Poor Regulatory Policies Heighten Wasteful Scrappage of Collectable Cars

Imagine a car as this 1936 Packard Phaeton, being parted and scraped during the 1990s

 

Imagine, scrapping automobile as say a 1936 Packard Phaeton (4 door open car/convertible) at an age of 65 years in 1992?

 

4 door convertibles were last offered regular by model year 1941, except for the 1949-1951 Frazer Manhattan, as well as the 1961-67 Lincoln Continental 4 door convertible - a stretched version being the J.F..K Assassination car).

  

 1941 Oldsmobile

 

When U.S automobile production resumed after WW2 with the pre-war generation bodies, none resumed producing phaetons.  Yet a new manufacturer, Kaiser-Frazer would offer its own new body that included a pair of beautiful semi-open 4 door models, a convertible - the Frazer Manhattan - and a fixed roof "hardtop"   -  the Kaiser Virginian - both being "semi-open" with the front and rear door windows separated by a fixed rectangular fixed framed window.

 

 

 

 

The " true"  4 door hardtop- fully open side window configuration - appeared as its prototype with the 1953 Cadillac Orleans show car, 

 

 

True 4 door hardtops mass produced debut for the 1955 model year with GM's Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac, and for 1956 with Chevrolet & Pontiac.

 

 

 

 

GM produced 4 door hardtops through model year 1976 (along with the 1965-67 Corvair, and the 1966-1972 intermediates Chevelle, Tempest/Lemans (alongside the 4 door post sedans). 

 

 

Ford/Mercury offered them 1956-1974- chickening out with the pillared hardtop upon the same generation body through 1978.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chrysler introduced its initial 4 door hardtop in 1956, aka the Southampton.  

 

 

 

 

It's initial final generation body, coming after the 1968-97 "fuselage, with its 1974-1978 version.  Plymouth and Dodge, which offered them by 1957, would wimp out like Ford/Mercury by late 1974.  Chrysler, to its credit continued its 4 door hardtops through model year 1978, with its gorgeous waterfall front New Yorker (initially offered as the Imperial for 1974 & 1975.  Subsequently, Chrysler offered "pillared" hardtops (lacking fixed door window frames) only for 1979-1981, upon discontinuing their full sized cars, and offering as such the former compact Aspen/Volare chassis/body, with fixed door window frames.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_%28automobile%29

All U.S. American 4 door hardtops were full sized, except for the 2nd generation 1965-67 Corvair (shamefully not offered for 1968-69); 1966-1972 GM intermediates Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile & Buick (all separate body on frame); as well as the (sadly unibody) 1970-1971 Ford Torino and Mercury Montego.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chrysler/Dodge/Plymouth never produced any.

 

AMC had its 4 door hardtop, starting with the 1956 Nash 4 door hardtop .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AMC wimped out after 1960, yet did have an excellent design effort towards what should have been a 1970 Javelin-Hornet, 4 door hardtop mini station wagon- a more sensibly sized upscale alternative to the compact Hornet, as well as the Mustang/Camaro/Firebird,, a well as the Mercury Cougar.  However, its poor choice of unibody construction (no separate chassis frame) would undermine that idea.

https://www.hemmings.com/stories/2019/12/18/rogues-ramblers-rebels-and-more-fred-hudsons-tenure-at-american-motors

 

Now consider the respective time deltas- 1936 or 1967, with the current year as this authorship's, 2023.

 

Try imagining someone with say a 1936 Packard Phaeton, held within a family for several decades, choosing to "part" and scrap such a fine piece of history during the 1970s, 1980s or even later?

 

What is the great squeeze upon the mass personal ownership of automobiles?

 

Consider: local zoning ordinances, prohibiting people keeping their own automobile/cars, if either "unregistered" or inoperable within residential lots, unless kept fully indoors, if at all.

Consider Facebook's "value capture" with disallowing the forwarding of its Marketplace ads, which are artificially limited for local rather than international use.

 

Consider the vast market of the automobile owner internationally.  Just consider as a start, the pent up demand for better market access for people who come across potentially desirable, respectable personal cars.  Ask Russia.  Ask China.  Ask anywhere else.  Why are people in the U.S. continuously stripping and wasting perfectly rebuild-able desirable rear wheel drive U.S. American cars?  Why are we seeing people as here, now just recently written up in a mid summer article in Motor Trend:

 

Larry Dillon is one of those devoted Pontiac fanatics whose mission in life is to discover sad and neglected high-powered Pontiacs and return them to the streets where they belong. It's something that's been near and dear to his heart for the last four decades.

 

Larry's taste for Pontiac horsepower has put him in the seat of many top-tier muscle cars over the years. Countless GTOs, 2+2s, and Bonnevilles have made their way into his stable, and he's always on the lookout for more rare rides.

