> Hope he enjoys getting single-digit miles per gallon
But where will he find the leaded gasoline to run it???
But where will he find the leaded gasoline to run it???
Of all the problems cars of that generation have the one that bugs me the most is poor rustproofing. You see people driving classic cars all the time in dry places like California and New Mexico but in Upstate NY road salt will eat a car like that alive if you drive it in the winter.
So if we got a boat we'd need a garage to keep it in and another car to be a driver in the winter.
The difference to modern cars is night and day: The Corolla rusts to death in five years, as in you can stick your whole arm through the holes in the wheel well if the structural integrity of the chassis doesn't fail first. Whereas most cars produced after 1990 will last about two decades without owner rustproofing.
You obviously can't dictate that all redox reactions will halt, but the manufacturers have absolutely done something that makes their cars rust slower.
The "end-user rustproofing" we do here generally consists of spraying some super-heavy, super-sticky oil-based coating onto the metal so it doesn't get wet. But this obviously complicates other maintenance.
The thing is I don't think manufacturer's like adding products like that as it messes with the fuel economy results. It's actually quite heavy, despite being just a "coating"
IIRC most manufacturers, at least in Europe, at some point started zinc galvanization, this prevents most rust from forming:
In any case, most of what I find is in German. Like here it states that premium manufacturers started using zinc galvanization in the 80s: https://www.seat.de/service-zubehoer/technik-lexikon/k/karos....
It also says it protects from rust despite abrasion.
Note that I live in an area where we salt the roads in winter. If you live in a dry desert old cars last a lot longer, and you might actually need to worry about your valves.