The Oil Drum

SacredCowTipper said:

I will humbly suggest there will be a renaissance in carburetor based cars with small displacements. The intellectual property to build and maintain a distributor based vehicle is within easy reach, while electronic fuel injection is not something one can deal with under the shade tree. It is a bit less efficient in terms of fuel utilization but much, much safer as things unwind.

To some extent, you're preaching to the converted. My wife drives a fuel efficient 1996 Saturn SL-1 while my daily driver is a 1964 Rambler American. My Rambler has a 6-cylinder flathead engine, a one barrel carburetor and conventional vacuum advance distributor ignition system. My Rambler is trivial to maintain (it comes from an era when many Americans repaired their own cars). Repair tasks for the Rambler that can be done in 5 minutes might require an hour for the Saturn, e.g. changing the oil filter. Unfortunately for me, the Rambler has only half the fuel economy of the Saturn. This is due to the Saturn's sophisticated fuel injection and overhead cam versus the Rambler's primitive flathead engine and carburetor.

The issue of modern cars versus very old cars might actually be defined by external events. There isn't a single transistor in my Rambler but my wife's car is dependent upon a sophisticated Power Train Control module based upon the Motorolla HC6811 microprocessor. If the Iranians/Chinese/Russians/somebody decide to popoff a large nuke in space over North America, the electomagnetic pulse (EMP) would take out most integrated circuit based electronics in the US (our current economy would be turned off like a switch). Modern cars would cease to function but my old Rambler would still be rolling along. At that point (assuming I'm still alive), I'd have to build a still and convert biowaste into alcohol. The Rambler could burn pure alcohol or methane if I retuned the ignition and/or modified the fuel system.