Dan's Papers - October 3, 2008

In my last article, I mentioned how sports car drivers of the past had to be very tolerant about the idiosyncrasies of their cars. Today, most of us have zero tolerance when it comes to our machines. I gave several examples, but because of space restrictions, I had to cut the article short. This week, let me expand my tolerance tale to include not just sports cars, but all types of vehicles from the past.

Boy, was it hot driving in the summer. Air conditioning for cars hadn't really been invented yet, so it really wasn't a popular accessory until around the mid-1960s. In 1946, Chrysler was actually the first car to offer air conditioning, but it didn't immediately catch on. Those triangular, little vent windows were true lifesavers on a hot day. Of course, they didn't do diddly when caught in traffic, but at highway speeds they would let a good airflow into the car and an occasional insect. Quite often, lots of front seat occupants drove with their heads as close to the vent windows as possible, trying to catch a breeze. Convertibles were very popular before the advent of air conditioning, because, with the top down, a convertible was one giant vent window.

Some cars and trucks had cowl and side vents that could be opened with an interior lever. Another popular item was a windshield that could be cranked slightly open to let in air. Do you remember the Range Rover with the large horizontal vents below the windshield? Believe it or not, the 110 series Rover sold in Europe still has them. Many British sports cars, like the early MGs and Austin Healey, had a windshield that completely folded down and out of the way. Stay cool at any price, even if it meant bugs in your mouth. Take it from me, when driving in rural areas, it was dangerous to smile in any of those cars at speed. Needless to say, driving in the summer, with virtually every window of a car open, produced enough noise to drown out any conversation spoken at a civilized volume. Forget the radio. Those old AM radios were terrible to begin with, but add in a hurricane of wind as a backdrop, and one would even have a hard time hearing the "1812 Overture."

So on a hot day you sweated, could barely have a conversation and were not able to enjoy the radio. Makes one wonder how automobiles ever became so popular. Well, obviously they did get more comfortable. You may remember that during the 1970s virtually every Detroit car manufacturer stopped making convertibles. You know why? Air conditioning had finally become popular, and, obviously, people finally got tired of the wind in the face sweat shops they were driving and went for the cool coupes and sedans. Of course, the sadistic sports car manufacturers kept pumping out wind machines for hothead sports car nuts.

Another thing about older cars is that the hapless owner always seemed to be changing spark plugs. In fact, most manufacturers recommended that it be done every 10,000 miles. In those days, there was no such thing as unleaded gas or transistorized ignition. Over time, leaded gas would foul spark plugs and wear them out. All my sports car buddies were always experimenting with different temperature range spark plugs to get them to make more power or last longer. It was a black science that no one really understood. Today, spark plugs last up to 100,000 miles, with most people forgetting they are even there. There was one odd spark plug fact that amazed me. I had the Porsche factory tune up my factory prototype 910 race car in 1979. It used 12 very special spark plugs, two per cylinder. The spark plugs cost me $50 each, in an era when normal spark plugs were $1. I almost passed out when I got the bill. Here's another odd, obscure fact about Porsches. Did you know that the factory wheels of Porsches limited production older supercar, the 959, cost $25,000 each? So you want to buy a vintage Porsche?

Speaking of cars like Porsche's, most of the old one had heaters that stank...literally. Heat from an air-cooled motor is always hard to tap, ask any Cessna pilot, so besides the Porsche heater barely warming up, the heater had a host of other problems. The heater fan received hot air from heater boxes mounted over the exhaust system, which happened to rest right below the engine's valve covers. Porsche valve covers are notorious for leaking, even to this day. It's great fun to smell hot oil on a frigid day as you drive down the highway in your expensive piece of German engineering. Despite all of the problems, in those days all the sports car owners, when passing one another, always smiled and waved to their fellow believers - everyone but the Porsche drivers, that is. Those poor Teutonic car nuts were too busy rubbing their hands together to keep them from getting numb. With due respect to the great Porsche marque, the current heater works beautifully.

Bob Gelber, an automotive journalist living in the Hamptons, appears regularly on television as an automotive expert. You can email him at bobgelber@aol.com