I was enjoying a long drive home today from running errands and i was thinking about my Mustang, other old Mustangs and other old cars in general...I was thinking about how much different our "classic" cars will be in 59 years from now...Mustangs 100th aniversary--I'll be hitting my 77th birthday at that time. I wonder how much rarer our cars will be...maybe my cheap 289 coupe will be worth a couple hundred thousand haha, its highly doubtful, but i plan on taking my cars keys to the grave with me...although i also think it would be interesting and awesome at the same time to keep my car in mint condition for another 59 years to celebrate 100 years of existence in it.

anyone else ever wonder how long our cars will be with us? Or how rare they'll become over years? or anything thoughts baout the future and our cars?

 

Yeah I think about it all the time, but it makes me sad because I don’t see it going well.

This whole blood for oil thing isn’t getting better and at current demands we have 10 years of cheep oil. Alaska could supply the world for 6 months at current demands and US for 3 years.

Okay so all the cars become electric and oil use drops off (how long before that happens?) but what about our military and airlines, how the hell long is it going to take before we have electric jets

I bet our government will make it illegal to use gas in a motor vehicle because they are going to want it all for their jets (can you really blame them??)

Oil gets used A LOT for framing too so they are going to want a cut of it or everyone is going to fricken have to starve or be a vegetarian

For every ten gallons of crude we pump we net about 2 gallons of gas because its refined and used in the process.

WHAT REALLY SUCKS is how lame is an electric mustang going to sound [:'(]

Gun

 

I have a couple very rare cars right now. The value to me is much greater than the money I could make selling them. So I am keeping them. In 50 years I will be in my 80's. Probably not going to live that long, and couldnt enjoy my cars anyway. I have them now, and I enjoy them now. I drive them even though one of them fully restored is worth over $50k, its still my car, and a fun one at that. Some cars will never be desireable, like a Tarus or a Cavalier. Others like V8 Mustangs, F body's, and the performance types will always be valuable. We like to go fast, we can always buy something that gets good mileage, we cant always buy a car that pins your eyelids back. Take care of your car, no matter what year it is. Keep idiots from running into it and be prepared to make changes to keep it if you cant stand selling it or seeing it crushed.

I wonder what some of mine will be worth when I am 60, especially since I paid $20-$300 for most of them, and they are all old V8 2 doors. Yeah I think about it...



Gun, there are alternatives to gasoline. Right now there are refining plants in the midwest set up to produce Ethanol to mix with gas. It helps lower emissions and tends to help clean certain engine parts. These plants can be modified to produce Methanol, which has some drawbacks, such as being somewhat more corrosive than gas but being an oxygen bearing fuel, and burning cleaner, it has a higher potential for power than does Ehtanol. Top Fuel, Funnycar, and Top Alcohol Dragster/Funnycar all run on Methanol, the fuel cars also run on an 80% mix of nitromethane, not straight Methanol.

Why arent we switching to it right now? Upping compression ratios and building fuel systems so our cars can burn it? Well a number of reasons.

Firstly, the oil compaines have lobbyists that spend alot of time and money talking to politicians who make laws. Oil companies dont own alot of farm ground yet. So they dont control the source and the market like they do with oil. They arent going to let us have a renewable fuel that burns cleaner because they arent going to proffit from it.

Secondly, gasoline is still cheaper at $3 a gallon, due to few places making Methanol/Ethanol. Untill there is financial backing put into the production of alternate fuels we arent going to see cheap Alcohol based fuel. there just isnt enough of it to go around.

Third. It takes rougly twice as much methanol to make the same power as gasoline. Fewer BTU's in it, but at a certain point, gasoline can no longer make similar power due to the alcohol having oxygen already in it. It needs high compression ratios (over 12:1) to be most efficient, but the engines last longer, burn cleaner, run cooler (problematic starting in severe cold weather, ie below freezing) and are easier to maintain than gasoline engines, but it still costs more at this point.

Electrical isnt the way to go yet. We still depend on fossil fuels to make electricity. So you are trading one pollutant for another in a different place.

 

Well hopfully the methanol works out.

By the time gas is really short hopfully most of the bulk traffic will be electric that means we wont have to devote all our food farm land for growing fuel for our cars.

Man I hope it workout that way.

