End of Manual-Transmission Era - Honda Accord

[Trenchfriend]

Our RS1 railcars got an interesting transmission. Hydromechanic! Torque converter + planet gears, combining both advantages.

 

[Edward]

The most fun car to drive I have ever had was a red 1958 MG-A. After I got the carburetor problems sorted, it was reliable. The one pictured below isn't my car, but, unfortunately, I have no pictures of mine. I had the engine and carburetors rebuilt and did some minor body work, along with a paint job. It was like a new car. Wish I had never sold it.

View attachment 264904

Lovely motor. My dad and a friend of his (who sadly died just a few weeks before it was on the road) spent the guts of twenty years restoring an A between them, one or two nights a week. Complete, ground-up rebuild. Gorgeous motor. Vastly more expensive, but cash aside I'd choose one of those over the B every time. The (very rare) couple model was a lovely, practical option that could be locked and left...

They can build motors, they can build cars, def.!

BUT, if I would ever get a car myself again, NEVER again with manual transmission. I never had a problem with MT, but this age is over! And I'm getting older and AT would surely by much more comfortable in the citys.
Double-clutch transmission or classic torque-converter. CVT is not more happening, I think. Automated gearbox still seems to be a "shoddy" thing, here.

AND I WANT MY REAL HYDRAULIC POWER STEERING BACK!!

Funny thing, one thing I truly hated learning to drive was power-steering. Far too light, I much prefer something I need to put some effort into.

My car does not have, in no particular order:
Power steering,
Multispeed wipers,
Screen washers,
Laminated screen,
Remote door locking.
Central locking,
Locking fuel cap,
Seat belts,
Electronic ignition,
Fuel injection,
On board computer,
Synchromesh gears,
Heated rear screen,
Monocoque body,
Enclosed headlamps,
And probably a lot more that doesn't immediately spring to mind.
So what does it have? Fun!

All the better for it... I'd trust a pre-war design chassis over crumple zones any day!

Q: Why do the British not make computers?

A: They haven’t figured out how to make them leak oil.

Where old cars had it over the later ones is that they were simpler and less expensive and major components could be had at the wrecking yard for relatively small money. I suspect that part of the reason getting a car and a license at age 16 isn’t the rite of passage it was for boys of my generation (and the ones immediately before it and after it) has more than a little to do with that. Cars just cost too much these days for every kid from humble circumstances to acquire one for less than a month’s pay. My first car set me back 65 bucks. My friends and I routinely bought engines and transmissions and rear ends at the boneyard and squeezed a few more months out of those beaters of ours.

To me, that's the tragedy. A car is now an expensive money pit you have to have someone else do everything on - not a simple machine the working man can maintain. and really..... do we actually *need* 99% of the "progress"? I'm all for clean electric power, but so, so many supposed innovations are just pricey novelties, something else to go wrong...

Tony, one of the nick-names we give to old cars is, a banger. There's a TV show called, "Bangers & Cash." It features a family business that deal, mainly by auction, classic cars. in one episode they had three MGB's that had never been registered, they were still covered in their delivery, protective wax. Amazing or what?
As for the British car industry, where did go? Where it belonged, consigned to history. Here's a link to those MG's:
https://mathewsons.co.uk/auctions/auction-dates/vehicles/9370-march-auction-mg-bgt-jubilee

Those never sold because of the ugly rubber bumpers! (That, and they really ruined the rear suspension in those rubber bumper models...).

I''m selling my motorcycle so I need something fun to ride. Back in the day I lusted after the TR-3, but the MG-A came along first. This time I may hold out for an already restored TR-3.

Sadly, it's all too often now cheaper to buy a fully restored car than restoring it yourself.

I think they are Indian owned (Tata) but they are made in England except for the Evoque (Brazil)

There's a British car industry now in the same way as I "made" Airfix kits when I was a kid....

When was the last time you or anyone you know bragged about your odo hitting 100,000 miles? Why do you never see 50s cars on the streets in shows and movies filmed in the 60s and 70s? Because they were scrap.

