Do you use your classic as your daily driver? Pros and Cons?

[USU_Stang]

Living in utah can be a bitch for a stang owner, because winter sucks to drive them, even when there is no snow (because there is always salt....), and summer is hot as sin. But I did it for about 1.5 years, mainly because it was either that or not drive at all. If you keep both windows down the whole time and happen to be driving on a 55mph highway, then summer heat isn't bad. You still have to peel your sweat-soaked back from the vinyl though. Luckily I now have a saturn that takes the daily beating and my mustang gets driven when I want it to be driven.

pros:
fun as hell, that's all that matters

cons:
with 2.79 gears, c4 tranny and a mild 289 it's EASY to spin your tires in rain. Now imagine driving in snow.

 

[Opentracker]

John--ANY woman who'll drive a Ranchero is ACES in my book. Hats off to her!

--Paul

PS Does she smoke the tires?

It has a Toploader 4-speed and a 9" rear with 3.50 traction lock. It will and she does smoke the tires. She seams to get a kick out of barking off second gear around the newer cars.

Her and I on a 2:15 lap around Laguna Seca in our '65. She can drive.


John

 

[Edbert]

John, I LOVE that car!

Oh, and regarding the topic of this thread...

I drove a 67 Mustang as a daily driver from 1979 until 1993. If you carry a decent tool kit and some key components they are remarkably dependable, meaning that any reliability issues are quickly/cheaply/easily repaired on the roadside and you are back underway. The problem I'd have with a 40+ year old car as a daily driver is not parking lot dings or even breakdowns; my problem would be the rain and road-grime that comes with it. I have seen the toll that the environment will have on an old car, my current '67 will not come out of the garage if the humidity is too high much less a prediction of rain in the forecast (only a slight exaggeration)

When I finish my current project I intend to drive it to work once or twice a week and take it out for cruising every single weekend. But my workhorse daily-driver will still be my 97 Cobra. Mainly because it is more comfortable (better seats and air conditioning, less harsh suspension etc.), but it also gets ~20MPG and can sit outside in the rain for days without me getting worked up about rust

 

[MustangPaul]

I have seen the toll that the environment will have on an old car, my current '67 will not come out of the garage if the humidity is too high much less a prediction of rain in the forecast (only a slight exaggeration)

Living in south Louisiana, waiting for the rain to stop and the humidity to lessen is not an option!

Still, I don't have to deal with salted roads--my truck is still hurting from 4 years in central Illinois.

 

[D Durden]

Well, she's been more or less a daily driver since 1986. I know all the cons, but I just can't leave her in the driveway for long, you know?

I do NOT do snow . . . of any kind. In Tennessee, we get snow, but it never stays. We DO get black ice, though, and there's no driving in it short of an Abrams.

Rain, eh, it doesn't bother me that much. I run Toyo T1-S tires (AA rating in the rain) and disc brakes all around. I trust her, and I "know" her. Honestly, I feel safer in her than any car we have.

The way I look at it is this. She's metal. She can be fixed. If she CAN'T be fixed, odds are, I didn't survive, either, and she simply "took us home". In either case, no matter what, I can NEVER get back a moment that I COULD have been driving my '65.

Besides, we "old timers" have a new generation of Mustangs out there to remind who's "BOSS". I find it entertaining to drive by the Ford Dealers in front of the new GT's, rev up 500 horsepower through flowmasters and ask the salesman "So, are they REALLY that fast?" Grin . . . and idle away.

The new horses are FAST, and they're all that AND a bag of chips. We just have to keep our classics on the road to remind the new ones WHY they're special and WHY it's an honor to wear that horse in the grill.

My '65 can take me 35 miles each way to work all week long. She can pickup groceries on the way home along with my 5 year old son at school. She can also pull 9's on a skidpad, and she'll service 8,000 rpm's. And there's 150k on the motor and more than that on the drivetrain (we did BOTH the 30th and 40th shows with the same running gear, paint, and interior). She's a great car. She's a Mustang.

We "old guys" have to set the bar for the new Mustangs to try and meet/beat. How high we set it is up to us.

