Autos used for a century. Hows the progress?

[ledslinger]

I was driving down the highway thinking how amazed people would have been a 100 years ago to see the speed and comfort we travel. As I thought about it I loosely concluded that innovation in autos really isn't that impressive. An 80 year old car can travel at over 50 mph on today's roads. Auto development in 100 years isn't nearly as impressive as aircraft progress in 50.

What do you think of 100 years of auto development?

 

[Shannow]

1948 Holden carried 5 at the legal speed limit (then and now), and got about 30MPG Oz.

2010 Commodore/Falcon carries 5 at the legal speed limit, and gets a bit better, but not much.

I'll get leaped on about safety, airbags, sophistication etc.

But the basic running gear is evolution from 90-100 year old designs, but using more modern materials, manufacturing techniques, and electronics.

 

[mechanicx]

I always thought the mechanical stuff they did between the say the late 30's and 60's was amazing. They came up with innovations from scratch and did it all the enineering on paper with no real computers. A state of the art 50's car was pretty good and impressive. The carburetor and even mechanical injection available in the 50's and V8 power were great.

And take a 40's fighter plane engine like the Merlin. They had the reciprocating engine pretty much maximized by that time. Also it was the American auto industry that did a lot of the engineering updates for it. I think it was Packard who developed the mass production for the Merlin, made some improvements and did some kind of upgrade to the supercharger. The auto industry had the know how to make even more advance cars back then, but they were making cars that were affordable. The aircraft industry could go more expensive.

 

[simple_gifts]

Look at telecommunications for some serious 100 year accomplishments.

 

[UNC017]

Originally Posted By: ledslinger
I was driving down the highway thinking how amazed people would have been a 100 years ago to see the speed and comfort we travel. As I thought about it I loosely concluded that innovation in autos really isn't that impressive. An 80 year old car can travel at over 50 mph on today's roads. Auto development in 100 years isn't nearly as impressive as aircraft progress in 50.

What do you think of 100 years of auto development?


Same as everything else in the 20th century- amazing change. Although, automobile ultimate capabilities really stopped evolving in the 60s, and since then its been refinement and improvement on the existing capability. My '66 can run as hard and fast as any car made today, but today's cars just do it on vastly less fuel, are quieter for the passengers, have more safety and comfort features, and much, much cleaner emissions-wise. The same can be said of commercial aviation, too. A 1960 Boeing 707 pretty much could do everything the latest jets today can do, just not as efficiently or quietly. It seems to me that if progress had really kept up the pace it was on through 1960, our national speed limit would be well into the triple digits and all passenger airliners would be supersonic.

 

[willix]

Privatizing NASA and banning happy meals is the current future. We are the leaders of the "new" free world.

 

[Vikas]

Once you compare the rate of change in the computer and telecommunication industry, all others industry feel like moving at snail's pace. It still takes almost the same amount of time for mortals to travel from Boston to Bombay after 30 years of innovation in the aviation.

- Vikas

 

[rjundi]

I think the cost, longevity and maintenance is considerably better now than 80 years ago except for fuel.

 

[ahoier]

Yea, really, if you think about it not much really has changed.

We got Power Steering now.

ABS.

Air Bags.

Gone are Carburetors, we now have Fuel Injection.

But other than that, not much new "developments"

Oh yea, and these new fangled "hybrid" vehicles that are capable of using battery and/or gasoline.

 

[Chris Meutsch]

Originally Posted By: ledslinger
Auto development in 100 years isn't nearly as impressive as aircraft progress in 50.


It doesn't have to be. Planes don't break down on the side of the road, and subsequent passengers just find a way home. Breaking down at 500mph and 30k feet above the earth needs to never happen. Hence, plane development to where we are today.

 

[FL_Rob]

Yes, technologically,we should be driving 'flying' cars.That said,the avg IQ hasn't kept pace.You have adults who can't balance a checkbook,countback change,or type out a formal resume.
Everthing today is instant gratification.People are given a license without knowing how to drive, not allowed to discipline their kids ,and now it's too late,etc,.etc,.No,if the avg car was all the avg person could handle ,lets call it a day .

 

[caravanmike]

a model t gets me to work just like a 2010 coupe! pistons, valves, cranks, tires, brakes, but we do have more comfort.

