today we're going to talk about oh hold
on if we can get this thing started
we're going to
talk so today we're going to talk about
driving in 1974 classic car on today's
roads in modern 2024 times
and we're going to do some comparisons
with modern cars because most of us
still drive a modern car day today and
we keep the classic car for parades and
car
shows so here I am wishing that I had a
backup camera we're just going to go
down and do some filming and you can
hear just how loud it is inside this
car I've got one triangle window open
otherwise all the windows are closed
from the outside you can see the Valiant
is a stylish car for the time quite boxy
with lots of chrome the Chrome is plated
over actual metal those Amber front
directional signals and parking lights
are not original they are the only thing
that differentiates the 75 from the 76
we're being followed by our Chase car
which is a Dodge start for the irony one
thing about a car with broken air
conditioning is that you always stop in
the shade if you can you get plenty of
uh pep here in first gear it hopes that
this engine has an awful lot of tour
torque it's tuned for torque rather than
horsepower so this is my uh stylish boxy
Valiant boxy actually was quite in for
that time period as were vinyl roofs so
that's a vinyl covered steel roof that
I've got there I think originally the
idea was that it would look like a
convertible without being a convertible
now driving a car like this on Modern
roads one of the things that you find
out is that your car has much higher
gravity than most cars and the way that
that works is that as you're driving
along some people start to stare at the
car because it's so
unusual and then as they stare at it
their attention goes to it and they
start to steer right into your lane and
right into the car and this is not
something that's unique to me I mean
I've talked to a lot of other drivers
who have had the same issue the stripe
down the side of the car has a real
function that was a trim option on a lot
of cars and the goal was to stop your
car from getting dented when the guy
next to you open up their door too far
in a parking lot so they look good but
they also protected your car most
Valiants had the very plain uh hubc caps
that we call dog dishes now they were
much smaller than the Big Shiny ones
that you see there which were actually
an extra on that car that the original
owner ordered between the Valiant and
the duster and the dart they had
hundreds and hundreds of thousands of
these made every year they really were
very common especially since they were
also pretty well made they shift into
neutral and help the alternator out so
in modern cars you never think about the
alternator and whether you're charging
or not and you definitely do in the
older cars because the
alternators alternators were brand new
for uh the modern design of alternator
came about in
1960 when a guy at Chrysler found out
how to do it with iodes even so you
don't get a whole lot of energy being
developed at idle speed compared to a
modern car modern cars you know they
don't think anything of having 150 amp
alternator this the standard with air
conditioning I believe was 35
amps it's not all that
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much you get less than half of the total
amperage when you're at
idle versus at maximum rpm
in fact modern cars usually don't even
bother with voltmeters because you just
don't need to think about it you've got
such a big battery and such a big
alternator it doesn't really matter at
all and I'm lucky because I have an
alternator and not a
generator people in the older cars who
have the generators it's a bigger
deal and for whatever reason I don't
have to worry about the engine
temperature and this car it's always
been good uh the cars that I've had back
in the day when when they were my daily
drivers man those things they
overheated this one is never overheated
in its life and a lot of that is the
maintenance that was done before I got
them and this car I got with very low
miles only has about 2,000
[Music]
now we're only going 40 mph and you can
hear it is quite loud in here because
I've got the triangle windows open but
without them it'll be like being in a
steam
[Music]
bath I always love that wine in first
gear I'm not mechanically Adept enough
to know what it's from
the brakes in this car are quite good
for the time they've got a good
feel let me just use the electric
windows there we
go takes a little agility to close the
passenger side window so this is the
sound with all the windows closed and me
cooking in my own juices here and we're
nor going about 35 M an hour
the rear window shape is pretty much
like a parachute and they fixed that on
the 1970 duster but they didn't have
enough money in the budget to fix it on
the vant as
well so the steering's a little loose on
this particular car if you bought a
police version and you got a much
tighter steering Chu I had one that had
the toe package for 76 and that included
an awful lot of police equipment so