I don't know to what extent that reflects anything outside Hollywoodland... In British TV as late as the early-mid 80s, anything filmed in 'real' street you'd see cars back as far as late fifties designs still in regular use. A lot of my neighbours growing up in Northern Ireland in the early 80s still drove models long out of production and designed in the sixties. Of course people seemed to look after their cars more then, and were more likely to keep them longer, or so it seemed anyhow.

The problem with keeping a vintage car is using it AS A CAR. Cars show signs of use. And nothing lasts forever. Very rare is the owner of a restored vintage car who uses it as his everyday ride.

Much certainly depends on climate too. Across most of the UK it's simply too damp (and there is too much salt used on the roads, which is murder on old chrome) to drive an old motor year round. That and everybody wants to get everywhere so damn fast now. Back when I drove, I hated driving itself, but especially driving at speed. I was always happier at 40mph; I think I got close to 60 once when my dad tried to make me reach the speed limit, and I hated it!

I read that the new Corvettes aren’t available with a manual transmission. Rather, they have 8-speed dual-clutch “automatics” with paddle controls on the steering wheel. No clutch pedal. Using those paddles is optional; the transmission will shift in its own if the driver so chooses. (My Toyota Sienna van, which is near the opposite end of the automotive spectrum, had a 6-speed automatic on which the driver can manually control the shifting, although I never do.)

I further read that the new ’vette goes zero to 60 in 2.8 seconds. That’s PDQ.

And, for all that performance, it still returns 27 mpg highway and 19 city.

Dang, they sure don’t make ’em like they used to.

27MPG? Bladdy ell. Wouldn't even consider anything that did less than 40.... but then petrol has always been vastly more expensive over here than in the US. There's a reason why monstercars with V8s and 9mpg were never built in the UK, while they were practically shopping runabouts in the States!

Modern vehicles just have no soul for the most part. One of the problems is that today, virtually everything is high performance compared to yesterday. Literally your econobox is capable of racing worthy performance from the 50’s. And today, where can you really use any of that? I live in California and all the roads are congested with too many people driving, never mind all the bicycles and pedestrians.

My thing is motorcycles and I have turned down every offer to ride a modern liter bike for the last 20 years. Nothing worthwhile would come of it!

Ha, yes.... It's interesting that the custom bike scene in the UK in recent years has gone retro, and all the growth seems to be in the 125cc / 250cc end of the spectrum. Course, a 250cc Mutt designed now might not look like anything so much as a baby 59 Bonneville, but they can often perform as well as an older 500cc. Cheaper to run than a bigger bike - and to insure! Course, we're not talking about a market there which is particularly interested in high speed performance. I tend to agree re cars.... a five speed box and 1300ccs so it can cope with the motorway, but not much point with anything else that's not being raced. Of course, 'bigger/better/ faster' is always one way in which people can be convinced to buy new / more / buy again. Repeat custom.... Hopefully things will flip around yet before we destroy the planet.

^^^^^
Several years ago I witnessed a court-ordered cleanup of a property you might fairly call a junkyard, located where such uses are clearly not allowed. This was outside of Olympia, Wash., the land of fir trees and ferns and perpetual dampness. Among the vehicles left essentially abandoned on that property for many years before being relegated to the scrapyard was a Porsche 356, or, perhaps more accurately, a wafer-thin rust sculpture in the shape of a Porsche 356. Even at prices Porsche 356’s fetch, there just wasn’t enough of that one left to make it worth the trouble. Swiss cheese.

Ah, the 356. A glorified Beetle, but what a Beetle!

 

[tonyb]

A fellow I’ve known since my teen years, whose family’s financial circumstances were every bit as modest as mine, and who, like me, patched together well-worn cars lest he have no car at all, offers this view on the relative simplicity of old cars v. more recent ones ...

“I never open the hood anymore. It doesn’t get much simpler than that.”

 

[belfastboy]

A fellow I’ve known since my teen years, whose family’s financial circumstances were every bit as modest as mine, and who, like me, patched together well-worn cars lest he have no car at all, offers this view on the relative simplicity of old cars v. more recent ones ...

“I never open the hood anymore. It doesn’t get much simpler than that.”

