the wheel. Driver education has improved and rising insurance premiums provide a powerful incentive to avoid risk taking.

I don't have ABS, traction control, brake assist, parking sensors, DRLs, light sensitive lights/ rain sensive wipers or automated bottom wiping and have, hitherto, avoided accidents.

I don't mind the features being available but I don't want to have any of this gubbins foisted on me by law.

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Tue 5 Jun 2012 08:08
Old time cars were not so well built - Armitage Shanks {p}

Thread drift! Is there any spectator in any of the pictures not wearing a hat? Another thing that has changed with the times!

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Tue 5 Jun 2012 10:43
Old time cars were not so well built - craig-pd130

Thread drift! Is there any spectator in any of the pictures not wearing a hat? Another thing that has changed with the times!

You've hit the nail on the head. What are the odds most of the drivers were wearing hats too?

Throughout my 30+ years of driving, I've always been extra suspicious of those who wear hats while driving ....

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Tue 5 Jun 2012 11:08
Old time cars were not so well built - Leif

Yes I noticed the style of dress too, although one or two are less formally attired. I wonder if they wore three piece suits, shirt and tie in summer, given that it could get rather hot there.

Throughout my 30+ years of driving, I've always been extra suspicious of those who wear hats while driving ....

Oh my, you are treading on dangerous ground there ...although anyone who wears a hat n a car would doubtless buy a taller car than most, and hence the centre of gravity would be higher, the car more unstable, and thus they are more liable to accidents. Okay, I see your point.

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Tue 5 Jun 2012 11:11
Old time cars were not so well built - Leif

I think the only thing that makes any difference is the nut behind the wheel. Driver education has improved and rising insurance premiums provide a powerful incentive to avoid risk taking.

Crumple zones, ABS etc will significantly reduce the severity of injury in an accident.

But it is interesting to see how cars have become fatter and heavier, thanks to all of the legislation requiring crumple zones, raised bonnets to protect pedestrians and so on. I am not convinced driving standards have improved.

I guess those old cars would be considered death traps by modern standards, though our attitudes to risk have changed hugely.

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Tue 5 Jun 2012 15:34
Old time cars were not so well built - madf

My first car was a deathtrap waiting to immolate the driver should they crash. And spear them through the chest with the steering wheel. And to ensure they were killed the doors opened hinged at the rear : so an inadvertant opening was at best likely to blow the door off and at worst deposit the driver on the road.

Apart from the axle tramp carefully designed in at 30mph if you hit a bump, the drum brakes which faded at high speed stops from 60mph, and the limited front vision in rain due to the slow windscreen wipers, it misted up badly in rain.. The rear window was tiny and the mirrors mounted on the front wings vibrated at speed.

Even the best built engine required a head rebuild every 15k miles due to the low quality of valve metallurgy (mine did), and the the tyres had minimal grip in the wet and suffered reasonably frequent punctures.

The headlamps - chromed - looked impressive but gave as much assistance to forward vision as a swarm of glowflies and the semaphore indicators had a random number generator which controlled a> whether they would rise up to the occasion b> whether the bulb would come on and c> whether they would return to their original orifice..

Ther were of course no seatbelts, but for its time the car was uptodate; it had a heater.

I won't go into the service rituals etc...

They don't make them like they used to: thank goodness.

Edited by madf on 05/06/2012 at 15:36

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Tue 5 Jun 2012 15:46
Old time cars were not so well built - corax

I am not convinced driving standards have improved.

Agreed. The worst offenders at the moment for me are young girls with mobile phones. They may think that they can multi task - not from where I'm sitting they can't.

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Tue 5 Jun 2012 19:19
Old time cars were not so well built - spring

As an 'oldie' I suppose I'm predisposed to defend old cars (and habits too). But I was brought up short this week by a clip in the press comparing various statistical info. now with the same item when Queenie was crowned. One jumped out at me - In 1952 there were if I remember correctly, about one eighth of the vehicles now on the road. Casualties were almost exactly the same as now. So something has dramatically improved.Cheers Colin S

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Tue 5 Jun 2012 20:05
Old time cars were not so well built - Bobbin Threadbare

Telegraph motoring section by any chance?

I read the same thing. The number of cars on the road is phenomenal - if anyone still has the paper please correct me, but there were about 5 million cars on the roads in 1952 and now there are about 34 million. Accidents have dropped to about a quarter of what they were by number, not by proportion of motorists!

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Tue 5 Jun 2012 20:11
Old time cars were not so well built - unthrottled

I am not convinced driving standards have improved.

