PT Cruiser to live on

Aargh! That was during that absolutely awful era when the manufacturers
were using the consumer as guinea pigs to find out how *not* to use
plastics in cars. So many cracked dashes, consoles, and arm rests!
Every car was a rolling experiment for the plastics manufacturers to
make incremental improvements one year after another. Eventually they
got it right (mostly), but it was a long and painful process.

 

Bill,
I have a beautiful 1941 Chrysler Windsor with "ALL" the gorgeous pre-war plastic intact. The mottled dash pieces,
and all the door sills are like new. I have never seen a pre-war car with any plastic/bakelite that wasn't warped or
cracked or gone. The 42 was the last to use the plastic, the 46-48 went back to metal dashes and chromed pieces on
the dash. Yes, that 77 MGB had terrible dash(had to replace the whole thing during resoration), the armrest split and
cracked, again replaced with real leather, but I did waterproof all electrical connections with shrink wrap and spade
connectors. The Prince of Darkness never once, in the 14 years I owned the MGB, was a problem!

 

They are an amazingly good car. Smooth, quiet, comfortable, decent
gas mileage, at least on the highway, and with the suspension option
they have excellent handling and still ride great. The 4.6 also has
more then adequate power for them. Unfortunately, the public puts too
much faith in the car reviewers and all they care about are cars with
super high horsepower and extreme handling capabilities. 20 years ago
that was an ok thing when most Detroit mainline vehicles had terrible
handling with the stock suspension, but now it's just become stupid.
If a car can't do 0 - 60 in under 7 seconds and 0.85 on the skidpan
they knock it.

 

Does this http://www.macksmotormemories.com/41CHRY2dr.htm look
familiar?

 

You sound like me. I recently was reading reviews of the Jeep Patriot
and the "experts" had complaint after complaint about the cheap
interior, the CVT transmission, lack of power, and on and on. The
actual owners almost all loved them. I rented one and have to side
with the actual owners, for the money it is one heck of a deal. Auto
testers have become a group of elite snobs, they can hardly stand to
lower themselves to test something so plebeian as a low priced compact
and god forbid it won't do 0 - 60 in under 7 seconds. I've always
been a fan of "performance" in cars but what is now considered
acceptable performance by these car testers is ludicrous.

 

Ashton,
So you have come around to seeing that 0-60 is not the be all end all of car perfomance.
That T-Bird is a great car, full sized coupe with a small V-8 that gets great mileage.

 

Great! Now we have to get you into a Fluid Drive Chrysler/DeSoto/Dodge and experience the smooth driving
experience that people expected in American cars for decades!

 

Gorgeous two door Victoria 2-door sedan, notice the rear vent window. That is my car, just that I have 4 doors. They
do not show any interior shots for the upholstery and the plastic dash, which is critical if it is warped/cracked.
Beautiful two-tone paint. It should probably go for about 10K, it is overpriced at 14,5K. Chrome looks good as does
the grill. Still it bothers me that no interior shots are included.

 

My bad, didn't see the "other pics". Yes, the dash looks in excellent condition, very important,and interior looks pretty
good. If you want the car, don't pay that much. Look in the Walter P. Chrysler Magazine. There was a 1949 New
Yorker Coupe, fully restored for only $9K, a hell of a deal!

 

0- 60 isn't everything. But it's something. My benchmark is that
ideally it should be 10 seconds or under or the car will seem
sluggish. But some cars have good off the line "grunt" even though
their 0 - 60 might be 12 seconds and they do fine in normal driving.
I've got a 99 Mustang GT and it's only got 260 hp and does 0 - 60 in
around 7 seconds. It's fun but that level of performance simply isn't
needed - it's way beyond what's needed to drive in a spirited fashion.
I'm not against it, after all I have it, but it's overkill. Yet 260
hp today is considered chickenfeed. Now they are pushing 320 to 500
hp for the high end models. That's fine if you want it but when the
car mag writers make it seem like even that is barely enough,
something is out of whack. I get about 4 of these car mags for free
and there is no way I would pay to subscribe, the info in them just
isn't rationally useful anymore.

 

if I buy any more cars my wife will divorce me....