My last two vehicles, Honda Element, Hyundai Sante Fe I ran for 8 years and now 10 years (and still running it). Close to 200,000k on each of them and the only maintenance cost has been wear items, oil change, brakes and tires. That is it, no tune-ups, no warranty recalls, nada. Both vehicles were the most basic model they sold....pretty much devoid of bells and whistles (I would have to read the manual to find out how to use them and I don't read manuals....saves me grief)

 

[ChiTownScion]

Our RS1 railcars got an interesting transmission. Hydromechanic! Torque converter + planet gears, combining both advantages.

The diesel hydraulic system. Been employed by the German rail systems for decades. Krauss Maffei locomotives were imported to the US in the 1960's by both the Southern Pacific and Denver & Rio Grande railroads, but the longer distances, higher mountain altitudes, and heavier load demands played hell on them and maintenance became a nightmare. Too bad: I always liked their unique look.

 

[Trenchfriend]

The diesel hydraulic system. Been employed by the German rail systems for decades. Krauss Maffei locomotives were imported to the US in the 1960's by both the Southern Pacific and Denver & Rio Grande railroads, but the longer distances, higher mountain altitudes, and heavier load demands played hell on them and maintenance became a nightmare. Too bad: I always liked their unique look.

Yeah, Co'Co' is better in this case.

 

[Trenchfriend]

A fellow I’ve known since my teen years, whose family’s financial circumstances were every bit as modest as mine, and who, like me, patched together well-worn cars lest he have no car at all, offers this view on the relative simplicity of old cars v. more recent ones ...

“I never open the hood anymore. It doesn’t get much simpler than that.”

Man, I'm (LANGUAGE!) old and miss these days!

Licensed Mazda B6 system. Real cars!

 

[GHT]

Man, I'm fucking old and miss these days!

Licensed Mazda B6 system. Real cars!

It never fails to amuse me, have you ever noticed how those whose mother tongue is not English almost always learn, when learning English, the profanities. Back in the seventies, whilst touring somewhere in France, the car started playing up. The French mechanic had a look at it, looked at me and said: "It's f****d" ça encore!

 

[LizzieMaine]

It works the other way too. There are a lot of people in Maine who know no other French than "merde."

 

[belfastboy]

It works the other way too. There are a lot of people in Maine who know no other French than "merde."

In Quebec they cover it all.....a standard epithet is "Merde, shit d' shit"

 

[Turnip]

These vulgarities seem to be the most remarkable to many, obviously.
An aunt of mine suffered from dementia and she vanished more and more over the years. At some point she couldn’t really express herself anymore and didn’t talk much at all. But occasionally she could still fluently eff and jeff like a dock worker, using real bad, vulgar terms that would never ever have come over her lips when she was still clear...

 

[tonyb]

Among the Old Man’s habits that rubbed off on me was a propensity for swearing. It’s kinda unfortunate, in some ways. It puts off some people, I’m sure, when the aim is not to be off-putting.

But then, sometimes people go looking for reasons to be offended. F*** ’em, I say.

 

[tonyb]

Lovely motor. My dad and a friend of his (who sadly died just a few weeks before it was on the road) spent the guts of twenty years restoring an A between them, one or two nights a week. Complete, ground-up rebuild. Gorgeous motor. Vastly more expensive, but cash aside I'd choose one of those over the B every time. The (very rare) couple model was a lovely, practical option that could be locked and left...
...
Those never sold because of the ugly rubber bumpers! (That, and they really ruined the rear suspension in those rubber bumper models...).
...
Sadly, it's all too often now cheaper to buy a fully restored car than restoring it yourself.
...

The MGA engine had three main bearings. The B engine had five. Beefier.

A friend had an MGA coupe (fixed hardtop) way back when. I recall thinking it not as cool looking as the top-down car. (I thought much the same about the MGBGT v. the ragtop version.) But then, the coupes are relatively rare birds, and that alone sets heads to turning.

And yes, those rubber bumpers on later-model MGBs (and Midgets) ruined the look, and the raised ride height (also to accommodate American regulations) didn’t do the handling any favors. And early MGBs are sweet-handling cars.

As to the financial sense in doing one’s own restoration ...