Gun

 

thumpin, yeah there are methional plans here. I live in edwardsville IL, and there is a ethional plant at the local university. amost of the gas in edwardsville is already made of 10% methional

 

Who in the hell have you been listening to. There is enough oil in ANWR to last many lifetimes. The footprint we will leave if drilling is permitted is the size of a postage stamp on a football field in case you and the rest of the libs were wondering. Blood for oil? Are we talking cooking oil? We have not taken any Iraqi oil although I think we should take as much as we want to pay for the war effort. God Bless our troops. There were weapons of mass distruction there and much of it was buried the hidden. I have sources that witnessed war heads capable of carrying chemicals. He poisoned men women and childred with WMD. Sorry for the rant and didn't mean to offend anyone. I support our troops and will never say anything to compromise there safety or their cause. God Bless America!

 

It was previously thought that oil was a byproduct of fossils--a theory that is currently being disproven. However, the environmentalists as well as the everyman who no longer wants to spend his money on oil will snuff out gasoline engines way before we run out of oil. In 50 years our cars will be as rare to see on the street as a Model-T is now. Not completely dissapeared, but rare.

As for another issue: parts. I dont think we'll have any trouble finding parts used. Mustang parts suppliers will desentigrate when demand for these cars goes down, and trust me, when gas get's too expensive, it will. But, with advances in technology we should be able to trade parts back and forth over the internet, or whatever it's 2050 mutation will be. Think of the advances in new technology over the last 50 years (i.e. the internet, the microwave, space travel, HDTV, cell phones...) and think of what it will be like in 2050. The connection with the rest of the world will be infinite, just as the ability to exchange parts and ideas about 80 year old cars.

 

i personally will be bumed the day we cant drive our pride and joys. I think everyone here takes for granted just how great life really is, especially in America. But look at it from this perspective; look how much the government is cracking down on our how we drive our classics anyhow, and not to mention in some states there banning the use of daily driven classic vehicles to only be used for "speacial events" such as; parades car shows, thats it.
I am gratful that i have the cars i have right now....in 50 years who knows where they'll all be, hell for all i know i might sell my beloved silver bullitt, (although highly unlikely) but the point im trying to make is, drive the hell out of your cars now, who know what will happen in the next 50 years, the gov't may very well ban all public use of motor vehicles, but intill it happens, enjoy your cars folks.....i should take my own advise, i admit i baby the GTA a little too much, and maybe should take it out more, but intill this post came about, i never really put my points into persepective

 

Banning motor vehicles would not be a feasable proposition. If you have ever been between the rocky mountains and the Missouri River, you will see that owning a car is more necessity than luxury. People still live miles from anything, and this time of year you cant walk. Public transportation would be non exsistant just as it is now. Currently where I live in the UP by Lake Superior, I have 32 miles to go so I can get food, fuel, and anything else I need. How could I do that with no vehicle? We have already had more than 100 inches of snow since October.

The surplus of grain we have now is more than enough to feed the world, and fuel our cars and trucks. It would also stimulate the economy by putting more money in the hands of the people at the bottom who work the farms, allowing them to become more efficient and produce ever more grains. The problem is, we may never see it because no matter how they try, they cant run all of the farmers off the land. Instead they just keep getting more land. But I dont want to get into farm economics..lol.

Politicians need to get out of the selling votes mode they are in now. Special interest groups and lobbyists need to be curtailed, and we also need more little guy people running things, not the super rich, or above middle class. We need people in the Senate and House who know what it is to have nothing, who know what its like to live paycheck to paycheck. Not some guy who's daddy paid for his college, left him the family business, or married someone whos family is wealthy, like the Heinz family. No more oil people, lets get some people with a different agenda than ME ME ME. Then we can keep our cars, have plenty of fuel, and a strong economy. Among other things.

 

Yes, I have thought about the Oil, and what would happen in the future if it ran out. I thought the same as some of you. WTF would i do with an electric powered 66 stang? lol. I believe one day, that scientists will actually be able to figure out how to make a suitable gas, no, a PERFECT gas. A gas that burns clean, has power, and doesn't hurt the engines, but the WHOLE problem is the damn Oil companies. I really believe that there is a consperiacy out there, and that they really are killing scientists and people who make these cheap alternative fuel sources, because, that would literally put them out of business