For those interested in old cars.

[PhilJ W]

But the E types probably got more room inside.

[jcredfer]

6 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

But the E types probably got more room inside.

 

As someone said, quite recently, modern car sides are bulging with government regulations and wind air bags.

 

[Hobby]

After having seen a major accident involving an HGV pushing an Audi A3 hard into the central barrier at speed on a French motorway and seeing the guy get out alive and uninjured (and furious!) I'm quite happy with the safety features on modern cars, thanks! Had he been in any car from the 80s and earlier he wouldn't have been so lucky. (Oh and please don't give me the "he should have  been driving to avoid it" excuse either, he couldn't have.)

[PhilJ W]

1 hour ago, Hobby said:

After having seen a major accident involving an HGV pushing an Audi A3 hard into the central barrier at speed on a French motorway and seeing the guy get out alive and uninjured (and furious!) I'm quite happy with the safety features on modern cars, thanks! Had he been in any car from the 80s and earlier he wouldn't have been so lucky. (Oh and please don't give me the "he should have  been driving to avoid it" excuse either, he couldn't have.)

As much as I love old cars I wouldn't want to drive many of them in todays traffic. 

[russ p]

I'm well into the restoration of my MG maestro EFi at the moment.  It came off the road exactly ten years ago with a cracked engine block . In 2013 I managed to pick up two brand new O series engines for an unbelievable £30 the pair. 

The job of changing the engine got put off due to lack of facilities and serious illness twice. But finally in the last couple of months I've got round to it.

I knew it needed rear arches and some other metalwork but thankfully nothing serious the floors are perfect and never been welded . I've picked up a decent drivers door. 

I can't believe how little is available for these cars and once done it will be very rare and one of the best around. 

I'm doing mechanical work I've got the heads off the new engines and building one up with all new oil seals including stem seals and belts etc.

Bodywork is been done by Boyers of Cromer who I've used for years and their work is outstanding 

The last picture is what is was like in 2011

 

 

[boxbrownie]

That’s going to be a cracker……always had a spot for the Maestro Efi a simple looking classic two box car with no fussy bits.

[russ p]

1 minute ago, boxbrownie said:

That’s going to be a cracker……always had a spot for the Maestro Efi a simple looking classic two box car with no fussy bits.

 

Cheers David,  they actually drive very well too. Although not as fast as the turbo they a great fun as more low down torque. 

One thing I fitted which is not original to this car is the digital instruments and talking trip computer.  I still have the original instruments  but the digital one is an 80ws classic 

[alastairq]

2 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

a simple looking classic two box car with no fussy bits.

 Mine attempted to become a three-box car, courtesy of my daughter and my Ex trying to fit a fridge in the back.....Daughter slammed tailgate when they thought all was snug & tidy....smashed the rear window glass..

They cleared it all up hoping I wouldn't notice.........

 

Life has been like that in my family....like the time they disguised my portion of cream cake after the cat had been at it....

[johnlambert]

On 23/11/2021 at 15:07, PhilJ W said:

But the E types probably got more room inside.

I appreciate you're being humorous, but it really won't.  I've driven three E-type coupes (two Series ones like that, and a Series two) and there isn't a spare inch of space inside, there's enough room but no more.  Getting in is interesting too, with the high, wide door sill and low roof.  I'm 5'9 and relatively young and flexible, anyone who isn't would probably find it a struggle or an impossibility.  There aren't many cars in my experience that have so little room inside, a Mini is like a barn in comparison, but the E-type seems to wrap itself around you in a way that (to my mind) is comforting rather than claustrophobic, probably helped by the slim windscreen pillars.

[MrWolf]

It's strange how we don't notice the once commonplace cars until they're almost all gone. I've seen several of the MG versions of the Maestro preserved, but local to me and rarely seen on the road is an immaculate original A registration base model in a fetching shade of artificial limb beige.

I can't really talk about feeling safer in modern cars, I ride a motorcycle almost daily and a bicycle the rest of the time. As one of the regular TV adverts cheerfully informs us that one in two of us will develop cancer at some point, I stopped worrying about it too much.

Three of my friends have died in 'modern' cars, but safety devices aren't a guarantee, just a mitigation, especially above 40mph.

