Future of driving a "classic" car

[Av8ferg]

The running out of oil prediction has a few flaws in its logic. Sure it’s a finite resource and peak oil was predicted to occur between 1965 and 1970. Since then we have found new reserves and the bell curve keeps sliding right. If we continue to use oil unabated like we are then sure one day it will be gone, 50 or 100 years nobody really know but this isn’t the whole story and how the law of supply and demand work. The last barrel of oil will be the most expensive barrel by far but that won’t happen for likely hundreds of years and may never happen. Oil is used in the manner it is because the cost per amount of stored energy is unsurpassed. The US for the first time since maybe the 50’s has become the worlds largest oil producer and no longer dependent of foreign oil. A national security blessing. As oil becomes harder to find the find prices will go up more and more. At some point it no longer becomes the best back for the buck and people will use an cheaper alternatives. When a gallon of gas is $75 you’ll stop driving your Z. That’s when I call Captain Obvious (have him on speed dial) and figure out how we retro fit my Z with an old Tesla motor. Nobody will want or need that last barrel of oil because it will be obsolete and outrageously expensive. I don’t think I’ll see this in my lifetime but who knows. For sure my kids will have make this transition. Until then enjoy your Z on the open roads of America or Europe.


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[Pilgrim]

Agreed, the thing regulating oil usage will be price, and the time is in view when that will happen. The problem occurs if the price doesn't rise consistently and gradually enough to prompt and fund development of other energy sources *and* the infrastructure to distribute them, as well as shift the design of the automotive fleet.

IMO it's a big mistake of the US not to have taxes which create oil prices similar to those in Europe, but of course we know why that hasn't happened. Gas prices are artificially depressed to keep the population happy, and I admit I'm one of those who benefit.

If gas was $5 a gallon (it's currently averaging $5.79 a gallon in Great Britain) there would be a shift in driving habits immediately.  The additional billions could be put to work developing those alternative energy sources and distribution infrastructure.

That's not going to happen in the US for political reasons until we're up against the wall. Whether that will be in time to shift the infrastructure and vehicles is open to question.

Edited November 14, 2020 by Pilgrim

[AK260]

My local station is currently selling at £1.17 / litre which is consistent with your US gal figures or $6.95 UK gallon.

When I bought my first car in 1995, it was as low as £0.38 / litre. How is it we haven’t gone out with our pitch forks? Well, it’s the boiling a frog situation! Little by little it rises and people just swallow it.

We did have protests back in the early 2000s when it hit £1 / litre but people soon forget and move on. You could argue it’s offset by wage inflation and car efficiency going up.

But what kills me is that 70% of our fuel price here is tax! Also, every time I see an Arab number plate on a n illegally parked gold super car / Lamborghini in central London (clearly flown over on a private 747 for kudos) I can’t help thinking I own a small share of that car given what we spend at the pumps!

Rant over!

[AK260]

Dammed double post!

[AK260]

Allow me to contradict my own post further up this thread ....


https://apple.news/A_WTyIGgMQ9S62iVeM8c3Xw

[siteunseen]

My take on taxing fuel in my country is as simple as higher prices on everything that has to be transported. After Katrina diesel fuel prices went crazy. Then the trickle down began to cause consumer prices to rise on everyday needs. We vote with our wallets over here and there's way more empty ones than full.

[DC871F]

6 hours ago, AK260 said:

Allow me to contradict my own post further up this thread ....


https://apple.news/A_WTyIGgMQ9S62iVeM8c3Xw

Been going to Delhi for years, everytime descending below 10,000 feet you begin to smell the pollution and by the time you're at the hotel my lungs would be burning. Black funk comes out everytime you blow your nose.

Climate change (if you believe the current climate of it) pun intended,  and India is a joke, they cant even make the air inhabitable. Maybe billions of US tax dollars will clean it up.

Edited November 15, 2020 by DC871F

[Tweeds]

The topic of this thread occasionally popped in my head the past few days, and while driving the z, I came to a realization: We're quite possibly the last generation(s) to have access to and appreciation of the older generations' ways of life. Maybe I could have said that better, but let me explain. 

This realization came when thinking about the z, but applies to a whole lot more. While owning the 240, I've had a lot of people from older generations come up and say something to the effect of, "Oh, I remember the z, that was my first car," or "One of my buddies had one, boy was it fast." Point is, the history books will tell of the various epochs of the older generations (the music, social change, technological advancements, and so on), but we're the last ones to hear, first hand, what they have to say about their time. The principle applies ideologically as well - a lot of us have parents or grandparents from the old days, and so we were raised with the sentimentalities of their times to varying degrees. These values will fade into the vague representations of history with them. Just as we hardly know anything tangible, mundane about how people lived and thought in 1900, so too will our children seldom know anything about the way people were in the 70's. All our children, worse yet grandchildren, will know is from books and how their schooling represents the old times, which is hardly the truth. History makes the unclear reality of human existence appear black and white. 

