Neat article on a 1970's 'big boat'....

[OVERKILL]

The Beetle had soul, just like (but I think in a different form) the muscle cars and that's why it was and is sought after.

A car can be many things on paper. But when it comes down to remembering the cars of the 60's and 70's, it is not these Japanese "miracles" that lovcom speaks of that get remembered. And it is certainly not these cars that get people off their wallets at auctions and turned into garage builds for hobbyists and retirees.

So one can make all the arguments they want about how they were "better" in this way or that. That they were "more reliable" or "more advanced" or all kinds of metrics for touting their superiority.

But at the end of the day, one really needs to ask the questions: If they were really that good, why doesn't anybody want them?

 

[Spazdog]

If we go down to two wheels, Honda was that good.

The CB750.

Before that, you would buy a Sportster, Norton, or Triumph if you wanted a fast bike. They were rough, leaky, and would get beat by a lot of cars. And they weren't especially reliable.

The Honda was smooth, quick, fast, handled well, (for 1969) reliable and was oil-tight. It had a hydraulic disc brake when cable operated drums were the norm. It ran in the very low 13s to high 12s depending on what you read. Reviewers had to go to the thesaurus for more superlatives when they ran out.

You dreamed of the power and exhaust note of the BSA Rocket3 but you knew that the BSA (aka: B****** Stopped Again) would self destruct before the Honda needed to be refueled

It was a massive hit that staggered the Brits ultimately leading to their knockout and brought down the mighty Harley Davidson for an 8-count.

It really changed everything.

It's the better machine by far. Not just on paper. But comparitively speaking, "nobody" wants it.
(there actually is a small collectors market for the CB750K and the massively powerful for it's time Kawasaki Z1)

 

[mechanicx]

I don't remember all these "junk" and unreliable American cars of the 70's. At the time they actually had a reputation of being reliable. They were pretty durable and would run for a long time with maintenance. All cars back then required maintenace and tune ups and not everyone knew how to do it.

Even in the 80's and 90's cars when the supposed most reliable Japanese cars were almost outselling many American cars, it was the GM vehicles I saw motoring on 20 years later more often than the import brands. I do recall people back in the day proclaiming Japanese cars more durable and reliable before any of them had any years or miles. They probably picked that up from the media marketing.

Besides all that there is much more to a car than reliability. Things like styling, comfort, room, power, drivability, comfort, features etc. Japanese automakers did some things better while American automakers did other things better. To claim American cars were bad and Japanese cars were great is at best an oversimplification and incorrect.

 

[SteveSRT8]

Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
But at the end of the day, one really needs to ask the questions: If they were really that good, why doesn't anybody want them?



OUCH! The market has spoken.

Sometimes the truth hurts!

 

[Cujet]

Wasn't there a thread here about how cars had gotten bigger recently?

Because, in my lifetime, cars are generally smaller now.

My family had a Ford LTD station wagon. It held 3 across the front, 4 in the back seat, and 4 in the "well" seating in the back.

Or it held, mom, dad, 4 kids, my dirt bike and 2 weeks worth of luggage on a road trip. There are no "cars" today that can do that. NONE. Only SUV's, vans and pickups.

 

[Spazdog]

Originally Posted By: mechanicx
I don't remember all these "junk" and unreliable American cars of the 70's. At the time they actually had a reputation of being reliable. They were pretty durable and would run for a long time with maintenance. All cars back then required maintenace and tune ups and not everyone knew how to do it.

Even in the 80's and 90's cars when the supposed most reliable Japanese cars were almost outselling many American cars, it was the GM vehicles I saw motoring on 20 years later more often than the import brands. I do recall people back in the day proclaiming Japanese cars more durable and reliable before any of them had any years or miles. They probably picked that up from the media marketing.



Are you sure?

I bet I can find 20 running CA and CB Accords for every one 4 cylinder Taurus or Lumina. Probably 10:1 for every similar year 3.8 Taurus. It's probably 5:1 for all engines.

When I did installations for a used car lot, the owner was an idiot who would buy anything, but his brother would only buy certain generation Accords and Camries. He said, "They always last the duration of the note...I always get my money on them." And his cars had the highest percentage of payoffs because they seemed to keep running the longest.

 

[mechanicx]

I actually lived in Arlington many years ago and even back then there were more Japanese cars there than American. Is it possible there are much more of them? When you go to places where there are more equal ratio of domestic and asian models you see a lot more older GM vehicles with 150K-300k miles still running around as much or more than the asian models.

 

[Spazdog]

I think fullsize trucks and SUVs are more plentiful than anything around here.

There are plenty of Tauruses (Tauri?) and Luminas. I think all the 2.5 4 cylinder variants are long dead though. They also made a Quad4 Grand Prix but I've only seen one of those in their heyday so your ratio bears out there.

I had 2 CA Accords come into my shop today to calibrate their breathalyzers. One was well over 330,000 miles.