Re: IML: Longevity of Our Beloved Imperials

["Hugh & Therese" <hugtrees@xxxxxxxx>]

Dimitrios has posited the idea that automotive longevity is in the hands of 
the owner, and in this I think he is correct, up to a point.  Older cars 
like ours lend themselves to the committed tinkerer.  All of their processes 
are essentially mechanical.  Parts may be hard to find but not impossible 
and I am sure I am not the only one who has personally made a part for his 
car that works quite well.  In my case it was the shift change linkage to 
the transmission.  I remain in agreement with Dimitrios in questioning 
whether or not the owners of modern vehicles, with their intricate computer 
controls, and less robust construction, will allow for current vehicles to 
be operable in thirty years time.  The ultimate irony will be that our 
Imperials will outlast a modern Lexus or Town Car or whatever by the fact 
that sustaining a modern vehicle will prove to be almost impossible.

Everything comes and goes, just like lovers and styles of clothes, wrote 
Joni Mitchell in the 1970s.  Many modern cars are being marketed on the high 
level of recyclable content they contain.  Owning a car older than five 
years is considered by some a sign that they are somehow falling behind in 
the rat race.  Others fear incipient mechanical unreliability.  For a whole 
host of reasons, most cars are disposed of with less than five years of 
purchase.  A person who wants to own a new car will almost immediately begin 
to be unhappy with any purchased vehicle.  Cars are seen as less constant in 
a person's life than a refrigerator.  On the other hand, antiquity in 
certain objects is highly valued.  The furniture, for example, that commands 
the highest price in the marketplace is often hundreds of years old.  By its 
very age, it has increased its attraction and function.  The music of the 
Beatles is likely to last longer than that of any current pop star you care 
to mention.  In just this same way, our Imperials are well on their way to 
being highly regarded as classics.  They are symbols of the age they were 
built.  My 58 speaks to Eisenhower era optimism and prosperity.  Examples of 
this time's Fords and Chevies, and even Chryslers and Dodges, that were made 
in greater quantities, may continue on as well, but I think it will be our 
cars, along with the Lincolns and the Cadillacs, that will be the emblems of 
the era.  It is noticeable how often it is an Imperial that is put on the 
front cover of books, particularly Exner examples.

In this our private passion and willingness to keep them going will reap a 
reward that is almost impossible to quantify in terms of monetary value.  I 
imagine that some of our Imperials, the ones we lovingly cherish today, will 
be maintained in museums in a few hundred years time.  They are the pinnacle 
of automotive design for their day.  We have every reason to be proud of 
them.

Hugh 




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