Hi, I'm just another gear head who desires to drive older beaters, such as how right now i'm enjoying the crap out of my 1993 Toyota Corolla DX. I wish it was a manual, but automatics are also fun. We drive these cars into their graves and try to revive them by engine swapping so they don't end up into the landfill. Wouldn't you rather an engine compared to the entire car end up in the fill? Already enough garbage in there. These cars are great because you also can do experiments that could kill the car and not worry about messing up a car that cost $10,000. I'm planning on installing a functional cigarette lighter that either hooks to the battery or splices into the main harness.
GETTING OFF TOPIC, slow down there. We love these cars due to their simplicity and lack of sensitive electronics. Do I like newer cars? I might like them a bit. Do I wish they were gone and there were companies that made cars that weren't 60% wires in weight? Half of that. Do they make life for the elderly more simple? Probably. They don't have to worry about the old ways the engines ran and can finally not have their cars stolen with a screwdriver in the ignition.
OLDER CARS DID IT BETTER IN TERMS OF RELIABILITY. There. Remember the good ol days in the farm truck that had rust like it was spray tan? How y'all sat on bucks that weren't mounted to the floor or the screw driver thing, or how you seen trucks racing at 60 mph on the desert backroads with the classic cop cars chasing them? I didn't experience those times due to my age, but I sure wish I did. Sounded like fun before the US turned into pussies who sue schools because their son got beat up for teasing someone else.
SIMPLER TO WORK ON. You used to not have to worry about a car's fancy computer or a MAF throwing off your fuel ratio and costing more fuel. It was just fuel into a carb with air pulled through the top and controlled with a screw and jets. That's it. Now, so many sensors pull so many readings and adjust so many other factors, I can't wrap my brain around how it does all this at the same time.
It gives us cheap vehicles we bandaid until it dies, we try CPR, if that doesn't work, we replace the engine and go back to step one.
My mother owned a 1987 Geo Metro. It lasted 17 whole years until she had to sell it. Only had to do normal maintenance and just replace the engine once. Nowadays? You'll have problems year two or three. MAJOR problems.