Future of driving a "classic" car

[w3wilkes]

Now days the 4 on the floor is also a theft deterrent. Not that many youngsters know how to drive them. 😁 Our youngest is in his mid 40's so we're now looking at grandkids that are coming up on driving age, oldest is 13 and goes down to the youngest of 8. These kids really have no interest in cars other than a way for mom, dad and grandparents to take them somewhere. The 8 and 11 year old think it's cool to ride in the bed of grandma's truck in the parade at one of the local car shows, but that's it. By the time they're grown into their 20's and 30's I think they'll have an app where they summon a self driving car to take them wherever and about anything they buy will be over the airwaves and delivered so shopping as it has been when we grew up will no longer exist. Most people will not own or drive cars and it will probably require a special permit to drive your own vehicle. Our niece in Germany is in her 30's and has never owned a car. Europe is way ahead of the USA on public transportation, but they also really don't have the distances we do. When she's been over here visiting my wife and I talked about going to St George, UT from our home in Layton, UT for the winter and our niece asked how far it was to St George. Her dad said "It's about a Germany south from here". This was somewhat of a revelation to her on how big geographically the USA is compared to Europe.

[AK260]

[Europe is way ahead of the USA on public transportation,]


Let’s not include the UK in that statement!! ;)

Our public transport system, despite the small distances utterly sucks!!! Germany, France etc had to totally rebuild their infrastructure after WW2. We here carried on evolving steam train era systems and mentality! Also their governments have had better focus / strategies for public transport beyond just making money off it. One of the things I love about France / Germany is how some of their intercity rail follows their motorways.

You make a great point about the future and how many if not most people won’t drive cars + the rest of us nutters will need special licenses / permission to drive! One day we may even look back and wonder at the folly of letting humans operate such dangerous machines while smoking, talking, being tired etc! In the future, Classic car drivers will all become Will Smith in iRobot.

It in the near term, I totally see a world where freight is self driving until it reaches a city where a driver can do the complicated bits.

[Dave WM]

in the 70's driving was the number one objective for teens, at least males (well other stuff as well but we are talking cars here). I got my learners on my 15th b day, same with reg on my 16th b day. drove motorcycle on my 15th b day, every day of the week. same with car when 16. left in the morning home late at night, if not school, then work (min wage), or social. Home is the last place you wanted to be. So Clearly driving was everything, and we worried about running out of gas back then, why cause then we could not do the one thing that was so central to teen existence. The idea of being driven around would get you laugh at, bullying was the way the social order was maintained. VERY different these days, and I presume every generation has the same experience, therefore trying to project into the future becomes a bit of a folly as far as what will be the driving force with large scale problems. when I was young it was common to see gangs of youths wandering the streets looking for action, now I rarely see young folks or old folks outside, but for a few throw backs like myself out cutting the lawn (that is left to "lawn men" for most folks around me). There was some hope though, I took my dirt bike out Saturday for a ride in the woods, there were a ton of people of all ages out enjoying the outdoors. I drive a classic dirt bike (1978 RM400 Suzuki) and there was a lot of attention by mostly older guys digging on the old bike reliving there youth when they had one.

[Pop's Z]

I, too, see my Zed as a time machine. When I drive it I listen to cassette tapes I made when I had my first Zed in 1974. At 75 I won't see the end of gasoline powered cars so no worries there.  I love my '17 Subaru Outback for its modernity, but the Zed makes me smile more. All my kids and, so far, all my grands learned to drive stick shift. I think it makes them better drivers. I'm loving this thread. It is a great discussion in these troubled times.

Cheers, Mike

[Dave WM]

here is a prediction for you, I hear a lot about setting up an electric infrastructure for electric cars, I suspect a much bigger problem will be an infrastructure for the internet.

[Pilgrim]

1 hour ago, Pop's Z said:

I, too, see my Zed as a time machine. When I drive it I listen to cassette tapes I made when I had my first Zed in 1974. At 75 I won't see the end of gasoline powered cars so no worries there.  I love my '17 Subaru Outback for its modernity, but the Zed makes me smile more. All my kids and, so far, all my grands learned to drive stick shift. I think it makes them better drivers. I'm loving this thread. It is a great discussion in these troubled times.

Cheers, Mike

I'm in a similar position at age 70; I think my driving years will end before gas does. I actually listen mostly to FM and even AM radio when I drive!! I hope that my sound deadening project on my '83 ZX works, because I look forward to putting more miles on it in the good weather we currently enjoy here.

There's lots of stuff to think about in terms of transportation and where we're going with it.

Distance and the difference between living conditions in various areas is very much an issue in the US.  I live in Colorado and was in Texas for 13 years before that.  Many Texans don't think much of driving 60+ miles each way just to buy groceries, and there are small towns all over the west which simply don't have goods and services available locally. If you haven't lived west of the Mississippi it may be hard to understand just how remote and distantly separated the western US really is.

In much of the western US, there is simply no public transportation at all. Bus lines hit only single points in a limited number of communities, and there are no other options.  I have felt for years that giving up much of the railroad right of way was a huge mistake, and that in the future we;'ll want our passenger train lines again. The discussion about a passenger line from Fort Collins (60 miles north of Denver) to Pueblo (about 80 miles south of Denver) is heating up because the Interstate is overloaded and has been for a few years. The only capacity Colorado is adding to its highways these days is toll lanes, which aren't a solution to the number of cars moving through the population centers between Fort Collins and Pueblo.

It also will be a long time before it makes any sense to install electrical charging stations in those places, so aside from private residence chargers there won't be charging services for decades. And if you have to drive 80 or 100 miles each way to get from Smallsburg to your nearest shipping area and back, you have to think seriously about range and the limited potential for side trips.

Thinking a bit more about this, I suspect the only way we'll get a well distributed charging infrastructure is if there's a nationwide government funded project comparable to the creation of the Interstate highway system. The political difficulty of funding such a project is obvious, as least until gas and oil prices move upward significantly.

Edited November 16, 2020 by Pilgrim

[Dave WM]

2 hours ago, Pop's Z said:

I, too, see my Zed as a time machine. When I drive it I listen to cassette tapes I made when I had my first Zed in 1974. At 75 I won't see the end of gasoline powered cars so no worries there.  I love my '17 Subaru Outback for its modernity, but the Zed makes me smile more. All my kids and, so far, all my grands learned to drive stick shift. I think it makes them better drivers. I'm loving this thread. It is a great discussion in these troubled times.

Cheers, Mike

drove the brand new 260z to the high school prom. Was on the road yesterday on the radio was disco, yikes... but it did take me back! the new car next to me had some kind of thumping noise, think it was music, but I don't think the car will be around for long, sounded like it was rattling apart at the stop light. My old radio has maybe 5 watts max, that and disco not likely to damage spot welds.

[AK260]

And then gents, there is this ....




If only we had original molds available for the S30 world!