These appeared in our parking lot at work

4 1950-51 citroens (sp?)



this is not primer gray. its a real paint in the color of primer grey for whatever reason.

12 Likes

With 3D metal printing replacement parts are now possible in the US. Then the guy can give up buying shirts from the Starvation Army and Goodwill :slight_smile:
Citroen is very very rare in the US, Cx was way ahead of it's time

The color of the car is primer grey so you don't notice the tape attempting to stop the water getting in :slight_smile:

It's cool to see these old things still running, cars were so much simpler back then.

2 Likes

I like the vehicles but all the garbage put all over them makes them look horrible.

These oldtimers are beautiful. But as far as aesthetics goes, nothing beats the design of American cars in the 50's and early 60's. And the quality was top notch. Like, what the hell happened to your car industry?

1 Like

4 Likes

The car industry competed for a long while to maximize the product quality/robustness in order to gain faith in their product. At the peak, a car was supposed to last you a lifetime. Just like a house. But the lifetime relation wasn't happening due to technological advances (performance, utility, etc.) and unexpected increased affordability of newer car models (mainly through the mix of loans and trade-ups). The lifetime quality did not remain a competitive product attribute later on, but remained enabled by the relative simplicity of the product for the most part until the 80's or early 90's (especially true of vehicles seeing military use and may require ad hoc repair), as clearly reflected by the true vehicle enthusiast's choice.

Lastability coming from simplicity (everyone can understand how it works) and quality focus (do one thing and do it right) is a damn appealing concept even today.

And while I do realize it was a light-hearted rhetorical question, I'm quite happy to contribute a short history lesson on the subject so as to not fully joke it away. @kewldude007 , China didn't happen to the personal cars before 1953 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Automobile_Works ) when production of licensed soviet cars started, and China didn't really have any car export worth mentioning before this century, although they have imported cars and still do. I can not say anything about the quality of Chinese vehicles whether they are intended for exported, or not.

While I was never interested in a Chinese car (speaking of non-western produced cars), I got more than a little turned on by the Russian Lada Niva ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LADA_4x4 ) since I've been looking to purchase a new car with no online crap and built on simple repair/maintenance principles. While my need for a car has subsided since, I'm still curious on whether there are more manufacturers making cheap, no-bullshit, new cars like that?

3 Likes

since the EPA (emissions) and the DOT (safety) got involved, vehicles are ever more complex thanks to demanding regs issued by these 2 agencies and many states (im looking at you california and you too NY) .

the cars are not any safer ,really until drivers dont drive like morons. additional safety features encourage moronic driving (hey i got all this safety features , im bulletproof ).

I know you're joking, but all kidding aside, it was the oil embargo which raised gasoline prices, forcing the American market to actually think about fuel economy when it came to their vehicles. Combined with Japan's lean production methods and their ability to satisfy the demand for higher fuel economy vehicles (and to a lesser extent, Europe's) the American automakers weren't meeting the needs of the consumer anymore...and they paid for this mistake for a long time. One could argue they still are. This lack of foresight by the US auto industry enabled the foreign auto manufacturers to get a toehold in the US market and anywhere else it had market share. The muscle car and gas guzzling "boat on wheels" went extinct, and the domination of the US auto makers was extinguished by the end of the 70s.

Now of course, the American auto industry could've made a huge comeback by introducing the electric car first, but they suddenly terminated their testing in the 90s and an all-electric vehicle by the big auto companies still hasn't been mass marketed to consumers. It took a startup like Tesla to do that! They didn't learn from their mistake in the 70s. History repeats itself...and unfortunately, we all suffer for this. The dent this could've made in climate change/global warming will never be known.

4 Likes

You’re not really suggesting that cars aren’t any safer since the 1960s and '70s, are you?

Nice Freudian slip there.

1 Like

Neat video from 1939 about how most of the American Automobile was imported products:

So yeah not much changed except the source of materials.

1 Like

im suggesting the drivers are less safe than then, due to increased safety features in the vehicles.

1 Like