 

[Opentracker]

Well, she's been more or less a daily driver since 1986. I know all the cons, but I just can't leave her in the driveway for long, you know?

I do NOT do snow . . . of any kind. In Tennessee, we get snow, but it never stays. We DO get black ice, though, and there's no driving in it short of an Abrams.

Rain, eh, it doesn't bother me that much. I run Toyo T1-S tires (AA rating in the rain) and disc brakes all around. I trust her, and I "know" her. Honestly, I feel safer in her than any car we have.

The way I look at it is this. She's metal. She can be fixed. If she CAN'T be fixed, odds are, I didn't survive, either, and she simply "took us home". In either case, no matter what, I can NEVER get back a moment that I COULD have been driving my '65.

Besides, we "old timers" have a new generation of Mustangs out there to remind who's "BOSS". I find it entertaining to drive by the Ford Dealers in front of the new GT's, rev up 500 horsepower through flowmasters and ask the salesman "So, are they REALLY that fast?" Grin . . . and idle away.

The new horses are FAST, and they're all that AND a bag of chips. We just have to keep our classics on the road to remind the new ones WHY they're special and WHY it's an honor to wear that horse in the grill.

My '65 can take me 35 miles each way to work all week long. She can pickup groceries on the way home along with my 5 year old son at school. She can also pull 9's on a skidpad, and she'll service 8,000 rpm's. And there's 150k on the motor and more than that on the drivetrain (we did BOTH the 30th and 40th shows with the same running gear, paint, and interior). She's a great car. She's a Mustang.

We "old guys" have to set the bar for the new Mustangs to try and meet/beat. How high we set it is up to us.

For a short while I drove a VW Baja Bug around while my '63.5 Galaxie fastback sat to save gas. I had a truck pull out in front of me on the way home one day. I parked the VW and drove the Galaxie. I don't want the miles I drive to be in a new car or a small one. Nothing like a V8 4-speed Mustang, Falcon or Galaxie to make me feel at home. It's also a lot cheaper to drive a old car than a new one if you can do some of the work. I like working on the cars. To me it's like a non ending project with more good things to come. I'm never done with a car and if I can't work on it I don't want it, if it didn't come with wind wings and chrome bumpers I don't want to drive it every day.


We "old guys" have ran down some of the 5.0's on the track. They look at me like I'm a fluke or something. We have out ran some 'track only' cars with one we drove to the track.


John

 

[darkness falls]

Well, my car is not currently in the condition to be driven as it does not have a engine, trans, suspension, etc. Years ago in high school when I had my other mustangs, I drove them when the weather was nice, other wise I drove my truck. Like now, I drive my 98 Silverado as my main transportation.


Chevyyyyy

 

[jesserose17]

Ever since my 68 Mustang got new paint - I don't even park it in the store parking lots anymore... I do drive it a few times a week to work, I am fortunate to have a half empty parking spaces at work, so I can at least park it away from other cars. I don't even take it out in the rain at all - it stays in my garage whenever the weather is foul.

My daily driver for other days is my 94 Mustang GT convertible.

 

[2nd Mustang]

I find it entertaining to drive by the Ford Dealers

Not quite a Ford dealer, but I went to buy a Toyota Tacoma last year in my Stang. The salesman wanted to buy my Stang!

 

[TIGGER]

cons - being a college teenager, i dont have money to just do things right, so i try to rush my projects when im off school and at home and it has ended up costing me more than it should

He's got the biggest con in my opinion. I drove my car thru High School and half of college. I always had to rush thru my projects just so I could have a car to drive come Monday. Most of the projects didn't turn out like I would have wanted because of the time crunch. If you are going to use it as a daily driver, restore the car first. Don't restore it as you go along or you won't be happy with it when things don't turn out the way you want.

As for my story, some a-hole decided he wanted my CD player and broke into my car one night. He used a slingshot pellet and went thru both door glass windows. At the time I was taking 21 credit hours and did not have the time to repair it. It sat in the garage for 6 months before I started working on it. I pretty much retired it from daily duty at that point for fear of something happening to it again.