30 years is a long time. Back when I started working in 1992, there were quite a few people who met The Duce, some even had managed to meet Henry himself. One of those guys was pushing 50 years at Ford. No idea why, but he loved working there.
A few years later, I bought a ’73 car that was 22 years old. And it was easily a antique.
And now I’m done working- a whole career later.
So in terms of changing…. The Alfa had really, really basic crash structure. You had to order seat belts.
In 1992, it was barely after all cars got fuel injection. I remember visiting a dealer with my dad, and the dealer told us a guy just wanted a simple carburetted car.
But here’s the funny thing- thanks to advancements in computers, the 1992 Miata was much closer to the 1973 Alfa I had when you then look into the really weird emissions solutions that showed up in between. Powerful computers really simplified the engines.
Between then and now, for the most part, computers got cheaper- which meant a lot of features got to be added pretty easily- like electronic throttle and WB O2 sensors. DI was a real massive change, though- which took some much more powerful computers to even design, let alone to control. And thanks to DI and powerful computers, the massive step in emissions between ’92 and now has mostly been dealt with with simple control and design- catalysts are way cheaper now than they were in 2000 for equivalent emissions.
Hard to really judge between the lack of emissions in a 1962 vs 1992 vs 2022, though. The first 30 years was a massive change, but the last 30 years were really significant, too.
Safety has taken similar steps- pretty much nothing in 1962, some decent rules (including airbags) in 1992, and pretty stringent rules and standards in 2022. In ’92, traction control wasn’t really a thing yet, but now we have full drive control- almost.
And it can easily be said that drivers are very forward compatible, but not really backward. Even though a huge amount of US cars in ’62 had automatic transmissions, there were still a really significant manuals. Now there are hardly any of those left.
I really love what new cars bring- love the back up camera, love the infotainment system that gives me really good navigation that I can just say- go here on non highways- and we get it. If we had it, I do enjoy smart cruise- the only “bad” thing is if you are not paying attention when you come up to slower cars, and all…
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