these cars are really still quite good
for or going around town in terms of the
acceleration they do 0 to 30 pretty well
when you get up to highway speeds that
three-speed automatic shows why they
went to foursp speeds in terms of noise
and in terms of overdrive uh giving you
much better gas mileage the seat that
I'm sitting in because the Springs are
so loose it actually has the effect of a
bucket seat I sit down the seat goes
pretty you know the Springs really give
way and that gives me a good amount of
support
with the police version of this the
Springs are really stiff and you have no
support and you slide all over but in
the days when this was made the bench
seat was normal and the bucket seat was
really kind of an unusual Sports thing
the only advantage of the bench seat
that I know of uh other than if you're a
teenager and you don't have any place to
go other than your car and you can fit
three people across in a pinch when
you're driving an older car you really
do have to know more about how the car
works you have to understand the
electrical system issues that you can
have you have to understand the
carburetor because it's much easier to
stall out you sometimes had to be
willing to get out of the car and jam
open the throat of the carburetor with
the screwdriver while you started it
there was a lot of Maintenance that you
had to know to do yourself and the
schedules were a lot tougher than today
you had to lubricate the suspension
parts at least once a year for one thing
so that's why they called it an oil and
lube the radiators tended to gum up
after a few years and so you'd start
overheating you know you look at a
modern car things that you take for
granted you can't take for granted when
you're driving a classic and that
includes brakes the brakes are so much
better on today's cars it ain't funny
today when you slam on your brakes you
do not expect the rear end to go
swinging out this car has front disc
brakes which are great and they're not
powered which is even better because
otherwise the powered brakes and a lot
of mopar people here will back me up if
you get them as a factory sold them they
will lock up the front brakes really
easily people now go through and they
replace the wheel cylinders today's cars
of course have electronic brake
proportioning even the cars before that
from the 80s while they'll have
proportioning valves built in and one
reason for that at Chrysler was because
Bert bamp went to Chrysler Europe and he
said wow this is standard on all the
cars here it really should be standard
at home too most modern cars can out
handle a classic car unbelievably the
big heavy cars of today like a Dodge
Challenger man their performance in
handling is just stunningly good
compared to any of the vintage cars and
you don't have to pay very much to get
good handling if you go back to the
original neon they were running 0 to 60
7.8 seconds which was the equivalent of
a lot of the old muscle cars actually
was better than a lot of the old muscle
cars and the neon would do it day after
day after day without ever having to
retune it the main difference is that
back then the engines were designed to
give you a lot of torque from low RPM
whereas today a lot of them require that
you rev High to get there but some of
them don't anyway when you drive a class
a car today on Modern roads you have to
be very aware of your surroundings you
have to know what's going on in front of
you because almost every car has much
better breaking than you do so if you
don't leave some extra room then you
might very well end up causing a crash
well the person in front of you really
causes the crash but you'll still end up
as the car that slams into the back of
another car and in some states that
makes you automatically at fault you
also have to be watching people around
you because people will cut you off
without thinking for a moment that you
don't have those great breaks and people
will also get very distracted by your
very presence on the road and drive very
strangely around you and so you have to
be aware of who's in both lanes next to
you because sometimes they drift into
yours while they're
staring it is a challenge to drive a
classic car on today's Road but it's
also very enjoyable and it's a lot of
fun to drive in parades I've shown some
parades on this channel so that you can
experience it from my driver's point of
view and if you have a classic car I do
encourage you to take it out for a ride
but I also suggest that you put on that
third brake light like I've got because
it's not that distracting from the
original look of the car but it can also
save you from having somebody not seeing
your incredibly dim tail lights and your
relatively dim brake lights and just
slam right into you today's brake lights
are much brighter than the ones in the
classic cars so having an LED third
brake light really can save your car I
will say that if you're in the northern
New Jersey area and you have a classic
car you might want to think about
joining the restored Rusty relics and T
Mobile Club