 

You're on to it, aerodynamics has a lot to do with the lower than
expected fuel mileage.
The VW New Beetle suffers the same fate of higher highway fuel mileage
than the same drive train in the Golf.
There is an obvious reason, the not smooth sides caused by the retro
fenders.

 

I don't recall my father ever having an engine bearing problem, or his
brother who had a '38 Chev.
Of course both treated their "fragile bearing" Chevs with great care,
never reving or loading them too high.
As for other reliability aspects of the 36 Chev, it was terrible even
for those days. He drove it until '51.

 

That's exactly why it never interested me, although it's size did.

 

Mine probably wouldn't divorce me... but she might make me live in the
garage with the cars :-/

I drool every time I see a new Challenger on the road, and truth be told
I could probably sell my '69 R/T and go buy one with a little change
leftover (it might take a while to hook up with the right buyer, but its
doable). But I'm not willing to let go of the old one just for the new
one. Plus I still want to restore my '49 coupe some day, and then
there's my old high-school Satellite that may eventually get either a
90s Magnum or a 5.7 Hemi transplant just for fun.... therefore my car
collecting habit has come to a standstill and the wife finally got the
PT she always wanted. Funny thing is that underpowered as it may be, I'm
actually starting to have a fair amount of fun driving the PT when we go
somewhere together. Its just a cool little machine, mediocre mileage and
all.

 

The old stovebolt six gave good service, but it needed overhauls more than the more robust flathead six. Chrysler
mad the flathead engine into an art form, still making them into the 70's for military and industrial use. Who knows,
they still might be making them somewhere.
The 36 Chevy might be terrible, but it had a beautiful grill and body. I think that the 37 grill was the prettiest grill on a
Chevy ever. That entire 37 GM line was one of the best looking ever.

 

Steve,
You have an original Challenger? My wife and I went to the Barrett-Jackson auction when it came here to Palm
Beach, and a 70 orange on went for 1.2 MILLION! What engine does you Plymouth Satellite have? What is the 49?
Sounds like you do have an old car thing after all!

 

No, a Coronet R/T convertible. Should have made that clear.

Just a 318 with 437,000 miles on it, and its just a non-collectible
4-door sedan, which is why I never got rid of it. But that makes it fun-
I'll make changes to it that I'd never make to the Coronet. Before I
mostly quit driving it and got interested in other projects, I had put
polygraphite bushings throughout, eliminated the K-frame isolator
donuts, installed front/rear swaybars, upgraded torsion bars, put good
shocks on, plus better wheels and tires. It handled like it was on
rails, which is one reason I'd like to resurrect it some day. It would
be my version of Ehrenberg's "green brick,"

A Plymouth Special DeLuxe club coupe. 215 flathead, 3-on-the-tree. It
could be made driveable with minimal effort and in fact it moved into
its current nook in the workshop under its own power some years ago
(fuelled from a 1-gallon cell strapped to the front bumper because the
tank is full gunk), but it really needs a thorough resto to do it
justice. It wouldn't even take much body work, just a whole lot of time
and details. If I live long enough.....

THAT has never been in doubt for the past 30 years. But recent years
have been family and career first and the Coronet has been the primary
outlet for the old-car bug. Getting close to the kiddo being out of
school now, and getting closer to retirement so its time to pull some
ideas off the back burner.

 

I'm waiting to take delivery of a new PT under the C4C program.
Hopefully this weekend. I'm sure it will feel underpowered at times
but I've got my GT for when I want wheelspin. We only looked at the
PT as an afterthought and I never thought we'd buy one but it was the
only option left that was actually in stock and met my basic
requirements. Plus it was quite inexpensive. But what sold us was
that it just seemed like a really nice car for the money, looks well
built, comfortable, quiet. In some ways a less powerful car is more
fun because you have to be more involved in driving it - with the GT
it's just point and shoot, heck, anyone can do that.

 

You picked a winner! Our PT's were very high quality, not one thing ever went wrong with them: the basic model
4door and the Convertible. If you can live with the poor mileage, it is a great car. I hope that you get more than we
did. The base model actually got 26 going 60 to Orlando one time, with the 150hp engine. I thought that that much
HP was enough, but my wife wanted hers with the 180hp turbo. That was the one that got the lousy mileage. As I
might have said before: if I want that kind of mileage, I will just drive my 41 Windsor around all day!