The driving test is more stringent than it has ever been. Indeed, up until 1935, there was no obligation to take a test. The last of those drivers must finally be off the roads thank goodness.

Agreed. The worst offenders at the moment for me are young girls with mobile phones.

Not like those old timers who would happily load up a pipe or roll a cigarette whilst they were driving. :)

It is always difficult to accurately attribute the cause in the decline in accident rates, but I still think that eye watering insurance premiums is the biggest factor.

As much as people demand ever greater improvements in handling, braking, grip, power etc, you rarely see cars being pushed to their limits of any of these areas. The biggest cause of accidents is inattention and poor judgement and there is no technological band aid for this.

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Wed 6 Jun 2012 00:15
Old time cars were not so well built - dodo

My uncle had a Vauxhall Viva HA that was pants and kept needing new parts on a weekly basis. I once went went him to the local breakers and well remember him cheerily asking "Have you a good engine for a '65 Viva?' - 'Nope' was the immediate response 'there was never one made' ....

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Wed 6 Jun 2012 10:16
Old time cars were not so well built - diddy1234

I had wondered about car safety.

Obviously cars have become more safe yet heavier at the same time.

I did contact Ncap crash test web site and asked if a car tested a few years ago with a crash rating of say 3 stars still has the same crash rating today.

Say for example a Ford Sierra compared to cars today.

Car technology has moved on since then so does your car of yesteryear now have a crash rating of zero stars and if so when was it classed as a deathtrap ?

I have not recieved any feed back from Ncap so cannot comment further

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Wed 6 Jun 2012 10:58
Old time cars were not so well built - Collos25

Actually cars are much lighter today due to more advanced materials.

My first car was a 1937 Austin 10 followed by a 1949 Austin 16 both cars had rod brakes and needed a long distance to bring to a halt both were what you would call death traps but not as bad as the 1957 Vauxhall Cresta or Austin A30 van one was riddled with rust and the other had no brakes to speak of .

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Wed 6 Jun 2012 11:54
Old time cars were not so well built - RT

Actually cars are much lighter today due to more advanced materials.

My first car was a 1937 Austin 10 followed by a 1949 Austin 16 both cars had rod brakes and needed a long distance to bring to a halt both were what you would call death traps but not as bad as the 1957 Vauxhall Cresta or Austin A30 van one was riddled with rust and the other had no brakes to speak of .

Simply not true - in the '80s a Cavalier was just over 1000kg - an Insignia today is 15-1600kg - and most other cars have increased at similar rates.

Modern, heavier, cars are safer to their occupants because of their better design and safety features but their extra weight doesn't make them any safer to others.

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Wed 6 Jun 2012 11:43
Old time cars were not so well built - barney100

Why are there so many about then? cars from 20 odd years and more ago were so much more simple to work on.

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Wed 6 Jun 2012 13:27
Old time cars were not so well built - madf

Why are there so many about then? cars from 20 odd years and more ago were so much more simple to work on.

You are joking. Apart from badly designed Renaults, most modern cars require little maintenance and the layouts are such that doing it is simple.

Try changing the front suspension on a W124 Mercedes...

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Wed 6 Jun 2012 13:48
Old time cars were not so well built - Bobbin Threadbare

Older cars had simpler/very few electronics and fewer gadgets to go wrong - I think that's what Barney is getting at.

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Wed 6 Jun 2012 21:39
Old time cars were not so well built - unthrottled

Modern cars need much less in terms of routine maintainance, but most mechanical maintainance is not easy. Even changing a headlight bulb is not always straight forward. Changing a clutch on a FWD car is much harder than the old RWD set-up-especially if you have to remove the engine and gear box, then split them outside the engine bay.

Even simple things like timing belts can be tedious jobs because of lack of space in the engine bay.

I think reliability apexed in the late 90s. Since then, the drive for greater complexity combined with cost cutting seems to have dented long term durability.

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Fri 8 Jun 2012 20:35
Old time cars were not so well built - hillman

Madf, - You forgot to mention those pneumatically operated wiper and windscreen washers.

HJ – What of those figures with flat tweed caps and yellow gloves ?

I’m all in favour of crumple zones, side bars and collapsible steering columns.

I’m all in favour of ABS. The last time it operated was when a girl texting on her mobile turned onto a zebra crossing without breaking her stride when I was only yards from it.

My garage proprietor detests automatic rain sensors because they cause the wiper to operate when the sensor is obscured by ice, tearing the wiper blade.

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