Talk Morgan Forums Community General Photo Gallery ABOUT OLD CARS

Hi, all

From the 12 of January 2011 my old car (’82 VW white beetle) can’t circulate any more into the town centre for air pollution level issues.
Owned it for 29 years, covered 130KKm in total and it still runs quite well.
It’s just an affective value, next year it’ll be 30 and I’ll be able to register it to the A.S.I ./Italian historic cars Association, but those limits to circulation could persuade me to sell it or, even worse, to scrap it. After all a car is there to be driven always and everywhere!

Obviously that's my second car! Just don’t ask my opinion about the need for frequent replacement of cars (almost in mint condition) only for engines/exhausts exceeding the pollution limits! As if to scrap an old car and manufacture a new one doesn’t produce new general pollution!
I’ve got no experience but thought that a strictly regulated updating/replacement of engine/exhaust of our cars, just to respect the more and more restricted air pollution limits, could be a solution to give them a longer life but really never heard of such a possibility.

But now it would be better for me to blank the mind of all those concerns…..and -“respectfully”- go out for a walk!

Regards

Claudio
_________
Visit Italy!

Motoring
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=motordesign&w=all

Artwork
http://www.flickr.com/photos/claudiobardeggiabrandi/sets/72157623861931059/

Brian, a google search for "Lifecycle study" could probably help. When I read such a US-study about two years ago, to my surprise the Jeep Wrangler came out best in spite of its heavy petrol consumption. The reasons were simple construction, no fancy building materials and a extremely long lifespan. They didn't test the Morgan (probably too small numbers) which surely would have won.

Frank

The car-Industry nowadays is going beyond his primary “Mission” to comply with a private mobility request (offer>demand and there is an overproduction of cars);
as Simon said the new “involuntary Mission” now is to support considerably the World Economy making huge investments, creating induced activity and assuring an important employment source (and so sustaining the family needs).

IMHO the recent “car-pollution rules”, held up by Governments, originate mainly to solve “car-industry maintenance” issues rather than to solve some real “collective health” concerns.

Therefore the “old-cars traffic restrictions” could be the way to encourage a more than physiological replacement of cars just to satisfy the final need of the car-Industries to sell the new cars they’ve arranged to produce.

From a different point of view we can also underline the huge power of the car-Industry Lobby nowadays; e.g. in Italy in these days the Fiat, the only Italian car-Industry, have forced the metalworkers’ union to accept a worse labour contract than the previous one, and that as a condition to maintain the car-production in Italy and the Government has its hands tied.

But really at the moment we cannot see any other “new” and “green” activity on the horizon that could increase its presence just to reduce the car-Industry weight.

I’m aware that the purchase and maintenance of a car is surely an important investment in the household-budget but, probably, also the worst one; So, when I’m buying a new car I choose one that isn’t already “old”! In fact the improved specs of every new car (lower air pollution, lower fuel consumption, better crash-test results, and more modern looking shapes etc.) contribute immediately to knock down the value of our cars.

And Morgan cars? I sincerely believe they belong to another family of cars…….
Good luck MMC!

Regards,

Claudio
_________
Visit Italy!

Motoring
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=motordesign&w=all

Artwork
http://www.flickr.com/photos/claudiobardeggiabrandi/sets/72157623861931059/