(NGC) - Modern vehicles have come a long way!

[Gliderjohn]

This last January I bought a 2015 Nissan Altima with the 3.5 six package. Acceleration wise I thought this is a lot like my father's 1968 SS 396/350hp El Camino. Looked up the specs and low and behold the El Camino time (remember with 1968 suspension and tire technology) was 14.8 and the Altima time is 14.3. We have come a long ways baby!
GliderJohn

[oldbike54]

 Yep , and the Nissan will stop and go around a corner also 

 Dusty

[wymple]

It will never have the same presence, tho. And tires back then were a joke as far as getting going. With modern rubber that Elk would most likely dip into the high 13's. Most of them had taller gearing.

[Chuck in Indiana]

A long way? They certainly have. I remember 1000 mile tuneups and chassis lube. If you were lucky enough to get 100,000 miles, it was totally worn out.

[Kev m]

It's night and day.

300 hp is a family sedan or SUV (hell even a Jeep Wrangler is knocking on that door these days).

You don't see muscle car territory till 400-500 hp

700 hp is not just Mclaren or Ferrari territory anymore you can see it with a Corvette

There are super/hyper cars with 1000 hp

Yeah, it's a whole new world.

[Vagrant]

BUT! What good is any of it when every bridge overpass, tree and corner has a cop with laser gun in hand or speed camera hanging everywhere? then there's the pothole strewn roads etc. my license wouldn't last a week with a new Corvette that I would love to have and can actually afford now.
I'll stick with the V7 and old EV.
On the other hand my 1969 Z 28  I bought new on my 21st birthday ate plugs every few weeks and kept running when shut off. 100,000 miles or more is now common on plugs

[Tusayan]

Yep, 2018 car performance is mostly useless and you're also almost guaranteed to lose virtually every penny you spend on a new car. Cars were and are throw away devices by design, the difference today is that they get driven perhaps 150,000 miles instead of 100,000, but also that new car owners can no longer swim upstream (or buy VW Beetles) so as to keep their cars serviceable beyond their predetermined life.  That may be one definition of better engineered, I think its a valid point of view even while seeing cars as one of the less inspired parts of our current world, but regardless you wont find many people successfully restoring and caring for a 2018 Nissan in 50 years.  Planned obsolescence won, despite its ominous implications to a previous generation of thinking people.

I think to most of us who love Guzzis, motorcycles (on topic) have never been like modern cars, even today they represent something conceptually better: simple, tasteful machines that the more intelligent makers design to live indefinitely, if the owner wants.  That remains a big part of the appeal to me so all the things that have made new cars better in some ways (and more disposable), when applied to newer motorcycles completely remove my interest in them.  I think that might be one of the underlying causes for the rise of hipster consumer values (for example 'authenticity') that do in fact sell bikes today...  like the nuovo V7, a 2018 bike based on two 1970s designs (V50 and original V7 Sport).

PS understanding that many of the 50 year old US and European cars were badly engineered, I don't think for example that a 1971 Datsun (Nissan) 240Z looks so bad today in terms of reliability and life.

[Sheepdog]

I get 250,000-300,000 miles out of modern vehicles (my 2000 Suburban 2500 still drives like new), but that isn’t the best part of new vehicles. We’re killing about 20,000 less people per year in auto accidents here in the US than when I was a lad. I love those old muscle cars, but not for hauling my loved ones around...

[Lannis]

I get 250,000-300,000 miles out of modern vehicles (my 2000 Suburban 2500 still drives like new), but that isn�t the best part of new vehicles. We�re killing about 20,000 less people per year in auto accidents here in the US than when I was a lad. I love those old muscle cars, but not for hauling my loved ones around...

It's creeping back the other way.   About 54,000 dead in 1972 - 40,000 dead in 2017.   

The safety features in cars today, and the tight campaigns against drunk driving, are being swamped out by the huge number of talking, texting, distracted drivers.

"Brittany Jones, 18, was killed yesterday when the car she was driving went off the right side of the road, overcorrected, and crashed into a tree on the left side".   Time after time after time after time, the same words, same situation.   

Just normal wastage, though; after all, texting while driving is an absolute requirement these days.   People literally could not survive if they didn't do it.  What's a few thousand dead people with all that at stake? Just ask them.

Lannis