 

[rclint]

You might look at that car going down the road, and think not much has changed.. but woe unto thee !! Have any of you ever dealt with the old enclosed drive shafts, and how much maintenance was needed for these old cars/trucks ? Yes they done a find job back then, however the mechanical, maintainability, economy, and power (for the overall parts) has leaped forward. Not to mention when cranking up on cold morning not having to worry about a choke, I despise a carburetor to this day.. I can work on them, rebuild them etc, but for a daily driver multipoint fuel injection rules. I almost forgot about the babbitt bearings not sure how late these were used, but I know they were used in the 50's

Also any 30's, 40's car would be screaming doing 50-55 going down the road not to mention on the interstate around 70-80 may put it at or over redline. Loud, felt like you were riding on the road, always something needing fixed yesterday, I love old cars/trucks, but for my daily driver give me a lat model multipoint fuel injected car or truck.

Edit to add the leaps forward in the automotive industry has almost always been used to make the car cheaper in some way, however many of these things plastics, lighter weight materials (gosh I almost forgot about aluminum) dramatically reduced the weight of teh car, and in many cases was stronger, however just like the good people the car makers are they seem to like to teeter on just how cheap they can go and still make it.

 

[IndyIan]

Maybe its progress?

 

[wirelessF]

I was watching "Trucks" on SpikeTV the other day and they had this old heavy duty truck with grease fittings on the leaf spring bushings. Now that was cool.

Now almost everything on the chassis is sealed, ball joints, u-joints. I think we progressed with lower maintainable cars like longer OCI's, sealed trans, "for life" fluids, etc.

 

[expat]

Originally Posted By: IndyIan
Maybe its progress?


"Sure, cars are better now, if “better” is a measure of function—of how well an item fulfills its primary duty. But in becoming better, today’s cars have primarily focused on eliminating what makes the Porsche and Jag so exciting—that being the journey itself. Everything on the Honda is designed either to be a distraction from the actual journey—like the DVD, climate control and so on—or to distance the occupants as far as possible from the experience of the trip.

The Porsche and the Jag, on the other hand, are all about the experience of the trip, which is great, because if measured by any other standard, they simply fall short. "

+1

 

[Pop_Rivit]

Originally Posted By: rclint
You might look at that car going down the road, and think not much has changed.. but woe unto thee !! Have any of you ever dealt with the old enclosed drive shafts, and how much maintenance was needed for these old cars/trucks ? Yes they done a find job back then, however the mechanical, maintainability, economy, and power (for the overall parts) has leaped forward. Not to mention when cranking up on cold morning not having to worry about a choke, I despise a carburetor to this day.. I can work on them, rebuild them etc, but for a daily driver multipoint fuel injection rules. I almost forgot about the babbitt bearings not sure how late these were used, but I know they were used in the 50's

Also any 30's, 40's car would be screaming doing 50-55 going down the road not to mention on the interstate around 70-80 may put it at or over redline. Loud, felt like you were riding on the road, always something needing fixed yesterday, I love old cars/trucks, but for my daily driver give me a lat model multipoint fuel injected car or truck.

Edit to add the leaps forward in the automotive industry has almost always been used to make the car cheaper in some way, however many of these things plastics, lighter weight materials (gosh I almost forgot about aluminum) dramatically reduced the weight of teh car, and in many cases was stronger, however just like the good people the car makers are they seem to like to teeter on just how cheap they can go and still make it.


Well said. While I have an appreciation of older vehicles, they simply don't meet the standards of safety and reliability of modern vehicles. It's easy to look back on vintage vehicles with rose colored glasses.

Remember how fast the vehicles from the 1950's and 1960's rusted out? We purchased a new Ford Country Squire wagon in March of 1966. When we sold it in 1971 the area behind the rear wheels was completely rusted and the door bottoms and rocker panels were starting to rust. Even the cheapest cars today last much longer.

 

[The_Jeff]

... and in the greatest insult to myself as a driver since the 1974 seatbelt/ignition interlock, we're all getting ESC/ABS soon and TPMS now.

Fortunately as a cheapskate/curmudgeon, I won't bet getting this in my used fleet for another ten years or so. So I can read reports about the firmware (and sudden accelleration etc) and pick my pony.

 

[IndyIan]

Originally Posted By: eljefino
... and in the greatest insult to myself as a driver since the 1974 seatbelt/ignition interlock, we're all getting ESC/ABS soon and TPMS now.

Fortunately as a cheapskate/curmudgeon, I won't bet getting this in my used fleet for another ten years or so. So I can read reports about the firmware (and sudden accelleration etc) and pick my pony.

I wonder how long we'll be able to turn off the electronic safety features? Or atleast be able to pull the fuse to disable them for motorsports.

 

[CivicFan]

Hopefully within the next 2 decades we will start transitioning to electric cars. It's silly that we are stuck with such an archaic device as an internal combustion engine for transportation.