When is newer not always better ?

[XR Martin]

No rear doortrim lighting on ANY BA/BF or FG. No door pockets in the rear of FGs...

[vztrt]

Originally Posted by banarcus

Yes you are right, the Fairlane has the wagon rear doors. How about the AU-BF rear doors opening far less than a EA-EL SWB sedan? Ford and their thinking :(

Yeah they fixed that with the FG (due to people not being happy with it).

[Cabbage]

A couple of general things.

Manual wind back seats as opposed to the leaver. Different makers have introduced the leaver some still use the manual wind back. The leaver is so easy to adjust your seat back, the wind back seat is just plain annoying.

Seatbelt warning alarm. On the VE Calais this alarm is like fingernails down a blackboard. Ford Territory a little less annoying. Sometimes you want the engine running and aren't going anywhere ie parked on the fence at country footy, raining, need the wipers on.

The sound of a real metal door closing on an x series. No modern day car can beat the solidness.

[xy500]

Originally Posted by XR6 Martin

Yeah but at the time your XY needed a service every 5000kms, retune, plugs and points every 10k, valves adjusted every 15k, new rings at 100k (if lucky)
Plenty of cars ran alloy heads and cast iron blocks with little trouble, before your XY ever existed too.

i still can't get over the fact you think any xy needed its valves adjusted at any point, they all had hydro lifters didnt they? =self adjusting

[SSD-85]

My Galaxie is definitely a quieter, smoother ride compared to my AU. No creaks, no rattles and no road noise. The seats are "plusher", & sit lower. And placement of switches on dash are better on the Gal. To the AU's credit, the AC fans are stronger.

All in all, id rather be back in 1970 driving the Gal from new, given its nearly 40 years old and still drives this great is impressive.

x2 on the solid doors, I love it, closes first time everytime with a solid reassuring click. This might sound strange, but does anyone else get the "old car" smell? its not an odour or anything foul, but every one ive sat in has it. I actually dont mind it.

[Elks]

people keep saying these.

Vision.
ZC/D fairlane. You can see all 4 corners and the car dropped off square from there. No need for parking sensors. ZA/B close second.

Also my ZA front seats used to pull forward, drop the back flat and join with the rear seat to make a bed. Handy when your 19.

Sound.
Old school V8's - I will work out how make my TS50 sound like one day. It's a windsor after all.

Chrome
It looks cool.

Bits & Pieces
No footrest - removed to help imporve crash rating, :
Lights in doors
Rear windows that go all the way down
Options (except for BMW who excel at this. I don't think they have 2 car the same for years)
Groovy trim colours Red/Blue/White
Solid black, non mettalic, paint.

Things I don't miss
Having no real braking ability
Power steering with the feel of a video game
Rust
wipers that are there for decoration
Lucas electrics (Lucas- Prince of darkness)

[Iggypoppin']

I've got so many.. But I'll just quickly add, before I go to sleep, any one complaining that their boss or efi Windsor doesn't sound like the good ol' days of Clevo goodness, just remember we have ADR's, emissions controls, sound control laws and you're all too old and deaf to hear the cars of today anyway ;)

I'd like to see better mechanical quality in things like diffs, gearboxes etc. The ZF should fix any complaints but at the moment unless it's high performance you have to option it up. Diffs? Don't know about the quality of FG but seriously....if the 9inch was so good 20,30,40 years ago, surely in this day and age ford could manufacture something similar in strength for their cars?

[mrniceguy]

Arent alot of cars these days built out of a steel that real hard to weld, coated with a compond that releases cyanide when heated and glued together at the seams??