Originally Posted by
Hermes
Cars sucked in the 70s. It was the beginning of pollution control and testing tail pipe emissions. On the other hand, the 60s were great. Muscle cars, 427 Corvettes, Mustangs and etc. I could work on my car and they ran great with a lot of power. It took a long time for the auto industry to perfect fuel handling and combustion such that there was a reasonably low emissions car that accelerated smoothly with power and idled correctly.
Ain't it the truth. If you lived in California, and had a pre "Nox Emissions" car, you sure didn't want to give it up. I rebuilt a '63 Chevy Impala station wagon (was my dad's) from the block up - 327 with a 4 barrel carb. Nothing newer ran as sweet. I remember coasting down a long hill in neutral once (must have been almost out of gas), and the cold light came back on, it ran so cool. Nothing like driving (or riding) something you've put your own sweat and scraped knuckles into. It got around 13 mpg, which I thought was great.