When I'm not driving test cars, I have a 1969 Dodge Polara -- Saint Nancy is her name -- that I use to putter around town. This is not an exotic muscle car -- she's just a big old blue sedan, a little dented and a little rusty, and she seems to strike a familiar chord in people. They pat her thick metal flanks, reminisce about the big ol' boat they learned to drive on, and say, "They sure don't build 'em like they used to, do they?"
Saint Nancy is an excellent, low-mileage example of 1969 technology. She gets about 15 miles per gallon on a good day. When I start her in the morning, she requires a 5-minute warm up, and when she's cold her exhaust emissions are high enough to put me on the EPA's Ten Most Wanted list. She offers almost no modern safety equipment, she doesn't stop for beans in the rain (come to think of it, she doesn't stop all that well when it's dry, either), and if I don't tune her up every 10,000 miles, she complains by sucking down even more gas. Compare that to the brand-new test cars I write about -- air bags, ">Antilock Brakes, powerful engines that burn clean and run smoothly regardless of temperature or weather, and, aside from regular oil changes, many require no routine maintenance for 100,000 miles.
"Nope," I say, "They sure don't built 'em like they used to."
Don't get me wrong -- I love Saint Nancy dearly. But cars have come a long way in the past 30 years, and most people don't appreciate the majority of the changes because they are under the skin.
Here are the biggest improvements, in my opinion, of course, that have transpired since Saint Nancy rolled off the assembly line thirty years ago.
Electronic fuel injection. Older cars used a mechanical device called a carburetor to mix air and fuel. The carburetor uses the process of atomization, similar to a perfume atomizer: as air is pulled into the engine, it rushes past a tube filled with gasoline, and a set amount of gas is sucked into the air stream. It works, but it is not terribly precise. When the government started tightening emissions standards, the car manufacturers realized that carburetors weren't going to cut the muster, so we finally started to see the benefits of electronic fuel injection. Fuel injectors spray the fuel into a much finer mist than the carburetor can produce, which means the fuel is burned more completely. And with the use of electronic controls, the fuel injection system can use several inputs -- the amount of air entering the engine, temperature and humidity, throttle position, and more -- to decide exactly how much fuel the engine needs at any particular instant. We see the results in the form of more power, easier starting, smoother, more reliable running, better gas mileage -- and, of course, lower emissions.
Electronic and distributorless ignition systems. The ignition system produces the spark that ignites the air and fuel mixture. Traditionally, this was done with a device called a distributor. Inside the distributor is an engine-driven whirlygig called a rotor; it is connected to the coil, the source of the high voltage necessary to produce a spark. The rotor spins around, making contact with terminals on the distributor cap; each terminal leads to a spark plug, and the rotor literally "distributes" the high-voltage juice to each spark plug. (Recall how, in TV shows from the 60s and 70s, people were always disabling cars by pulling off the distributor cap.) Now, we wouldn't want the juice turned on 'til the rotor was near a contact, so a mechanical device -- the breaker points (a single device spoken of in the plural, like scissors and pants) -- were used to make and break the high-voltage circuit. These breaker points would have to open and close between 2000 and 20,000 times per minute, so they required constant cleaning and adjustment -- part of the reason cars needed a tune-up every 10,000 miles.
Some time in the early 70s, engineers realized that point-breaker ignitions were a major pain, so they came up with the first electronic ignition systems, which used a sensor in the distributor which decided when the rotor was nearing a contact, then turned on the juice. Suddenly, folks were getting 30,000 miles out of a set of spark plugs, instead of 10,000. In the late 80s, the engineers went one better with the distributorless ignition system. DIS, as it is sometimes called, has no moving parts -- the engine's computer takes several factors into account, decides the optimum time for the spark, and WHAM, jolts it to the plug. The results: Even better fuel mileage, even lower emissions, and engines that can go 100,000 miles on a single set of spark plugs. Today, most cars have DIS, and those that don't have an electronic ignition. Trace the plug wires back to their source; if they're plugged into a round gizmo with a wire in the center, the car has a distributor. If they connect in pairs to a rectangular block, it has DIS.
