Old Car Brochures

But the sound was a lot of fun. You could almost hear the gas (and lots of money) gurgling through the carburetors.

The emissions era really only served to strangle power output and destroy any classical romance in the American car market. Efficiency gains didn't really show up in American markets until some 30 years later in the late 90s at the earliest, until then everything was underpowered and anemic to satisfy EPA constraints.

Look no further than the 5.7L V8 C3 Corvette from the 70s way into the mid nineties when the LT1/LT4 were finally introduced. Until then you had 5.7 liter small blocks barely making 200hp because of emissions regulations.

Of course, comparing it to a modern Mercedes 4-cyl is a silly apples-to-shortbread comparison. Nobody was optimizing for specific output in the 1960s when the Lima V8s were designed. Whatever engine you put in a Lincoln back then had to first be able to move a 5500lb+(!!) sedan off the line, working through a not-terribly-responsive C3 automatic.

Bottom-end torque was the key, and in europe, cars of that mass were often diesel for that reason. In the US gas was $.22 for 4L or so, so a giant V8 with 8mpg was an acceptable solution. The Ford big-blocks were also popular motorhome engines for that reason; many are still running today.

...which is another thing. Those engines were huge in both displacement and packaging by modern standards, massively heavy (cast-iron or forged-steel...everything), and of fairly conservative valvetrain and fuel-system design. While this meant there was a limit as to how efficient you can make one, it also means that they can be maintained almost indefinitely with only modest expenditure of time and money, a statement that I don't think has ever been made about AMG engines of any recent vintage....

So don’t be fooled by the brochures. We weren’t.

There's a difference between the HN crowd and new car buyers in general. Most people here can afford any car they want (within reason) and buy whatever lines up with their priorities best. Your average car buyer does not prioritize safety or fuel economy (especially fuel economy) beyond requiring that it meet some threshold that basically everything in the class they're looking at meets. Getting in a serious crash happens zero times in most people's lives. Of course people who are cost constrained don't spend much time thinking about it. Nobody ever chose not to buy a Chevy Aveo because they didn't like the crash test rating. Seriously, 5%ers making software dev salaries don't shop for cars the way the masses do (and it shows, compare your office parking lot to the average traffic jam).

>This notion that safety is only of concern to people who aren't directly relevant to the car-buying decision (such as, ugh, women)

Where did I imply anyone was irrelevant to the car buying process? Most couple shop for cars as couples. Heck, many couples bring their kids and ask them if they like the rear seats (comfortable kids are quiet kids). Both members typically have non-negotiable "the vehicle must X" criteria that constrains the search space even when only one person is going to be paying. This is part of why the Jeep Wrangler sells so well (think about all the feature boxes it checks). People being people they have different priorities. Generally speaking whoever is going to be paying wants something fun and whoever isn't wants something practical.

>which is one of the blind spots that ended up getting Detroit's clock cleaned by imports.

You either have little memory of 70s and 80s imports and/or is looking at them through rose colored glasses because it's what you remember being dragged around in as a child. There's a reason people compared them to tin cans. Nobody liked them. Everyone bought them. Honda Civics were the Dodge Journey of their day.

Detroit lost to imports because Detroit built what the US buyers wanted and they sat on the lots while the Japanese built the cars the US buyers needed. Honda built a better Chevette than Chevy did (and the organizational reasons that happened are well beyond the scope of this comment). Like most incumbents Detroit avoided change until it was basically too late.

To be fair, though, my pickup is a 1946 Dodge.