 

The above is the very start of the Motor Trend article, about a rare (5 made) 1968 Bagham OHC (Overhead Cam) Pontiac short-deck V-8, that Dillon acquired, and sought to flip at the July 2023 PYI Ames Pontiac Nationals event at the drag strip and fairgrounds in Norwalk, Ohio.

 

 

 

https://www.motortrend.com/features/ohc-pontiac-experimental-engine-found/

 

OK. "Larry Dillon is one of those devoted Pontiac fanatics whose mission in life is to discover sad and neglected high-powered Pontiacs and return them to the streets where they belong. It's something that's been near and dear to his heart for the last four decades... Larry's taste for Pontiac horsepower has put him in the seat of many top-tier muscle cars over the years. Countless GTOs, 2+2s, and Bonnevilles have made their way into his stable"

 

So what motivates/compels acquiring someone obtaining something akin to a 1967 Pontiac Bonneville 4 door hardtop, in reasonably tolerable straight body condition, and being so situated to striping such vintage cars for parts and scrap-page?  Just mere weeks after this article's appearance, the same individual, posts in Facebook PONTIAC PARTS SWAP MEET

 Parting out a 67 Bonneville four-door hardtop mint dash pad full AC setup let me know what part you're looking for Cars located in New Jersey if you could send me a PM and I will respond

 

 GOING TO THE JUNKYARD THIS WEEK SO LET ME KNOW IF YOU NEED ANYTHING! Parting 67 Bonneville four-door hardtop dash pad real decent, full AC setup let me know what part you're looking for Cars located in New Jersey if you could send me a PM and I will respond

 

 

 

Why would anyone make such a listing, right after being written up by Motor Trend, as a devoted Pontiac fanatic ... whose mission in life is to discover sad and neglected high-powered Pontiacs and return them to the streets where they belong....

 

OK, 1967 Pontiac Bonneville 4 door hardtop.  57,055 produced.  How many surviving?

 

This is the production body generation initially introduced for model year 1965.

This is a full sized automobile. 124" wheelbase.  Huge open window side

 

 

https://www.hemmings.com/classifieds/listing/1967-pontiac-bonneville-orlando-fl-2692667

Clearly we MUST address the net of "local" jurisdictional zoning restrictions, town, county and even state, that are overly prohibitive, most specially with upon larger lots zoned residential.

 

To be in such a business as Larry, one must have the space to store a number of automobiles on one's own dwelling.

 

One might suppose people would be permitted to store hobby cars, with restrictions contained somewhere within the rational scope, e.g. mandate things as tall fencing, and allowing outdoor storage kept minimally obtrusive, including with car covers upon the paved driveway towards the rear.

 

And one would likewise imagine the authorities easing the research and titling of such fine potential collector automotive works of art, as way too many are scrapped reportedly for the title being misplaced/lost, as when someone died and the kin did not have the paperwork kept inside the car. in question.

 

But alas, zoning restricts prohibit such hobby cars in a state of potential transitioning from being stored outdoors either covered or blocked from view by fencing limited to only 6 feet in height.

And people in general should better reflect upon such a speeding of wasteful and stupid collector car destruction.  Larry Dillon, as with anyone else, ought to be allowed to fence in a portion of his land, in order to store vintage automobiles for restoration and re-entry to the streets.

What is stymieing using the internet to find buyers world wide, and offering and selling of such collector automobile from buyers in Russia, China, the Middle East, and elsewhere?  Why does Facebook place arbitrary restrictions upon searches of its marketplace within comparably small areas of geography?  And on that note, what about Craigslist, with its absurd small area to large area index tree, e.g. Craigslist/small town/metro area/state, instead of Craigslist/everywhere/state-province/city/town?

 

 

 

Why instead are people eliminating such automobiles, for the sake of a few parts (many already otherwise findable), plus the scrap mettle value?

What are the full scope of U.S. mis-legislated and mis-regulated occurring under which here with policies designed for eliminating the widespread citizen ownership of automobiles, resulting in an obscene waste of mass produced products, via policies to speed the scrapping of perfectly serviceable automobiles already in existence.

 

How An Apparent Vendatta Against Higher Performance Engines Undermined Engine Development at PONTIAC

A sad tale of how GM stinginess may have cost in added pollution and fuel consumption, owing to some sort of apparent strange vendetta against Pontiac Motor Division's improved engine development

Pontiac had the supreme advantage by the later 1960s, with the debut of its rendering of GM's awesome 1968-1972 A body intermediates, specifically with its endura body colored front bumber available strictly upon its GTO.

