Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[Peter_L]

Similar to some OCC members and comments above, I will be celebrating my 95th birthday and even our children will be close to retiring and I would guess most of those who penned the idea and suggested a date of 2040 may not be in a position to see it through.

Getting to the point, can anyone find anything that was conceived and then delivered after 40 years ? Seems that all my life I have seen "Knee Jerk" and "Retrospective" solutions to problems.

In 1918, WW1 was talked about as the war to end all wars, in 1954 it was said that one day Nuclear Power would be "Too cheap to Meter". Computers would be so huge and powerful that the world may only need about 5 of them. Diesel Fuel is the answer. Winston Churchill, "it's fog", CFL bulbs are the future of lighting". the list could go on.

Of course the oil will run out one day, so will the all other fossil fuels. The world was never built to last for ever, although it would likely have had a longer life if some small creature hadn't crawled out of the water.

I have no idea what 2040 will bring. Maybe by 2040 will have seen the end of "fashion statement" vehicles, replaced by a world wide Volkswagenwerk, in any colour as long as it is high visibility yellow. Steering wheel manufacturers will have long gone.

Looking at where we are today and ahead to 2040, perhaps we will stop hurtling from one location to another. Do we really need to be able to go from the UK to Australia in under an hour ?

So maybe instead of headlines talking about the end of "new vehicles" it should be looking at the end of "doing things for no other reason than we can" I enjoy the internet and taking something away is not always popular, but my father never knew the internet, and was too old to care by the time the Fax machine arrived, but he had a good happy life, with my mother and his children, he went from an ex army £15 Austin "Tilley" through to a brand new GT Escort, and could never have been classed as a"Luddite"

So maybe this 2040 hysteria should not be about the motor car but more about the number 1 single problem. Us, me, you, the guy next door, in short mankind. Too many people in a tiny house onto which we can't build an extension.

Electric - Hydrogen - Magic Mushroom Juice, the fuel or lack of it is not the problem to be faced in 2040, it is the billions more that will be around to try and find yet another "band aid answer"

Should anyone care to work out the numbers, I did years back but I lost the answer... take away such things as the Black Death, Spanish Flu, American Civil War, WW1, all of WWII. Tsunami, Volcanoes, without those we would have reached 2040 a long time before Y2K, a date when the world was supposed to stop, aircraft would fall out of the sky and the banking giants would collapse.

So now I have a new goal in life, I would like to reach 2040 if it is only to say "I told you so" as the world introduces yet another "band aid answer"

Regards

Peter

[petelang]

I agree with you Paul Beaumont, it is "show boating" by that snivelling little weasel Gove and makes absolutely no sense at all.
In the last few days the Government announced that the long long long awaited electrification programme for the Midland Main line was now cancelled and as a poor substitute we will get nice new DIESEL Trains. The following day comes this announcement. They haven't got a clue!
In my city of Nottingham I have long been arguing about all matters relating to our (not so wonderful and extraordinarily expensive) tram system. Now they have built it and it cost so much, they need to encourage mass people movement to pay for it. Hence they have deliberately forced closure of industries, turned the brown sites into housing and then made it a fundamental necessity that they all have to travel to the city to work. No more local jobs for local people. As a consequence the amount of traffic, and pollution, has escalated.
We have a poor "joke" of a ring road around the city with a plethora of traffic lights, none of which are Co ordinated, about a million speed bumps all over the town and one way systems that require five times as much fuel to get anywhere. On top of that, the cost of city car parking has escalated so you practically need a mortgage.
If we had local employment sites, people could safely walk or cycle to work. If we had a sensible ring road without so many junctions and lights the traffic would flow and pollution and fuel use would drop. If the encouraged car sharing and reduced parking charges for fully occupied cars there would be less traffic.
However, this doesn't fill the Council trams or ego so I guess we're stuck with ever increasing cost, frustration and congestion.
Peter
Nottingham
Speed bump city as penned by our Jake Bug.

[alastairq]

I seem to remember a time long before the present young working [or not?] generation....or uni-yuppies, were born, or even, hoped-for....when the Government of the day actually tried to encourage companies to re-locate from the London area, to the rest of the country...simply because of the ever-increasing congestion, pollution and lack of housing.

This was, I hasten to add, last century.

The carrot to persuade firms to re-locate was the new-fangled internet, and the ability to electronically communicate, so face-to-face wasn't needed any more.

Few, if any, took up the challenge.

But, like free university places, housing for all in the poshest of areas, etc etc...including operations as & when we wanted them.....all come at a price no-one wants to consider, at the time.

Fine ideas, but no infrastructure to support them. Nor the finance.

[How can we have shorter waiting lists for the NHS, when the NHS actually doesn't have, and cannot recruit, sufficient staff to operate these services? NE Lincolnshire has had to rationalise departments to one centre, because there are not enough qualified doctors to have otherwise....promoted as a temporary measure...which will become a permanent one, no doubt?]

The topic of this thread...has really only come about now, because the French trumpeted the same announcement a few days before.....and it wouldn't do to have the French steal a march on us [they did it at Waterloo!!]

Pay no attention..or, given we are OCC, restore a milk float......ideal for a pensioner on limited income, eh?

