[V8] Love for V8's, and ramblings.

[Roger Woodbury]

Yes, they did rust.  But not in Europe where extreme ice and snow removal
measures hadn't yet become the norm.  Here in the US, the early sixties
cars.especially the "fin backs", were terrible rust buckets.  The later cars
much less so.  Now they're mostly plastic like the Japanese.

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Kneale Brownson [mailto:knealeski at sbcglobal.net] 
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2008 7:24 AM
To: rmwoodbury at roadrunner.com; 'Tony and Lillie'; 'V8 Audi Fans'
Subject: Re: [V8] Love for V8's, and ramblings.

 

I remember the disappointment of seeing Mercedes cars from the late 50s and
early 60s running around with huge rust holes in the bodies.  Must be the
"generations" comment referred to the engine?  

 

This car  http://www.pbase.com/kneale_brownson/image/17947087    sat behind
my barn for 30 years.  The only part that didn't rust beyond reuse is the
grille.  Oh yeah, the engine was seized but the dual carb linkage still
worked.

Roger Woodbury <rmwoodbury at roadrunner.com> wrote:

I think this is absolutely correct. I well remember a comment reported in
Road & Track Magazine made by a Mercedes senior officer in the early 1990's.
He was speaking of how Mercedes was going to confront the new high end
Japanese competition. He said plainly that Mercedes had always built cars
for generations. The Mercedes build quality was intended to enable their
cars to be passed down from one generation to another, with only the precise
maintenance schedules furnished by Stuttgart to be followed to enable their
cars to last without limitation. However, the executive said, that in order
to meet the Japanese competition, Mercedes would shorten their model life
expectancy and build cars to a new consumer, one that was less interested in
such longevity.