In the large majority of cases a DIY restorer will never get back what he put into the car, if his time is worth, say, half the minimum wage. Which is not to say the effort is necessarily wasted. Some people take a great deal of pleasure in the process. And it keeps ’em out of the barrooms. Still, a priceless piece of advice to a person considering a “collectible” car is to pay more upfront for the cleanest example s/he can find, within reason, of course.

 

[scotrace]

I will miss shifting. Last car I had with a stick was a Chevy with a six speed. Awfully fun to drive and very efficient.
I rode in a VW Passat in 09, and that was the thing I wanted ever after. I got one a year and a half ago and that will be pretty much what I look for from here on out. Fantastic, boring, and supremely efficient and reliable. But I wish they still offered them with a stick.
I learned to drive stick in a 40 Plymouth sedan with a three on the tree.

 

[Edward]

It never fails to amuse me, have you ever noticed how those whose mother tongue is not English almost always learn, when learning English, the profanities. Back in the seventies, whilst touring somewhere in France, the car started playing up. The French mechanic had a look at it, looked at me and said: "It's f****d" ça encore!

I always remember the kids in my year at school who went on the Spanish exchange came home with a written list the Spanish had provided of all the best Spanish swears. I think a lot of people like to swear on a 'foreign' language to make it sound somehow more cultured or less rude... A German acquaintance once told me Germans sear in English because they find the words have more force when pronounced!

The MGA engine had three main bearings. The B engine had five. Beefier.

A friend had an MGA coupe (fixed hardtop) way back when. I recall thinking it not as cool looking as the top-down car. (I thought much the same about the MGBGT v. the ragtop version.) But then, the coupes are relatively rare birds, and that alone sets heads to turning.

Mn, the B definitely had an upgraded performance. Not as nice a body... The BGT was a practical motor, though. My dad had one in the late sixties, last year of the MkI (the last to have leather seatsas standard). He owned a 73 model in the 90s. Drove that once - nice thing to drive, though I'd have preferred a more 'upright' driving position. Never was comfortable 'laid back' in the seat.

As to the financial sense in doing one’s own restoration ...

In the large majority of cases a DIY restorer will never get back what he put into the car, if his time is worth, say, half the minimum wage. Which is not to say the effort is necessarily wasted. Some people take a great deal of pleasure in the process. And it keeps ’em out of the barrooms. Still, a priceless piece of advice to a person considering a “collectible” car is to pay more upfront for the cleanest example s/he can find, within reason, of course.

Labour costs are impossible once you include those, but not so many years ago even discounting that in the scene where my folks are a lot of cars were changing hands for less than people had spent on them, labour not an issue. The real concourse babies will always be sought after, but it'd be a shame if the average working man got priced out of the scene. Happened to kit cars some years back when they tightened up certain laws on them and basically killed the market dead.

I like to hope that one day we'll see a mainstream market for modern iterations of vintage models that are faithful to the look and feel of the originals. There's a beautiful "new" 1938 model Alvis you can buy now, and a recreation 68 Mustang, but you're talking, respectively, 100k & 60k... If somebody could put a Morris Minor with an electric motor on the road for less than 10K, that would be quite something! I'm all for convenience and safety, but some oler style wold be nice too.

I will miss shifting. Last car I had with a stick was a Chevy with a six speed. Awfully fun to drive and very efficient.
I rode in a VW Passat in 09, and that was the thing I wanted ever after. I got one a year and a half ago and that will be pretty much what I look for from here on out. Fantastic, boring, and supremely efficient and reliable. But I wish they still offered them with a stick.
I learned to drive stick in a 40 Plymouth sedan with a three on the tree.

I've never driven a column shift, but Dad always loved them. Had a 56 Austin Cambridge for some time that he raved about being lovely to drive.

 

[belfastboy]

I will miss shifting. Last car I had with a stick was a Chevy with a six speed. Awfully fun to drive and very efficient.
I rode in a VW Passat in 09, and that was the thing I wanted ever after. I got one a year and a half ago and that will be pretty much what I look for from here on out. Fantastic, boring, and supremely efficient and reliable. But I wish they still offered them with a stick.
I learned to drive stick in a 40 Plymouth sedan with a three on the tree.