[MikeEdwards]

[petelang]

Regarding speed bumps, they have been responsible for a colossal expense on two bespoke sandwich vans we operate. Despite having pretty good careful drivers, both chassis cracked requiring major strengthening and annually we have to have all new suspension bushes, plus have had to upgrade shock absorbers. Each van has to go over 90+ bumps each day in the course of the round. Each month sees more of the bloody things appear. Last week new clutch at a cool £1009 and garage hinted this is probably related as every time you go over them you tend to dip the clutch. It's completely insane!
Peter

[alastairq]

In Hull ['ull, to those not in the know], the Council are assessing speed humps [traffic calming measures.....which is what a mini -roundabout is for....& why the splodge in the middle is often raised.....that, and giving everyone equal priority]

They will only remove those humps that do not contribute to road safety....which means, in effect, very few of them.....especially around skewels

One wag on Look North tonight, suggested there was little need for speed humps, as the potholes did a good job of slowing traffic down!

Sorry, orf-topic again

[47Jag]

I was announced today that there are over 100,000 licensed drivers over 90 years of age so perhaps some of you (I'll be 100) will be around to endure what passes for private cars.

Art

[Peter_L]

[MrWhite]

[alastairq]

Does it all have anything to do with the fact, the French announced their intentions in this respect, first?

I don't think we have to worry about this policy at all [referring as it does, to the purchase of NEW cars?...Just don't by a new car, if one doesn't like the situation?].....................!


What we do need to concern ourselves with, IMHO, is the intervening period.

Recent events have witnessed how politicans crumble under minority pressures....responding with knee-jerk reactions that simply serve to alienate one part of the population from another.

I foresee Local Authorities [we have fought long & hard for devolved, de-centralised Government...note how upset folk have become at the decisions being foisted down to a lower level?]....who govern cities and [large?]towns havng to enforce charges for driving within those towns & cities.

Personally, I have nothing against such Charges at all....even though a low-income pensioner, I have no need to ever visit a large town or city again..[especially London, a place I no longer ever wish to have to visit ever again....for me, the M25 forms an invisible force field, crossing or using being totally avoided at all costs.].....my lifestyle choice being made despite the drawbacks.

I have always thought the Japanese had the right idea, of encouraging the purcase & use of their Kei car size tax class.

What I cannot comprehend is....when a manufacturer decides to launch what is loosely described as a 'city' car..ie, sub-miniature hatchback, or physically very small car...........within one or two model changes, the things have become bloated out of all proportions!!

For it is [IMHO] the physical size of motor cars that has contributued much to the congestion within our towns & cities.

If we refuse to use public transport [regardless of how likeable it is..or not]......then at least let us make the traffic queues physically smaller?

Having zero VED [car taxation] is but a carrot....it will become pointless in the future, without having a payment system to set the standard.

[IE, what happens, when nearly all new cars sold, attract zero VED? Eventually, a tax will be imposed, to avoid revenue loss....so the zero tax-carrot becomes self defeating.]

We might face the re-imposition of VED for our old cars and stuff, perhaps? [Despite the large lobby in our favour, from Parliamentary enthusiasts?]

Perhaps we will be limited in the number of cars per household, permitted? [I currently, as a singly..have 3 cars 'on-the-road'...and another 3 as SORN, being fettled-restored-re-built. OK, I only drive one at a time....and none are parked on the road.]

This would solve the urban parking issues so many have trouble with? I've often wondered why so many who live in terraced houses, don't convert their front rooms into a garage? Given that streets are so narrow for parking?

[ Soon will we see fire appliances with big snow plough blades on the front, so that they can carve their way through the parked cars to get to the fires?]

Yup, I foresee a lot of detimental inconveniences arriving, before we get to that 2040 cut-off date.

[ukdave2002]

Assuming that the ban on new car sales does occur in 2040, 1 of 2 things will happen to the value of petrol/diesel cars:

1)their value will rocket if the electric car still fail to match the performance and flexibility of petrol/ diesel.

2) their value will plumet.

If it is the latter it probably will have happened long before 2040 as the writing will already be on the wall.......

Dave

[JohnDale]

Hi folks, perhaps you would like to read what ENGINEERS are saying instead of listening to politicians who probably can't tell the difference between petrol & diesel. Amazing fact - modern direct injection petrol engines emit more(& finer) particulates than a Euro 5/6 diesel with DPF - shock,horror - they kept(are keeping) that quiet. Perhaps that is why VW are to fit particulate filters to petrol powered vehicles before end 2017.

Follow link to read a SAE paper full of facts.

http://articles.sae.org/13624/

Cheers,JD.
_________________
1958 Ford Zephyr Mk2 Convertible
1976 Ford Granada Ghia.

[peter scott]

John, I love it! TeeHee.

Peter
_________________
http://www.nostalgiatech.co.uk
1939 SS Jaguar 2 1/2 litre saloon

[Ray White]

I agree with Paul Beaumont who has said virtually everything I wanted to say!!

There is of course nothing new in electric vehicles; they were among the very first cars on the road!... and if investment in battery technology had began a hundred years ago we might all be driving them now!

As to public transport; Tilling Stevens petrol/electric busses were providing a regular service in London back in the 1920s!

There is nothing new under the sun; not least electric powered vehicles but to listen to some of the plonkers on the TV one would think they had just arrived!

My Dad once told me that during WW2 a few enterprising people converted cars to run on 12 volt batteries only. I remember electric milk floats (are there any still running?) they were slow but did the job.

[Miken]