I rather like the driving position of our old Herald, long doors make for easy access, you sit quite low within the chassis almost and the high waistline gives a sense of solidity.

Add to that the slim pillars and large glass area, means that you can see all four corners of the car. Something that I haven't been able to do with any hatchback.

[alastairq]

This stuff about the 'safety' of modern cars, compared to old one's crops up from time to time.

 

I'm sure we can all think of instances where a collision  , deemed 'unavoidable'  [I'll not bother getting into that argument, even using my professional knowledge]....has resulted in occupants exiting and walking away, relatively unscathed.

In fact, I've been hearing of, and witnessing [spent very little time in my early working life, 'indoors']...  such instances for 50 years or more now!

Sadly, I cannot consider the pre-1950's era as I wasn't allowed out on my own until I was four years old......a year later I got run over by an Austin Cambridge..[all pre-school run...I had to walk to & from school in those days]...It was even an A40/50 model!!  Plus, it was in Cardiff, which may or may not say a lot?

 

 Personally I don't even give the issue much thought, regardless of what I'm driving, or where.  Mind, life might be different on the highways south of Watford Gap, perhaps? I cannot afford the petrol to get much further south than that! I do drive 'defensively' [IE, I ultimately look after my own interests...if others benefit from that , whooptidoo!], and , I do make an effort to drive 'considerately' towards others on the roads...

 

Anyway, what I do know is, my local Facebook page news sheet [Local paper] contains two or three mentions of RTCs within the  surrounding [Yorkshire] area every week, .with accompanying fatalities.

All seem to be involving modern cars/vehicles.

 

 

[MrWolf]

It occurs to me that the modern safety features, along with driving aids such as ABS, traction control and a whole heap of other tech has made some people drive like they're invincible, immortal even.

 

You can make car components as safe as you like, apart from the nut holding the steering wheel.

[Dunsignalling]

But how many of the unreported non-fatal RTCs would have resulted in deaths if  everybody was driving around in 1960s cars?

 

John

[MrWolf]

So what should we do? Seal our old cars up in the garage as "investments"?

 

I think that the standard of driving has nosedived since I passed my test thirty odd years ago, it's just that the gadgets allow people to get away with it unscathed more often.

[alastairq]

12 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

But how many of the unreported non-fatal RTCs would have resulted in deaths if  everybody was driving around in 1960s cars?

 

John

 

An unanswerable question indeed.

Like, the question about, how many near misses does one need to have, in order to have one's standard of driving questioned? [Often drivers who ''have never had an accident in their lives?'']

A case of, ''phew, made it!!'', perhaps?

 

Nowadays the answer is easier to discover, since round hereabouts, the authorities shut the roads completely in order to clear up the messes..

Thus the local news puts out warnings.  

[Hobby]

1 hour ago, MrWolf said:

It occurs to me that the modern safety features, along with driving aids such as ABS, traction control and a whole heap of other tech has made some people drive like they're invincible, immortal even.

 

People have always driven like that, I'll be honest enough to admit that I was a bit reckless back in the 70s. But there was much less traffic so a lot less things to hit back then.

[boxbrownie]

1 hour ago, MrWolf said:

So what should we do? Seal our old cars up in the garage as "investments"?

 

I think that the standard of driving has nosedived since I passed my test thirty odd years ago, it's just that the gadgets allow people to get away with it unscathed more often.

I am sure no one is saying they shouldn’t be driven, in fact in my mind it’s not worth owning a classic if it’s not going to be driven, that’s half the fun of them.

 

Also no one can deny modern cars are a quantum leap above classics for the safe retrieval of occupants after an accident/RTC.

 

As for the standard of driving, it goes along with the standard of humanity going down over the past few decades as well, very depressing.

[alastairq]

24 minutes ago, Hobby said:

But there was much less traffic so a lot less things to hit back then.

 I'm not so sure that was always the case?

Certainly in amongst the towns and cities.

 

As a London bus driver in the early 1970's ['72-'74, to be precise] the traffic was just as manic then as it is now [having driven a waggin into London this century, a few times]

Perhaps fewer pushbikes...but certainly as many self-opinionated car & taxi drivers around!

Just as many small delivery vehicles [BR Scammells and things like that as well] too....Fewer road signs I suspect?

 

The main difference between then & now in my view is, the speed even the most basic of small hatchbacks can get up to, quite quickly.