 

The development of the overhead valve Pontiac V-8, initially debut for the 1955 model year, with its 4.62" bore spacings, had advanced to the point of its 389 cid V-8 which debut for the 1959 model year, received a larger bore for model year 1967, bringing its displacement with a 3.75" stroke to 400 cid.  Due to the higher emissions of the "closed" chamber cylinder heads, such as the 1967 "670" - Pontiac engineers introduced their "open" chamber cylinder heads for model year 1968, significantly reducing particle emissions.

 

In pursuit of greater performance, Pontiac engineers embarked upon two separate paths of cylinder head development- the round exhaust port Ram Air II, and the more radical Ram Air V- the latter with a revised exhaust port arrangement to no longer have the center two ports directly next to each other (good), though changing the firing order, therefore requiring altogether different camshaft sets.  But alas the RAV had tremendously oversized intake ports, rendering it largely impractical with inferior throttle response, and was thus never released as a factory installation.

 

The Ram Air II cylinder heads were a quite decent design, good enough to evolve as the Ram Air IV.  The Ram Air II came as a 400 cid, debuting spring 1968 in the intermediate sized GTO and the compact sized Firebird.  The Ram Air II would be super-ceeded by the Ram Air IV for model year 1969, again in the GTO and Firebird.  And for 1970, again in the GTO, as well as the new for 1970 1/2 Firebird Trans Am (and plausibly the Firebird Formula, though apparently non were ordered nor built- with the RAIV weirdly not appearing in the 1970 1/2 Firebird factory literature.

Alas, both the 1968 1/2 Ram Air II and the 1969-70 Ram Air IV were hobbled by a ridiculous mandatory rear differential ration of 3.90, and an even worse option of a ratio of 4.33- essentially tractor gears giving quite poor fuel economy and excessive engine revs at freeway speeds.  Why so?  Because the engineers selected a cam shaft with incredibly excessive valve timing duration of 308 and 320 degrees respectively intake and exhaust, great for higher revs, but terrible for slower revs.  So worse fuel efficiency with greater emissions.  And due to the excessive gearing, combined with GM's insane stinginess of refusing to provide Pontiac with FORGED rather than cast connecting rods, these engines were a warranty nightmare.  So for 1970, Pontiac sought to produce a Ram Air IV with better durability.  So the plan was to start producing the Ram Air IV with the improved more durable bottom end - forged rods, crankshaft and stronger engine block of the Ram Air V; of particular note being the RAV's improved design 400 cid engine block, so improved with its integral additional lifter valley, for securing the lifter lobes (the part that activates the pushrods which transmit the motion from the cam lobes to the valves).  By doing so, that is making the engine block's lifter lobes stronger, it becomes way more practical to develop somewhat steeper opening cam lobes, for greater engine efficiency (reduced emissions with greater power and fuel efficiency).

GM would of course block what we could call the "RAV 4" - that is, the improved bottom end of the Ram Air V, combined with the eminently more sensible Ram Air IV upper end.  GM would be too stingy to give Pontiac forged steel connecting rods and crankshafts, as such had to be devoted simply to its favored division Chevrolet.  But what about the stronger block?  Unlike the forged rods and crankshaft, the stronger block represented ZERO added cost, or what, perhaps 5 cent of extra cast iron per unit?  The development and tooling was already paid for.  So why not simply make the RAV engine block the standard issue?

 

Nope.  Instead, of utilizing the already paid for research and development of the RAV block, GM has Pontiac again redesigns its 400 cid block, changing from a one year only 979914 block for 1970 (which lacks the added lifter lobe valley cross ribbing), to a new block for model year 1971, the 481988 block (which also lacks the added cross ribbing).  It is a decent block, but why so develop yet another block that lacks the added cross ribbing, rather than use what was already researched and developed?

Nonetheless, intelligent minds within Pontiac prevail to establish such an improved stronger block with the development of the SD 455.  Due to the indisputably insane April 1970 dictate by upper level corporate GM management to lower engine compression ratios all the way down to about 8 to 1 (down from 9.5- 10.5 to 1), Pontiac shifted its development from the 400 cid engine to the 455 engine.  The reason given for this was to lower NOX emissions, nevermind that drastically increased CO and HC emissions, and resulting in automobiles getting 8 mpg instead of 13 mpg, while being able to use lower grade gasoline.  Hence we got such poorly tuned engines for 1971-72, such as what occurred with a road test by High Performance Cars during 1972, with a 455HO Firebird Trans Am, with a 4 speed manual and a 3.42 differential reportedly getting 5 to 8 mpg! 

The SD455 was essentially an improved version of the 455HO.  Representing a labor of love by Pontiac engine development, it was found to have considerably better fuel economy than the 455HO, at least according to a Spring 1973 SD455 Firebird Trans Am road test report by Car & Driver magazine, reportedly 13 mpg, as well as accounts of a model year 1973 preview caravan of Pontiac models, with the SD455 equipped automobile yielding that fleets 2nd best fuel economy.

