>Basically, what saved all our collective bacon is
>the catalytic converter. Without it I cannot >imagine
how bad our air would be.

I recall a Road and Track cartoon from the '70s
showing a car with a 1985 front license plate driving
through a dense smog with perfectly clear exhaust
coming out the back.  Ah, the artist's imagination!

Stephen

--- vanagonvw <vanagonvw@GMAIL.COM> wrote:

> Joseph Fortino wrote:
> >>>
> >>> How can you really rag on the Model T?
>
> Yea, that was really hard to believe. I guess he has
> the same opinion of
> the Wright Bros plane <shrug>
>
> >>> Plus I really really liked mu
> >>> Chevette - not coll but that car ran forever.
> >>>
>
> Chevette! Mine is still running at 190K miles.
> Bought it new in 84 for
> $4700. Still gets over 40mpg on the highway, and is
> stuck on 33mpg
> around town. Seems it is the car I can depend on
> whenever I need to go
> and get parts for my van, and the other vehicles in
> the family. Not
> pretty, but how much money it saved me over the
> years, is uncountable :-)
>
> Most of the crappy cars in the late 70's and early
> 80's are the result
> of apathy by the car companies, of course, but its
> rather important to
> remember that the morons in Congress were caught up
> in the energy crisis
> of the day, so without a whole lot of understanding
> of the industry,
> they came up with some really stupid standards of
> mileage and safety
> that the General Motors types of the day, were
> woefully unprepared to
> deal with.
>
> It has to fall on the manufacturers, but as with so
> many other things
> that the feds stuck their nose into, they really
> messed it up even
> worse. I recall a few mid 70's machines with smog
> pumps, ridiculous
> emissions controls, low grade gas and just no guts
> at all, that I swear,
> were probably dirtier than the late 60's beasts I
> would street race with.
>
> Basically, what saved all our collective bacon, is
> the catalytic
> converter. Without it, I cannot imagine how bad our
> air would be. Since
> its inception, the decrease in smog in the denser
> cities has been very
> dramatic. Kudos to whomever invented it, and helped
> to almost perfect
> it. About every three years I replace the one on my
> chevette, and the
> emissions drop to nearly zero all the way around.
> Tremendous invention.
>

____________________________________________________________________________________
Need a vacation? Get great deals
to amazing places on Yahoo! Travel.
http://travel.yahoo.com/