Tinkering with my Mustang one day while
trying out a new tool, I decided to remove a spark plug and check its
condition. I was rather surprised to find them heavily worn. I
removed the other five and found all of them to have extremely large
gaps, indicating they were near the end of their useful life. As the
car had nearly 90,000 miles on the odometer I surmised that these
were likely the original plugs. I obtained replacements and installed
them but did not discern any appreciable improvement in how the car
ran.
Such is the wonder of modern
technology. Tired plugs like the ones I had removed from the
Mustang's engine would have caused erratic running and poor economy
in any number of older cars I had once owned. I was reminded of my
1979 Austin Mini and its point distributor that required regular
fiddling to keep it properly functioning. Minor adjustments on older
cars could reap noticeable rewards.
Today, computers control the functions
of fuel and spark. Wear is compensated for automatically, as are fuel
quality, air temperature and a host of other variables. The computer
adapts and alters that which was once done by human hands and
screwdrivers.
Exotica has also become commonplace as
electronic devices have removed cantankerousness from complex
designs. Dual overhead camshafts, hemispherical combustion chambers
and higher compression pistons are all commonplace as a result. The
4.0 V6 in my Mustang produces 210 horsepower, a figure the V8 in the
original Mustang barely managed.
Carburetors have been excised for fuel
injection systems. Gone are the days of pulling choke knobs or
pumping gas pedals to prime a cold engine into action. Accelerators
in many cases no longer are physically connected to the engine.
Instead, they are activated by wires and switches.
All of this has made cars much easier
to live with, though at the cost of complexity and price. However, we
also lose some of what used to make cars more individual. Each car
had its own set of idiosyncrasies and it was part of the ownership
experience to conquer and adapt to these quirks. Cars today, thanks
to their vast improvements, have become less unique.
I think this explains the continued
interest in old cars for many of us, but I do wonder what the
generations raised on drive-by-wire and electric power steering will
fondly recall from their early days of driving. Will they build those
same types of connections with their vehicles as we have?
