just offering a counter point...

my first car was a 1969 Dodge Charger with a 225 slant and 3 on the tree. my second car was a 1961 Willy's Jeep Dispatcher (basically a mail truck with left hand drive). i learned how to drive on my parent's D100 that i am now restoring.

i didn't buy the mustangs until i was in my 20's. i had a 85 GT first and then later bought a 85 LX 5.0 ex FHP patrol car. both were a ton of fun - there's nothing like doing a 180 on a 2 lane road in a LX notchback and never touching grass on either side.

i also had a fox bodied 85 LTD FHP car that i drove to Alaska one summer - 18,093 miles in 9 weeks and three days. they were all cheaply made but the 5.0 engine was nearly indestructible. all of them had over 150K on the odo and non of the engines needed any work. i pulled heads, main caps and rod caps and none had any detrimental wear - though the LTD need a valve job and rings.

i raced a T Type Buick several times with my GT and easily beat him. the GNX's were quite a different story... dman things were FAST. i was thisclose to buying a first year Shelby Dakota brand new from the same dealer and salesman that sold my parent's the 64 D100 new. i could not come up with the down payment to make the regular payment affordable so that's when i bought the GT 5.0. they were cool trucks but they were pretty slow compared to the mustangs.

anyway, my long drawn out point is keep an open mind on this stuff - there's plenty of cool cars in every era (gasp - including the 70s) that most people will find a niche to hang their hat on. guess that's what makes the world go 'round.

more to the point - the Cash For Clunkers thing is a sham on the greenies because most older cars have "environmental equity" where-as a new or newer car is in an "environmental debit" in terms of manufacturing and shipping the car to its final sales destination. it will take many miles and usage for a car to "pay off" it environmental debit and crushing them before their useful life and enviro-debit is "paid off" then you're simply creating more environmental impact by crushing it too soon.

i shudder to think what sort of environmental impact these hybrid batteries present when they start showing up in scrap yards much less attempting to measure the enviro-debit simply based on the amount of plastic in the wires alone...

Ben

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1964 Dodge D100 426SW High Performance Package
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