I was thinking about putting vehicles on my layout and that got me to thinking that not every car should be from the decade being modeled. On the road right now I see a lot of cars from the currant decade, a lot form the 2000s, a handful from the 1990s and a few cars from the 1980s. That’s about a four decade spread. But does that work for every era? The four-decade spread works for those modeling the modern because cars last longer, usually 200,000 miles with proper care. But what about the transition era? It’s my understanding that cars rarely made it to 100,000 miles and if they did they were usually at the end of their useful lives. What are your thoughts?
I do know that no matter what era, you can always put an 81 DeLoreon on the layout and say it’s the Back to the Future time machine. [:P]
I think it depends on what you are modeling - i.e. city vs. urban life. While cars in the city earlier last century might see a quicker turn around as far as usefulness goes (10 years?), cars in the country were mostly owned by farmers, who would be more resourceful in keeping a vehicles going, as they would their farm tractor.
I think a 20 - 30-year span for rural vehicles wouldn’t be far-fetched at all for 20th century America. I model the early 40s and I have vehicles from the 20s that look quite appropriate.
Another issue to consider is that folks back then also didn’t travel the distances we do today, as the US highway system didn’t start developing until the 1950s and families tended to live in closer in proximity to one another. Needless to say, the pace of life has really changed since that time.
Even on a transition era layout a four decade spread could be about right and it’s very plausible for a modern era layout as well. Living out here in the country as I do I see vehicles out on the road that date back to the early 1900’s and seeing some very long-lived vehicles from the last twenty to thirties years isn’t a stretch. My Century was sixteen years old when I sold it and had over three hundred fifty thousands miles on it and would have still been running if I’d replaced the fuel pump. And my van is thirty-one years old and still runs well. So no, a four decade spread isn’t a stretch at all.
Unless you pick a specific date for your layout, it’s perfectly valid to say you model “the 1950s” and thus give yourself a bit more latitude. We’re all limited by the availability of models, unless we want to scratchbuild or bash our vehicles.
Cars did not last as long way back when. The auto industry was derided for “planned obsolescence” and designing cars with a limited lifetime so they could sell more cars. Materials have improved, too, and rustproofing has added years to vehicle life.
This is my solution to having older cars on the layout:
I think of planned obsolesence – a phrase coined by industrial designer Brooks Stevens who did in fact design a number of automobiles – as coming into its own in the 1950s, but Stevens was thinking primarily of appearance and design, not necessarily mechanical fragility. Having said that my dad’s 1957 Mercury started to rust out after just two years. It was explained to me that it took a long time for American auto makers to think about internal systems of water drainage and that the Japanese were way ahead of us.
A few random thoughts. First the advent of using road salt in cold weather country is something I think of as really becoming prominent in the early 1960s. Before that it was either just plowing, or plowing and sand. Even in 1970 when I went off to college, the Milwaukee area used salt but the Oshkosh Wisconsin area did not, with the result that I saw lots more cars from the 1950s in Oshkosh than I did in Milwaukee. Of course Oshkosh was also closer to rural areas. Second the advent of two-car families seemed to slightly predate the popularity of two car garages, so there were alot of cars that sat outside or in car ports rather than be covered up. Third the 1950s saw a number of once popular car makes disappear (Packard, deSoto) so even routine repair and spare parts became an issue. And fourth, vehicle leasing was rare in the 1960s, and often people saved to buy a car, so fewer people were able to indulge their desire to always have a late model car. You drove the old one until you had to buy a new one, in other words. Just “wanting” a new car was for rich people.
Thinking back to about 1960 when I first started to become interested in new cars (it was important to all the boys in school that we could identify all the new car models on sight, and back then the yearly design changes could be significant, so come fall we all wanted to go to the dealers and collect the beautiful color catalogs. S
]One thing to remember is that auto production ceased during World War 2, and after the war it wasn’t unusual to have to be on a waiting list to get a new car. So it wouldn’t be unusual to see pre-war cars still being driven into the early fifties.
My dad had a decent-paying job as a mailman, but drove a 1930’s “straight eight” Packard until about 1954. I remember my dad noting that cars were much simpler in “the old days” and it was easier to repair things yourself, so cars were easier to maintain and so could last for quite a while.
BTW his first car was a 1924 Gardner, that he bought in 1933 for $5.[
I can only speak from experience having lived on a ranch where we had rail sidings for cattle and a store during the 60s. Of course some picture research can help too.
I remember going to the junk yard seeing cars from the 40s and 50s, maybe a few 30s. I remember having several trucks and cars coming to the store/corral from the 50s, a few from the late 40s(keep in mind that the F series truck started in 1948 and nobody really kept anything earlier) and a few from the 60s. As the 60s progressed I saw a lot of changes!. A lot fewer 40s, and a lot more 60s, but the 50s were hanging around, particularly pick ups. We also saw the trains coming a lot less.
I gather that you are not modeling the modern era (say 1980 and later), but on a different message board there was some discussion about the ready visibility of mid-1960s to early 1970s vehicles on the road nowadays compared to their immediate successors of the mid-1970s to early 1980s. Of course c 1964-1972 was the muscle-car era, while the (US Domestic) production spanning the later 70s/early 80s was nothing to write home about.
In the late 40’s and early 50’s, I remember a mix of new looking post war cars, with bright colored paint, and a LOT of prewar 30’s cars in faded and dusty black paint. Say maybe 50-50 mix in the late 40’s. By the 60’s the prewar cars were mostly gone. There were very few cars from the 1920’s still on the road in the 40s and 50s. For instance, Model A Fords were still around, but you didn’t see them on the road very often.