I've gone on long enough and probably bowdlerized the meaning of all this. Much like music, driving the 240 is a time capsule for me, where I can imagine I'm back in the 70's or 80's. We're close enough for the 70's to still feel real, but the same can not be said for the generations to come. When electric cars become commonplace, people who never drove a petrol engined car won't know the enjoyment of sitting in it as it shakes while idling and howls at high rpm's. This appeared to me like allegory for the everyday lives of people from the past. We're quite possibly the last generation(s) to have access to and appreciation of the older generations' ways of life.

 

[AK260]

That is a brilliant perspective! Love it. I had similar thoughts driving the other evening and thinking that along the same lines of in a couple of generations, people will want modified classics over original. For the reason that they’ve known the cars through the PlayStation and may find the stock experience rather dull in comparison.

[Dave WM]

Or we may find that driving is not even an issue, and oil will pile up. I have not commuted to work in the past 12 years, I suspect with the sudden realization that a LOT of the work force does not need to commute there will be even less driving. With VR substituting for family vacations, with amazon delivering your groceries, with doctors seeing patients remotely, with robots taking over all forms of jobs (hastened by the min wage being deemed a 'living wage", there was a robot doing my 1st job, a porter, at a store the other day) so less people will be needed, next up will be taxi and pilots by machines, eventually we become bags of protoplasm sitting in a matrix.

In the early seventies this was all the rage (save the earth, running out of oil, global freezing, opec oil crisis) all the young folks were yelling at the old folks telling them they were messing up the world (remember the crying American Indian in the canoe), so this is nothing new, but I have come to realize (with age) that you cant predict what will be the next real problem. I grew up with constant warnings about dui, well I think distracted driving is a bigger problem, also about kids wasting too much time with TV shows, now its video games.

Good luck the figuring out what the next gen issues will be for beleaguered parents to deal with. Good luck deciding where resources taken from tax payers by force should be used.

Or just live your life as well as possible without taking from or hurting the other guy.  Be conservative with all resources, as you will prob get it wrong trying to guess the future.

[Zed Head]

Ah, nostalgia...

p.s. look at that little kid about to get enveloped in carcinogenic smoke.  Thanks Dad, that was neat...

I grew up in a smoking family with pre-converter cars in the driveway.  Everybody smoked, it was a deep lung hack-fest every morning when the relatives got together for the holidays.  Now, I can smell a cigarette from a block away and a pre-cat car from a mile behind.  It's incredible how we don't realize how bad things are until they're gone.

Edited November 15, 2020 by Zed Head

[DC871F]

8 hours ago, Tweeds said:

The topic of this thread occasionally popped in my head the past few days, and while driving the z, I came to a realization: We're quite possibly the last generation(s) to have access to and appreciation of the older generations' ways of life. Maybe I could have said that better, but let me explain. 

 

 

 

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This realization came when thinking about the z, but applies to a whole lot more. While owning the 240, I've had a lot of people from older generations come up and say something to the effect of, "Oh, I remember the z, that was my first car," or "One of my buddies had one, boy was it fast." Point is, the history books will tell of the various epochs of the older generations (the music, social change, technological advancements, and so on), but we're the last ones to hear, first hand, what they have to say about their time. The principle applies ideologically as well - a lot of us have parents or grandparents from the old days, and so we were raised with the sentimentalities of their times to varying degrees. These values will fade into the vague representations of history with them. Just as we hardly know anything tangible, mundane about how people lived and thought in 1900, so too will our children seldom know anything about the way people were in the 70's. All our children, worse yet grandchildren, will know is from books and how their schooling represents the old times, which is hardly the truth. History makes the unclear reality of human existence appear black and white. 

 

 

 

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I've gone on long enough and probably bowdlerized the meaning of all this. Much like music, driving the 240 is a time capsule for me, where I can imagine I'm back in the 70's or 80's. We're close enough for the 70's to still feel real, but the same can not be said for the generations to come. When electric cars become commonplace, people who never drove a petrol engined car won't know the enjoyment of sitting in it as it shakes while idling and howls at high rpm's. This appeared to me like allegory for the everyday lives of people from the past. We're quite possibly the last generation(s) to have access to and appreciation of the older generations' ways of life.

 

My kids, 15,19, 21, all girls, had to progress is their driving "privilege" of driving. The 15 year old is the last one going through this process.

They all started on a 1956 Beetle, then 1965 C20 Pickup 4 on the floor, then at the time 82 280ZX. Then it turned out the 20 yr old when she was 17 was what the insurance companies call a 'risk', so she drove the 280zx full time with collector car insurance for $220/yr. She scoffed at first, but riding the bus to school was worse, then she became very popular when she drove the red Datsun to school, and this was jut 3 years ago, she then became very fond of the 280zx.

So there are at least 3 younger types out there who actually like older classic cars. 

I did all this so they wouldnt be texting and driving  and doing nothing but driving until they got their everyday car, it was just for learning "how to drive".

Edited November 16, 2020 by DC871F