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Comment by loopdoend | Hacker News Reader

Losing a quart of oil every 150 miles seems bad? For the environment more so than the price of the car?

Until the 1980s, most cars came with a mandatory oil leak. Look at pictures of 1970s freeways, with a dark band down the center of each lane. It wasn't until the 1980s, when Japanese cars got good, that it became abnormal for automobiles to leak their working fluids.

Restoring really old, rare cars means paying for custom part manufacturing. Or having your own machine shop. There are still parts for 1957 Chevys, but a 1929 REO, no.

When you drive to 'certain' parts of towns there is always an uptick in stained parking spots from oil leaks.

Those cars are much more used. as a kid my dad had a car turn 100k miles - he called all his friends to see. He added oil as he left, drove off in a cloud of blue smoke (burning oil was blue) and when he returned a ten miles latter he already had to add more oil. Now I have a car with 200k miles and I rarely check the oil.

It didn't have seatbelts or crumple zones either.

I know that judging the past by the morals of the present is a fashionable but pretty much everyone in 1929 found oil on the road far preferable to horse excrement.

When I was a kid I had to keep several quarts of oil in the car in order to replenish when necessary. Also a bottle of antifreeze and several bottles of water.

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