IML: still crazy after all these years

["Hugh, 58 Imperial" <imperial58@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

It's us who are crazy and out of step with the world.  Planned obsolescence 
is at least eighty years old.  Modern cars are designed to be ultra 
disposable.  They'll sacrifice themselves in an accident so you can walk 
away and when fashions change, and the car is scrapped, the percentage of 
recyclable parts is astonishing.  The odd part of this equation is that what 
kills the sale of the big American Three manufacturers is poor resale value, 
but that's a different story.  It just isn't cost effective to repair 
anything on new cars anymore, plus the liability from an accident if the 
part should either fail or be suspected of having failed, makes replacement 
a far more attractive proposition.

Not only do we here like old cars and think they are worth spending 
inordinate amounts of time, money and effort to keep  going, we like a 
really obscure old name plate into the bargain.  Not some obvious 57 Chevy 
or Mustang for the likes of us.  If you have a Packard or a Studebaker, you 
don't have to spend time explaining to people who made it, which cannot be 
said of the Imperial.  I don't like taking my car to a shop if I can avoid 
it because I don't trust them to do the job properly.  I have personally 
rebuilt parts, from wheel brake cylinders to window motors that I was told 
could not be fixed.  The worst piece of advice I was ever given was when I 
was just starting out and was told by a skilled aircraft mechanic that the 
water pump on my 58 could not be rebuilt.  I spent years chasing one down - 
this was before I got on the internet - even though I knew that whatever I 
acquired would probably be in the same shape as the one I already had.  And 
guess what?  My local NAPA - now closed - got it done for under $30.  The 
moral of the story is that while I may be crazy at least I ain't totally 
full of spurious information, or at least I hope so.

It's good to be us, I think.  The whole OIC / IML thing came about to get 
over how infrequent it is to find someone else who knows anything about 
these cars and now, on most days, you can expect around thirty messages a 
day, which ain't bad at all.

By every objective criteria, my 58 is goner.  And then today I met a fellow 
IML member and saw his cars and thought what the heck am I talking about. 
He would kill - possibly me - to have either of his cars, which he fully 
intends to restore, well at least one of them, as good as mine, as bad as it 
is.  It was very exciting and rejuvenating.  All I lack right now is money. 
That's hardly a good reason to throw in the towel.

Hugh 



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