Tom- Sure, we're not driving old cars because we're out to save the world. Though if you stop to consider it, everything we do with old cars is a form of recycling. And it's entirely possible to green up the fleet of cars on the road rather than crush it all. Texas (and possible other states) has a program that allows owners of cars that can't pass emissions to use state money to fix their old cars so they can pass emissions. I'd be all for a federal program that followed Texas's lead, but we all know the real aim of the federal program that was put into effect was to sell more new cars. And like I said before, I'm not out to save every car. There's a natural life cycle to cars in which the ones worth saving are saved, and the ones not worth saving are parted out and recycled. I'd just prefer to see that life cycle remain uninterrupted. AMC content: My AMX has major parts from three different vehicles, one of which was taken out of a junkyard and another of which was parted out on the way to a junkyard. So I kept those parts from becoming landfill material. And I swapped on EFI, saving fuel and reducing emissions while increasing power. Win, win, win. dan Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 09:26:38 -0700 From: tom jennings <tomj@xxxxxxx> Subject: Re: [AMC-list] rebuilding older cars (was: cash for clunkers) To: "AMC, Rambler, Nash, Jeep and family" <amc-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx> Message-ID: <c81e13650907070926l3c2bdd53r69bf3c75417f8799@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Fact: Any AMC (or similar vintage) car, in it's most perfect state of tune, NOT RUNNING, SITTING IN A PARKING LOT emits more hydrocarbons into the air than a 2008 Honda does RUNNING AT HIGHWAY SPEEDS. If anyone here wants to argue that dumping CO2 etc into the air at the present rate is OK or unimportant, well, that belongs in a flat-earth conference or something. It's not even arguable. The air and ocean isn't an infinite toilet to crap in. I drive only 45+ year old cars every day. I'm not cheerleading for boring soul-sucking appliances. But it's a fact that our old cars are tolerated because they are a tiny minority of cars on the road, and the fact that cars substantially older than "just a used car" are either long since scrapped or lovingly maintained. I love my Nash six, but I can't lie to myself about it's emissions. This thing had a draft tube in '62! Oil mist comes out the filler neck! It's half of why I want to put at least TBI on it. Remember when all roads had a black stripe down the middle of the lane? I do! That sucked. It doesn't happen any more, and when it does, it's older cars doing it. In the 60's, even new-ish cars did that. That's the tip of just one iceberg. The German model is the best so far, I think. You CAN not recycle your car. The Japanese model, you CAN'T keep your old car, really. There's more old Japanese models in the US than Japan. There's 250,000,000 cars in the US right now. We don't need to save every one of them. I don't see the world as ending or collapsing all around me. Hell the world is a better, more interesting place now. I am glad that Iranians have Twitter so that we can see that in spite of Fox News that most Iranians don't hate Americans and want BBQs and travel and, yes, cars, like us. It's EASIER! to own and drive a 45 year old orphan car now! The internet, filled with 1,000,000 crazy cultures and religions and XXXXX porn is filled with car fans and old auto parts and interesting discussions. I think it's all great. Bring it on! _______________________________________________ AMC-list mailing list AMC-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx http://list.amc-list.com/listinfo.cgi/amc-list-amc-list.com