Sad news, the end of an era for car enthusiasts....

[Black Sheep]

I always fancied one of them 4 wheel drive cossack lada's luckily i had my sanity and give it a miss

they're actually very good off road.

 

[TheDoctor]

...one of those cartridge cassette players that had massive cassettes...

That would be an 8-track.
Endless loop of tape, with a metallic splice that moved the heads across.
The tape fed off the middle of the reel, and back onto the outside, a method that was later used on the Sinclair Microdrive for the ZX Spectrum and QL.
[/geek hat]

 

[Red Light]

The first Classic, then called the 2101, rolled off the line on April 22, 1970

Yes, they did a lot of rolling ....... with four hefty Russians pushing

But whatever happened to that design classic, the Wartburg?

 

[Brains]

The old Fiat must have been mid-sixties so the basic design must have run for 45+ years, although this would be mainly due to lack of alternative cars in Russia for most of that time, it is still an incredible production run. I would guess that only the original beetle and maybe the Porsche 911 could make a similar claim for mass production cars. Having grown up during the seventies it does make me feel nostalgic.

And the Citroen 2CV, and the Landrover, and the Morris 1000, and the Mini, and the VW Transporter, and the Morgan, and the Morris Oxford, and I'm sure there are a few others.
A well designed and simple vehicle can, if kept up to date and not 'modified' still be in recognisable production half a century after they first rolled off the production line.
I wonder who will be the first to make it to 75 years though ?

I suspect vehicles like the Toyota Landcruser and Toyota Hiace pickup will be remain in production to their half century birthday, as well as some of the Volovo's and Merc's
The thing that is going to radically change the market is the switch to electricity.
No UK child that has been born in this decade will ever own a new fossil fuelled vehicle.

 

[ASC1951]

The thing that is going to radically change the market is the switch to electricity.
No UK child that has been born in this decade will ever own a new fossil fuelled vehicle.

Present electric vehicles are fossil fuelled just as much as petrol or diesel ones. What you are suggesting is that within 20 years all, or most, of our electricity will be generated from renewables - that is not even planned, let alone likely.

 

[Cletus Van Damme]

That would be an 8-track.
Endless loop of tape, with a metallic splice that moved the heads across.
The tape fed off the middle of the reel, and back onto the outside, a method that was later used on the Sinclair Microdrive for the ZX Spectrum and QL.
[/geek hat]

Cheers mate that is something else that I have learned today. Nice to reminisce.

 

[subaqua]

Cheers mate that is something else that I have learned today. Nice to reminisce.

and ironic too being that its the zx spectrums 30th birthday today

 

[Cheddar George]

And the Citroen 2CV, and the Landrover, and the Morris 1000, and the Mini, and the VW Transporter, and the Morgan, and the Morris Oxford, and I'm sure there are a few others.
A well designed and simple vehicle can, if kept up to date and not 'modified' still be in recognisable production half a century after they first rolled off the production line.
I wonder who will be the first to make it to 75 years though ?

I suspect vehicles like the Toyota Landcruser and Toyota Hiace pickup will be remain in production to their half century birthday, as well as some of the Volovo's and Merc's
The thing that is going to radically change the market is the switch to electricity.
No UK child that has been born in this decade will ever own a new fossil fuelled vehicle.

The Morris Oxford/Hindustan ambassador is good shout, about 55-56 years of production.

 

[TheDoctor]

and ironic too being that its the zx spectrums 30th birthday today

Is it really? I was at the computer show where it was launched...
God I feel old now.

 

[Brains]

Present electric vehicles are fossil fuelled just as much as petrol or diesel ones. What you are suggesting is that within 20 years all, or most, of our electricity will be generated from renewables - that is not even planned, let alone likely.

I know, frightening isn't it.

However 'Peak Oil' probably passed in 2008, (and if it has not, then even the most optomistic would agree that it will pass within a decade).
The price industrial fuel oil in my working career has gone from $40 a ton to now over $600.
20 years from now there is no way that oil will be able to extracted in the voulme that we require today, that is assuming demand stays the same, which with the growing economies of Brazil, Russia, China, Inda etc is not going to happen.
Nor will the cost be the 'low' that it is today.

Therefore the countries that need the oil will need to 'liberate' the countries that have oil from their opressive masters.
Build your own list of the Haves on one side and the Have Not's on the other and figure our who gets to 'liberate' whom.

Then figure out how the countries in the Have Not list are going to run when they Have Not.

A few acres of woodland and a 3 day course in charcoal making could look like a very good investment to me.

 

[Arch]

A few acres of woodland and a 3 day course in charcoal making could look like a very good investment to me.

OT, but NT and I were talking to a chap at the weekend who'd just bought some forest in Slovenia, by accident....

(It came with a farm he'd bought, only he didn't know when he bought it. He was finding out about chainsaws....)

 

[dellzeqq]

I played bridge with a chap who drove a Lada. Drunk. Said it was a dream getting it in and out of ditches. And it had quarterlight windows that he could use to get rid of his fag ash. You don't get those on a BMW

 

[slowmotion]

It's virtually impossible to flick fag ash out of modern cars without leaving burn craters on the back seat upholstery. I spent hours, and many thousand ciggies, practicing a "wind break" technique with the back of my right hand in the slipstream. Never managed to perfect it.

 

[Black Sheep]

And the Citroen 2CV, and the Landrover, and the Morris 1000, and the Mini, and the VW Transporter, and the Morgan, and the Morris Oxford, and I'm sure there are a few others.
A well designed and simple vehicle can, if kept up to date and not 'modified' still be in recognisable production half a century after they first rolled off the production line.
I wonder who will be the first to make it to 75 years though ?

I suspect vehicles like the Toyota Landcruser and Toyota Hiace pickup will be remain in production to their half century birthday, as well as some of the Volovo's and Merc's
The thing that is going to radically change the market is the switch to electricity.
No UK child that has been born in this decade will ever own a new fossil fuelled vehicle.

It depends how we're classifying it,

the Mini, Morgan and Land Rover have changed significantly throughout production run while staying true to the original concept and design styling, others, such as the VW transporter changed significantly throughout their life, the VW transporters being produced in Brazil use different tooling denoted by a ridge across the bottom of the cab doors and the VW polo engine.

the Beetle however, although changes were made to it's bodywork and larger engines introduced over it's production run were compatable with each other, the boot lid of a mid 50's one would fit onto a late 70's one etc, as such it is credited as having the longest production run of any car in history.