Anybody else feel kind of sad when you see dead cars?

[Jayson]

Anytime I drive by a junkyard or I see one that is out in a field or something that is oviously never going to see a road again, it always makes me feel kind of sad. Anyone else like this? Youtube actually has some good video's as well were some dude or dudes has taken pictures of old broken down cars.

I think its partly nostiga but also because cars are basically links to the past. If a old 1982 Chevy Nova goes to the city dump it's not like it can be replaced with a new 1982 Chevy Nova. It proably doesn't help that new cars nowdays all look the same to me or worst look like crap. Cars use to have personality but now there bland and interchangeable.

Jason

 

[TGTheodore]

Only truly classic cars. Especially when they were great touring and cruising cars.

I saw a 1958 Impala that was rusting through. Broke my heart. (It was the same model Ron Howard and Charles Martin Smith drove in American Graffiti.)

--Ted

 

[Rii]

Jayson, you should check out Harlan Ellison's "Corpse".

 

[Finn]

Kinda. I think it's cool when u find one deep in the woods far from a road where you know there weren't any trees there when it was first left there.

 

[DiSiLLUSiON]

Watching cars die is a sad business. Watching your beloved dream car die is even sadder.

So, on a similar topic: I am so saddened you hardly ever see 'revival' cars. Yes, they take an old model and spruce it up a bit (see, for example, the Ford Mustang) and while it usually looks good, it isn't the same.

And that can be a problem. I'm completely and utterly in love with a '73 Corvette. Have been for years, since I first laid eyes on one.

(obviously not a real pic; most photos I can find with Google are crappy)

Everything's right about this particular model to me. Every line, shape and curve. However, it does present a problem: I am doomed to watch them die one by one. Eventually, people will stop restoring them. And I'll forever be unable to ever actually own one. Why? because I love the sound, I love the looks and I love to drive it, but I'm absolutely uninterested about anything mechanical. So, I'll have to drive it to the mechanic every other week, making the cost rise and the car unusable half of the time. And I can't buy a completely renovated one; they're horrendously expensive.

Why can't Corvette bring out a new car, based on the old design? Huet Brothers can do it, why can't GM?

 

[RJDiogenes]

There is definitely something melancholy about old, decaying cars; especially abandoned ones. I guess because cars, especially in American culture, are symbolic of movement, life, adventure, the wind in your hair, that once immobilized the symbolism is reversed; they become symbolic of everything we stand to lose.

And then there's just nostalgia and anthropomorphizing. I once had a car that died and my mechanic said it wouldn't be worth fixing so I left it there. I came back that weekend with another car to clear out the back seat and trunk. My old car had been moved off into a corner by the woods and the hood was ajar. Damn thing looked like it was crying.