I drove a '51 Chevy with 3 on the tree. Swear my left thigh was inches bigger than the right from muscling the clutch pedal. My petite girlfriend never did get the hang of it and would often start out from a red light by bouncing the car down the road for the first half block.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
My oldest brother had a helluva hard time learning how to smoothly move away from a stop with a manual transmission. When it wasn’t a jerky, bouncy takeoff, he killed the engine, often in the middle of an intersection. The other drivers honking their horns and the Old Man barking at him did nothing to put him in the proper state of mind.

His state of mind was the problem, really. Relax, man. Don’t give it so much thought as feeling. Find that groove.

I’m acquainted with a middle-aged woman who’s a nervous driver. You know the type — hunched over the steering wheel, as though putting one’s nose a few inches closer to the windshield improved visibility. Relax, lady. Find that groove.

 

[Zombie_61]

I learned to drive stick in a 40 Plymouth sedan with a three on the tree.

My third job was delivering equipment, tools, and supplies, for a local cement/concrete contractor, and my daily driver on-the-job was an early- to mid-1970s Ford F-250 stakebed truck with a three-on-the-tree transmission. Great truck! Fast forward to about 10-12 years ago and a good friend had somehow taken possession of a 1990s-era pickup with--you guessed it--three speed transmission. I thought it was a little odd when he asked me if I wanted to take it around the block in the same breath as he used to tell me about it, but when I saw the shift lever (which he deliberately didn't mention) I was sure he thought I wouldn't be able to get it down the road. The brakes barely worked (the power assist was dead) and the front end needed to be completely rebuilt, but it brought me back to that old F-250 and if my friend hadn't been so greedy I might have bought it when he offered to sell it to me.

 

[tonyb]

...
Labour costs are impossible once you include those, but not so many years ago even discounting that in the scene where my folks are a lot of cars were changing hands for less than people had spent on them, labour not an issue. The real concourse babies will always be sought after, but it'd be a shame if the average working man got priced out of the scene. Happened to kit cars some years back when they tightened up certain laws on them and basically killed the market dead.

I like to hope that one day we'll see a mainstream market for modern iterations of vintage models that are faithful to the look and feel of the originals. There's a beautiful "new" 1938 model Alvis you can buy now, and a recreation 68 Mustang, but you're talking, respectively, 100k & 60k... If somebody could put a Morris Minor with an electric motor on the road for less than 10K, that would be quite something! I'm all for convenience and safety, but some oler style wold be nice too.
...

Back in my British sports car days I was a faithful reader of Practical Classics, a British rag devoted to the care and feeding of lower-end collectible vintage cars.

But limey cars weren’t such an unusual sight back then. The cars were of recent enough vintage that many were still in regular use. You could buy a decent enough example for what a workman might knock down in a month.

That was then. Now I can’t recall when I last saw an MGA or a TR3 on the road, and I’m the sort who would notice. But then, we’re talking 50- and 60- and 70-year-old cars, not 20- and 30- and 40-year-old cars.

Sometimes it seems all the best cars are owned by all the wrong people, while the people who might appreciate the things as something more than another layer of attire are priced out.

As to “retro” rides ...

I like some styles that give a nod to their forebears. The Ford Mustang body style introduced in the 2005 model year has a clean, elegant line that strongly echoes the early years of the ’stang. (Subsequent body style changes did it no favors, to my eye.) But no one would mistake it for a ’65. It is (or was) a modern car. GM’s aim at the same market segment, the retro Chevy Camaro, just doesn’t do it for me.

 

[Zombie_61]

...As to “retro” rides ...

I like some styles that give a nod to their forebears. The Ford Mustang body style introduced in the 2005 model year has a clean, elegant line that strongly echoes the early years of the ’stang. (Subsequent body style changes did it no favors, to my eye.) But no one would mistake it for a ’65. It is (or was) a modern car...

Except for that horrid Mustang II that Ford produced in the mid- to late-1970s, I've been a Mustang fan from day one. Still, for me that ends with the 2008 model because to my eyes every incarnation after that moved farther and farther away from the original concept just as the Mustang II had.