Disc brakes. Brakes slow a car down by converting motion energy to heat energy. Back in 1969, you could still get cars with drum brakes on all four wheels. (Saint Nancy has drums all around.) Drum brakes are aptly named; imagine a drum on its side, with shoes on the inside pushing outward to slow the motion of the wheels. Since the braking surface is inside the drum, it is difficult to cool, so drum brakes become less effective under severe conditions, such as repeated high-speed stops or steep downhill grades -- a condition known as "brake fade." Another problem with drum brakes is that when they get wet, water tends to stay inside the drum, reducing braking effectiveness.
In the late 60s and early 70s, disc brakes began to appear. Imagine spinning a paper plate, then squeezing the edges to make it stop, and you'll understand how disc brakes work. The braking surface -- called a rotor -- is entirely exposed to the air, so it's easier to cool, which reduces brake fade. And when the rotor gets wet, centrifugal force simply flings the water off. About 65% of the braking is done by the front wheels, so many cars now use a front disc-rear drum setup. However, more and more cars now feature disc brakes on all four wheels. It's a more expensive setup, but it is all the more effective.
Anti-lock brakes. The laws of physics dictate that a wheel that is spinning has more traction than a wheel that is locked. Lock the back wheels, and the car may spin out; lock the fronts, and you lose steering control; lock them all, and, well, hang on. That's why driving instructors taught us to pump our brakes. ABS does it for us: sensors check the speed of each wheel and compare it to the others. If the ABS system finds that one wheel has locked up while the others are spinning, it begins to pump the brakes -- only it pumps them a lot faster than a human driver ever could. Which means that under maximum braking, the driver can still steer the car -- and driving around an obstacle is often a better alternative than stopping to avoid it. There's been some controversy surrounding ABS as a safety feature; apparently, ABS has not led to the serious reduction in accidents that was expected. The theory is that this is due to the "invincibility factor" -- drivers use less caution in slippery conditions, figuring that ABS will keep them safe. ABS is no substitute for common sense; however, most professionals -- including the staff of NEW CAR BUYING GUIDE -- will agree that, used properly, ABS is one of the most important active safety features you can buy.
Crumple zones and better restraints. I've heard folks complain about cars that folded right up in an accident. Truth be told, you want the car to crumple -- as far as the passenger compartment, that is -- because the more energy absorbed in folding up the car, the less energy there is left to fling you into the seatbelt and the airbag (an event known as the "second collision"). Older cars tend to be very stiff, which means that in a collision, most of the crash energy will be passed on to the occupants. Let's say I decide to crash Saint Nancy head-on into something unforgiving, like a bridge abutment. I'll hit two seat belts -- my Dodge, like most cars of the era, has separate lap and shoulder belts, the latter of which is not terribly well positioned against my chest -- and they will stretch; next in my path is the hard plastic steering wheel. It won't be a pretty sight. In a new car, I'd have the crumple zones to reduce the force of the "second collision," and when it came I'd hit a single belt, properly positioned and fit snugly over my chest. If I was lucky, I'd be in a car with seatbelt tensioners, which are triggered by the airbag sensors to yank down on the buckle at the moment of impact, reducing any slack and compensating for some of the stretch of the belts. From there, it's into the airbag we go -- hopefully one of the new depowered bags, fitted to most cars starting in 1998, which are safe enough to cushion a properly belted driver and don't pose as much of a threat to short folks who sit close to the wheel.
Improvements in handling. Smaller cars, ">independent suspensions, rack-and-pinion steering -- these are just some of the features that have helped make cars more responsive handlers. A car that handles better is more rewarding to drive, and it is safer, too -- drivers can swerve to avoid an accident without fear of losing control of the car. And they're easier to park, too!
Comfort and convenience features. Many items that used to be considered luxury items -- or were not available at all -- have become common on mid-level and even entry-level cars today. Power windows and power central locking are not only convenient, but they are important personal-safety devices as well. Power mirrors and intermittent windshield wipers aid visibility, and cruise control eases driver fatigue -- provided it is not used as an excuse to "zone out" on the highway. I'd even argue that air conditioning can be considered a safety feature -- after all, a comfortable driver is a calmer, more rational, less aggressive driver -- and a safer driver.
