Hello from the C4 side. I saw this article in the local newspaper. It doesn't pertain to most of the C4 people so I figured I would get you guys fired up. This guy is a jerk. I hope the link works. The article is about antique status in PA


http://www.mcall.com/news/local/watc...,4055090.story

 

Thanks for the article. Guy sounds pizzed off his wife wont let him get an older car.

Dave

 

Apparently Mr. Muschick doesn’t subscribe to Motor Trend, where a quick search shows 6 new car recalls for safety reasons ranging from fires to accidents. Interesting enough two are Volvo's
That guy needs to understand that everything mechanical will fail at some point in its existence, and a vehicle that has survived 25 or more years on the roads has proven to be fairly reliable, and not the ticking bomb he wishes his readers to believe.
I am a lot more fearful passing a new minivan with a soccer mom driving while on the phone, than any classic rolling down the highway.
Just my 2 cents!

 

Next week he will pick on something else. His slogan is "I'm looking out for You". He needs glasses! He knows as much about cars as I know about brain surgery. Maybe he stayed in a Holiday Inn express.

 

I emailed the dude told him to go to A car show and asked him how he thought those cars got that age (By Being taken care of thats how.) that guy has no clue.My 1975 that I drove to work passed A ****zle of rusted out Escorts rusted out Toyotas to say the least right by all those new cars that are on re-call for catching on fire.

 

WOW- EVERYTHING must be fair!!!

Just what we need more of-everything equal... Fair- I love that word!!!

I think more Government intervention would be great!!! If the Government tells me my car is safe-well than I'm damn sure it is safe!!!

Maybe they (GOVT) can make sure we have the right amount of air in our tires TOO? How about if they fine us if it's more than 3lbs low? Then we could get the US Government to make tire pressure guages so they all read the same....You know-everything must be fair.

The Government can save everybody from these dangerous old cars. God forbid if one of these old cars runs off the raod and kills a TREE and maybe the person hugging it!!

I'd much rather be behind an "antique" car than that beat up "new" car that's going 80MPH down the highway on their temporary spare...

 

After reading the so-called authors drivel of an article, I then read through all the responses.

Good for all of us who support the hobby of [quote] antique cars [endquote] to stand up and shout down this PC socialism for what it is: fear mongering.

You and I know that there are those individuals who want to impose more control over us. Whether it's our cars, our money, our speech, or whatever, they want what we have.

To them I say: come get it, tough guy. Your mouth is writing checks you can't possibly pay but if you're so smart then put up or shut the **** up.

Then the rest of us will hop into our rides and motor to our fave watering holes and rejoice in defending what's right.

Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and Chevrolet.

 

FAIR! Fair is a dirty word... Nothing is fair, you can't pass laws to make things fair. My son is 17 and I have never let him use the word fair for fear that he would turn into a foaming at the mouth, granola eating, tofu farting LIBERAL.

 

This guys is probably the same sort of guy who complains about the IQ of his waitress at Hooters. That's not the reason you go there.

 

This clown could only find a record of 2 accidents involving antique vehicles in the last 16 years and he has to write an article like this! With all the problems in the world you'd think he could find something more dangerous like running with pillows!

 

You beat me to it!
My point exactly!

 

I don't understand this jerks point, Although some will milk the system and an accdent will occur. But that doesn't mean anything should change. This writer can just aswell not get enough sleep one night and cause the same type of accident in His new car. My point is its not the cars that cause problems its personal stupity. If I understand his point right, We should all be banned from driving because we may not be functioning properly all the time and the only monitors we have are police who are not qualified to do so. If I understand him right he is nuts hmself and should not be allowed to drive.

 

I'm in PA and had the option of registering my ride as either an antique, classic or standard car. I felt the antique should be reserved for Model A's and T's but wanted something differerant than the standard tag so I opted for the classic. Classic tags still require a yearly safety inspection. If it was on the car when manufactured is has to be on the car now (and functioning) to pass. My thought is if someone wants to register a ride as an antique then they must abide by the limitations of use; shows, parades and restricted use. There's always a bad apple in the basket and always someone who picks through them all to find it.

 

I just wrote the following reply to the article:

I was just pointed to the article written by Mr. Muschick regarding the danger of classic cars. I am certainly a classic car enthusiast and owner, so perhaps not totally unbiased, but the utter lack of thought that went into the article demanded a response.

First of all, you can’t legislate common sense. While there is no question that classic cars demand more maintenance and effort to remain safe, the fact that these 30 and 40 year old cars are still on the road speaks volumes to the level of care and maintenance that they receive. Clearly from the number of maintenance related accidents that a very quick web search provides, I would question the value of the system that is in place for daily drivers. I certainly wouldn’t propose expanding it.

Second, citing a motorcycle accident involving a 1974 bike with a tire blowout is laughable. Tires typically need to be replaced every five years because of age. More frequently due to wear. In all probability the bike was on it’s sixth set of tires. If they were original, they wouldn’t hold air. Also, there was no mention of cause. For all we know, the tire was shot out by a stray bullet or hit by lightning. Both probably are as likely as lack of maintenance as the root cause.

Last, I believe the line “I found only two other reports of antique car accidents in The Morning Call's archives since 1992, with neither mentioning a cause,” should be in support of a retraction for his article, not support of his point. Just for fun, I did a quick search on “snake bite fatalities.” I didn’t have time to count the number of hits post 1992. Should we eradicate the world of venomous snakes too? Certainly that is a far greater risk given the frequency of injuries Taking your own data, if there are two known incidents since 1992 with 122,000 antique vehicles I would say that’s a pretty good safety record.

As I said at the start, as a classic car enthusiast, I’m not particularly unbiased, but I do know that irresponsible articles like this drive some of the truly idiotic legislation that we have to endure here on the left coast. Everyone is entitled to their point of view, but just as you can’t legislate common sense, you can’t force writers to act responsibly.

My point of view.

I'm not sure why, but this article truly pissed me off. Maybe because Governor Arnold just signed some of the most truly idiotic bills into law.

 

Azzhat! This guy sounds like the kid who used to get beat up in the school yard all the time and was ignored by the girls trying to get his revenge. I wouldn't waste my time pointing out the stupidity of his assertions because there is just too much to address there. Ever since women got the vote, we seem to be more concerned about fairness than about equality of opportunity. Women got the vote in 1919 and by 1920 they had outlawed booze, creating the biggest profit margins on contraband that organized crime could have hoped for. Since then the society is moving further and further toward socialism. This columnist is a girly man.

 

I enjoyed reading the comments to the drivvle of an article. If the writer of the article isn't on the unemployment line yet, he should be.

 

The real problem with the "article" is that it isn't an "article" at all. It appears the writer intended it to be an editorial, but he forgot one important aspect of editorials: a point. There is no point in the "article" at all, it doesn't actually say we should ban antique cars, it doesn't actually say that antique cars should be inspected like other cars, all it says is that in the writer's opinion, antique cars are unsafe. I don't think the guy should lose his job over it, but I would expect his editor to have a little discussion that three gripey paragraphs targeting a hobby doesn't exactly make good newspapers. With the number of newspapers going out of business in the last few years, I am guessing that his editor will likely not have that discussion anytime soon.

The comments were great too. For some reason, most of the commenters concluded that the author was a woman, despite the fact that the first name is "Paul" (a fine first name I might add, and one I always thought to be strong and manly to boot). So the guy got ripped on, and repeately called "she" and "her". Too funny.

 

That state is full of them.