I’d say your vehicle mix might be limited to a twenty year spread back in the transition era and only perhaps 30 years by the 2000’s.
The previous posters have made some good points which I have to agree with. So I’ll just add my own [2c] worth. I think up to the end of the 1940s cars were built to last. Others have pointed out reasons why so I won’t repeat them. From the 50s through the 70s and maybe into the 80s it became the age of obsolescence for cars. As pointed out, cars were driven more and farther, the use of salt on roads became more common, and cars were being made with lighter materials. Someone told me that during the 70s car manufacturers used a lot more recycled steel and this contributed to premature rusting. I don’t know if that’s true or not. Living in the city, I have to say that my observation is that the majority of the cars I see are not much more than 10 years old. However, with the cars from different manufacturers all looking about the same and all looking the same from year to year, it’s sometimes hard to tell. It’s not like back in the 50s to 70s when cars had distinctive looks and it took only a glance to identify the make and model and year.
SOmeone above mentioned road salt, and that is something to considder depending the locale you are modeling. An older car in southern California could last in almost pristine condition for many years, while the same car would be riddled with body rot in northern states like Maine. Corrosion prevention was not a priority with manufatcurers until the late 70s or 80s. I was surprised to find a small sacrificial zinc anode on my 1986 Dodge Omni.
“I do know that no matter what era, you can always put an 81 DeLoreon on the layout and say it’s the Back to the Future time machine”
Actually, there is a warehouse full of DeLoreon parts and they still build about 5 new ones a year. My coworker used to own one a few years ago. I am not surprised they went out of business. Fairly spartan for the price.
I have two thoughts that I have not yet seen in this discussion. First, while earlier cars did not last as long in miles (due more to earlier technology, lack of ability to use better materials as in today’s cars), people also did not drive as many miles in the 40’s and 50’s, thus these cars would still last for many years. Secondly, and more importantly, earlier cars were built in such a way that the average individual with a basic knowledge of mechanics could repair them reasonably inexpensively. Today almost any repair requires an expensive visit to a computer-equipped garage. As late as the 70’s it was nothing for Jim and his brother Bob to take the weekend and rebuild the engine in their dad’s '49 Plymouth. Thus many of these older cars stayed on the road a long time because they were easy to repair and keep running, though they may break down more often than their modern counterparts. I have an uncle who drove his dad’s old Model A Ford around the countryside well into the '70s.
Theres a shop in the area where I live that specalises/ restores DeLoreon’s. I see layouts with unusual cars like Tuckers and street rods on them. You can figure there going to a car show. A Tucker is so rare I don’t think any owner would risk driving it much.
As a historian, stix and David S make good points about the WWII interruption in production.
Another factor is the state of the economy. When it’s down, fewer new cars and vice versa. The Great Depression really put a hole in things, followed by the war, so that era until about 1950 had a mix that was probably a bit broader than subsequent years.
The observation about the quality of bodywork and the rust factor points out another issue. Manufacturers worried little about weight until after the 1973 oil crisis, although there were a few notable exceptions from American manufacturers and – the VW. After 1973, there was a crash effort to reduce fuel consumption, initially by going after the low hanging fruit. It was easy to reduce the thickness of sheet metal, etc, so that’s where weight came out first. Cars in the north quickly became Swiss cheese in many cases. Eventually, improved metals and rust-resistant treatments solved and even improved on the longevity of body work, while still keeping extra weight down.
Overall, the 40-year rule is pretty accurate, but these factors could expand or shrink that span. It’s also the case that some cars were just pretty hopeless in terms of rust-resistance and other issues of mechanical reliability (I’m thinking Chevy Vegas, Ford Pintos and AMC Pacers), so they were pretty scarce within a decade or so. Pickup trucks also tend to last longer, because people use them for work and don’t care how ugly they get, so long as they run.
Although there is some discussion about the risk of losing a rare vintage car, most people that are into them agree that a car that sits in a museum may look good cosmetically, but is rotting away mechanically. Barring accident, a car that is driven and properly maintained will last longer than one that just sits.
Last week I heard on the news that the average age of cars on the road today is 10 years due to the recession. That being said, current day cars do not change that much. Manufacturers go 5 or 6 years before making a model change. IN the 50s, it was done almost every year. Our family had a 57 Ford, the first year with tail fins, and a big change in looks from the '56. The 58 model looked similar to the 57 - basically the same sheet metal, with different tail lights and some chrome trim.
I alluded to both in my earlier thread but from a different angle. Even my 250 '76 Nova with a straight 6 was waaaaay easier to work on than my current '08 Honda Civic. I could practically climb inside the hood area of the Nova - even to change the plugs.
I forgot some interesting vehicles that were around during the 60s. And those were the war surplus/converted WWII trucks and jeeps. Old deuce and halfs made into flat beds and wreckers, etc. Jeeps and 3/4 ton trucks for general use. We had one as a wrecker and it was a tank-LOL. Those old Willys Jeeps were very easy to work on.
Speaking of vehicles, it was interesting to see how the railcars which carried them changed over the years. I hesitate to call the early one’s auto racks since they were so different from today. Two level open sided and sometimes single level flats. I remember when they started adding sides to the existing cars too. It also served as an easy way to see all the new cars and body styles.
One reason 50 era cars didn’t last long was in the mind set of the owner sine the majority believe at 60,000 mile the car was junk and was usually traded in or junked.Yet a lot of the 50 era cars lasted well into the 70s with high milage.
I drive a '95 Buick LeSabre that’s still going strong-the highest repair was recent-a computer part needed replaced…
So,having cars from the late 80s to 2012 isn’t far fetch nor is having 50 era cars on a 60/70 era layout.
You could have a Model A on the layout on its way to a car show.
