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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Moominoid who wrote (67093)	8/7/2005 3:43:54 PM
From: Slagle	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

Moominoid Re: "relative to the gas guzzlers" Maybe as compared to an H2 or an Expedition. <g> Back in the 1950's and the early 1960's there were a whole bunch of REAL economy cars. A radio or heater was an option and many didn't have either. And this was way before any rumor of "oil shortage" had arisen, at least among the general public and when gas was 25 cents per gallon and sometimes as cheap as a nickle during a "gas war". People, especially guys like my Dad just didn't like the idea of wasting ANYTHING and I think that is a very good and healthy way to look at the world. THe US carmakers had a bunch of super economy models, with the radio being an option but a freewheeling overdrive transmission was STANDARD. And in those days folks were just more concerned with matters like gas mileage, just read the road test reviews of the new cars in the magazines. Of course those same car makers had all sorts of gas guzzlers, with every sort of luxury or either the sporty stripped down type with the super big engine. THe big engines might have come earlier than they did but it was up in the 1960's before drive trains that could cope with the power came about. All these Saturns and Jettas have air conditioning, and that is a couple of horsepower. In thermodynamics there is no free lunch. Back in the old days the luxury cars had AC but not the economy models. And no automatics either. Any car with a torque converter eats up lots of fuel for the convenience, hence the need for the heat exchanger for the tranny; they don't put that on for looks. And if the US models were not stingy enough for you there were always the imports. The VW with 36 horsepower and even much less horsepower for some of the others. And all quite ample for transportation. Most of them were actually fun to drive, something I can't say about many of these tubs available today. And there is a really big difference today in my mind; now, unlike the 1950's or 60's WE KNOW that there is a limit to the amount of oil available to us and to our offspring, yet we are even less concerned about it. Go figure. Slagle