I think modern vehicles have too much power on tap for the driver to often cope with.

Whereas in times past, a driver had to 'work' harder to get a Ford Anglia or Escort up to the sort of speeds even the smallest of SE Asian cars can achieve.

 

Back then, drivers had a little more time to think...Nowadays, they don't even have to think....

 

[boxbrownie]

7 hours ago, alastairq said:

 

 

Life has been like that in my family....like the time they disguised my portion of cream cake after the cat had been at it....

Cats!   We’ve had cats over the years, the last one was the best behaved and most like a member of the family rather than just hanging around for food and warmth when required.

 

The only time he misbehaved was a few Christmases ago now we went into the dining room to start the Boxing Day evening spread to find him sitting on the Turkey platter eating the ham slices on the other platter!

 

He wasn’t a member of the family that night 

[Nick C]

2 hours ago, MrWolf said:

It's strange how we don't notice the once commonplace cars until they're almost all gone.

Then you see one and do a double take as you suddenly realise it's the first you've seen in ages. I saw a mk3 Fiesta yesterday. Dull as ditchwater 10-15 years ago, but I can't think when I last saw one.

[stewartingram]

2 hours ago, alastairq said:

 

An unanswerable question indeed.

Like, the question about, how many near misses does one need to have, in order to have one's standard of driving questioned? [Often drivers who ''have never had an accident in their lives?'']

A case of, ''phew, made it!!'', perhaps?

 

 

As was drummed into us at work (rail related) - there are no 'near misses', they are all 'near hits'

[Hobby]

15 hours ago, alastairq said:

 I'm not so sure that was always the case?

 

Would agree about towns and cities, but outside them it most certainly was much quieter. I'm talking about the middle 70s when I had my first cars, I used to go stock car racing and used the M6 and M61/2 an awful lot back then and they were very, very quiet compared to today and that also included the back roads... Yes there were still traffic jams, and those are what we tend to remember, but they weren't the norm... Also nearly 7000 people died on the roads in the mid 70s, fewer than 2000 now... 

 

I agree about the power of cars making a difference, but, to join yours and others speculation I'd add mine, that although there are more poor/bad drivers in total numbers today (roughly 10m cars were around in the mid 70s, now over 32m so a set percentage will have a large affect on the overall numbers), I recon as a percentage of the total number of drivers overall the percentage is probably no different to what it was when I started on the road in the mid 70s. Just that they are much more visible these days, either because their numbers are larger so you see them more often or because of the airing they get on social media.

Edited November 26, 2021 by Hobby

[Dunsignalling]

I tend to agree that the proportion of bad/incompetent drivers probably hasn't changed much over the decades.

 

The problem is that the increased power of even "shopping" cars means that stupidity or loss of control can lead to greater mayhem.  All but the very slowest cars these days can give (for instance) an MGB a good run for its money.

 

We had an incident locally last year where an elderly lady lost the ability to tell the accelerator and brake apart in her small automatic. In the available width of a not very large car park, she managed to total her own vehicle and two others in a matter of moments....

 

John

[Northmoor]

23 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

I tend to agree that the proportion of bad/incompetent drivers probably hasn't changed much over the decades.

 

The problem is that the increased power of even "shopping" cars means that stupidity or loss of control can lead to greater mayhem.  All but the very slowest cars these days can give (for instance) an MGB a good run for its money.

 

We had an incident locally last year where an elderly lady lost the ability to tell the accelerator and brake apart in her small automatic. In the available width of a not very large car park, she managed to total her own vehicle and two others in a matter of moments....

 

John

I have also witnessed very elderly drivers re-arranging other cars when parking and having to have it pointed out to them as they were unaware of what they had done.

 

It is not just the straight-line performance of modern cars that cause the problem, it is the levels of road-holding.  1970s cars, on the tyres of the day, might have run out of grip on a particular sharp corner at 25mph.  An over-enthusiastic teen might try it at 30 and put himself in the ditch, but leading to little more than bruised pride.  A modern car might run out of grip at 45mph, but now the teen driver is doing 50+, so the car now clears the ditch and heads straight for the large wall on the other side......

[MrWolf]

Like I said earlier, you can fix everything on a car apart from the nut holding the steering wheel.