People can read up more about the SD455 story in numerous places elsewhere.

The SD455 did have the integral cast additional lifter bore reinforcements.  Yet sadly the SD455 engine block was not only not adopted as the standard block, it was discontinued along with the SD455 engine by mid 1974.

Can we dare estimate the loss of potential engine efficiency, made possible with developing more efficient camshaft lobes, denied by corporate GM's failure to include the added lifter lobe strength?

 

How much extra automobile exhaust and extra fuel consumption did such a move so result?

How "Value Capture" High Finance Dictated Housing Codes Further Economic Expoitation

"Value capture" - a friendly sounding term encountered in high finance and planning circles.

 

What it really means is value denial, value transfer or simply value theft.

 

In practice this means things as altering housing codes to give less.

 

Examples:  In housing codes:

 

First and foremost, devise a campaign crafted and financed by high finance, and embraced my much of the political spectrum, least likely Republicans, embrace reducing or eliminating parking spaces upon private properties.  We see this principally from the supposed "left" - such as nifty "progressive" sites as Dave Alpert's Greater Greater Washington, and an entire cacophony of "new urban-inst entities.  And we even see such talking points likewise touted by "free market" libertarians as Reason's Virginia Postel, chiming that residential off street parking spaces be eliminated to reduce housing prices - even in areas quite unlike say Manhattan, such as residential developments in areas with comparably low land costs.

 

Reduce housing lot sizes.  California is disgusting with this nonsense, 7300 square foot postage stamp sized lots, with the houses no more than 24 feet apart on one side and as little as 8 feet on the other, and backyards barely 18 feet deep.  Yes, in California where the developers paid little and were directed to so squeeze the properties for maximizing property tax income.  And developers that refuse to sell an added lot to a new house & lot for extra space, insisting they shall ONLY sell an extra house together with the extra house to preserve their profit.

Eliminate attics, second floors, with low roofs combined with high ceilings. And be sure to deny choice for new development, such as in Victorville, east of LA, where they are building these tiny lot sizes upon scrub lands at the edge of the Mohave Desert, while refusing to offer the house models with at least a somewhat higher roof with a second floor crawl space that the same builders DO offer in Nevada.

Eliminate basements entirely.  California does this entirely, with concrete slab.

Be sure to never dig into the side of a hill to create a partial or full lower level, not even if but slightly (e.g. for a lower level beneath a rear patio but not the house itself) but instead use truckloads worth of fill soil.

 

Be sure to make front driveways barely long enough to park even a sub compact vehicle without such overhanging the sidewalk- a ticket-able offense).

 

Be sure to not prohibit placing residential garages that face each other with a space of under say 28 feet.  Lived in such a development, in the San Elijo Hills area of San Marcos, California.  Some such spacing were over 30 if not as much as nearly 40 feet.  But ours was a mere 21 or 22 feet, insufficient for pulling an automobile straight into the garage, necessitating bringing the car's turning radii into the garage, so using the right-hand space would conflict with any car parked in the left-hand space. 

 

Downsize the size of the garages.  Pretend that any car is to be downsized from the early - mid 1970s.  Assume no more 1960s-70s traditional large cars.  Leave perhaps a single foot extra length for a traditional intermediate.  Make the garages barely wide enough, without the space to open the doors without striking the adjacent car.  If a garage lower than the main house floor - - a platform within the garage may be too close to fully open a car door.  

 

Fail to provide any meaningful lower level.  No real basement.  Claim the water table is too high even to deny a PARTIAL basement, e.g. an excavation less than required for a full 8 foot basement.  IOW ZERO excavation whatsoever, with a mere 2 or 3 foot craw-space insufficient for owners to monitor repair personal due to the line of sight being blocked by ducting.  And of course, NO storm shelter.

Fail to delineate property lines, e.g lot corner posts embossed with a town, county or state emblem.

Allow California style small lot sizes and tight house spacing to permeate rural areas.

 

Subscribe to Obama/Biden Administration Wall Street high finance advisors to "value capture" space from within new residential construction.  Reduce or eliminate "needless" space from new house constructed, such as office and shop space.  Reduce kitchen sizes, with the excuse that the space to prepare "elaborate" meals is simply unneeded as people now have take out delivery.  Be sure to exclude building bookcases into walls.  Be sure that garage space is reduced to deny any extra space for hobby activities, let alone storage space- the latter so people are more dependent upon corporate self storage businesses, so people lose their possessions from the added "value capture" for spiking such storage unit rental income.

 

See also: https://southmallblogger.blogspot.com/2023/08/so-called-value-capture-in-media.html