Jeff McNeal wrote:
>
> Well Trevor, I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one.
> What's the difference between 60's reliability standards and 80's
> reliability standards when we're all driving according to '00 reliability
> standards?
Well, it still matters, there are shades of grey even though in
a modern world they all look black.
People's expectations just get higher and higher every decade,
and the bar is raised.
100,000km spark plug change intervals are the norm now with
platinum tips. 80,000km tire lifespan, 200,000+km between engine
rebuilds, and so on. That's for the year 200.
My 58 ZB is older than the cars we are talking about here, but
that car has over 20 service points that need attention every
3000 miles. For 1958 that was the norm, would that car sell today?
Practical classics recently did a review of a veteran car that
needed lubrication every 30 miles!
...the progress was pretty constant throughout the century. If
we are to consider ourselves 20 years ahead of the Pony, we must
acknowledge that it had about 20 years on the original incarnation
of the Spitfire tranny(ies).
I think we all agree that if you could drop a year 2000 toyota
celica six speed tranny in there, reliability would be as
near to total as possible. However, I think the weighting between
a "worse than average 80s design" and a "worse than average
60s design" still leans towards the Hyundai.
Actually, all this is probably moot, I think what is more
important is what caused those 80s Ponies to be termed "bad". Maybe
the tranny was the reason, or maybe it was the brightest spot
on a dim canvas.
--
Trevor Boicey, P. Eng.
Ottawa, Canada, tboicey@brit.ca
ICQ #17432933 http://www.brit.ca/~tboicey/
"A dog like this you have to feed EVERY DAY." - Homer Simpson
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