There’s a great scene in one of the original Star Trek episodes, What Little Girls Are Made of, featuring Ted Cassidy (who played Lurch in the Addams Family) playing a fearsome and extremely ancient android named Ruk.
Ruk remembers why the “old ones” – the humans who made him and his kind – had to be destroyed (as the androids saw it). I got to thinking about the scene while getting ready to leave the gym the other day. Parked in front of me was a circa late 1990s silver Toyota Corolla, one of the “old ones,” so to speak.
What happened to them, I wondered? These solid, functional, human cars that were free of all the inhuman electronica that has turned cars into rolling Ruks? We took them for granted when they were everywhere, which is commonly what happens when a thing is everywhere. A man who has plenty of fresh water does not think about water the same way that a man who is walking through a desert thinks about water.
We bought these cars as first cars (new and used) when we were young and lacked the means for something fancier. They put us on wheels but we didn’t appreciate that as much as we ought to have. Looking back, we can see better. But it’s a shame we didn’t see it better until it was gone.
. . .
If you like what you’ve found here please consider supporting EPautos.
We depend on you to keep the wheels turning!
Our donate button is here.
If you prefer not to use PayPal, our mailing address is:
EPautos
721 Hummingbird Lane SE
Copper Hill, VA 24079
PS: Get an EPautos magnet or sticker or coaster in return for a $25 or more one-time donation or a $10 or more monthly recurring donation. (Please be sure to tell us you want a magnet or sticker or coaster – and also, provide an address, so we know where to mail the thing!)
If you’d like a Baaaaa hat or other EPautos gear, see here!
At my previous job (about 4 years ago) I would see a guy commuting to work in a late 80’s or early 90’s Toyota Camry. It was in really good shape, and I was always impressed by how small it was. I used to drive a Scion tc, and it was big compared to his Camry. I wouldn’t daily drive a car like that because of all the idiot bro-dozers on the road, but it would be cool to have one for occasional driving about.
‘the “old ones” – the humans who made him and his kind – had to be destroyed (as the androids saw it)’ — eric
And Big Pharma helped, with their fake covid ‘vaccines.’ Incredibly, they’re still at it:
With stratus [sic] spreading, should you get another COVID-19 booster?
‘For people who are otherwise healthy, timing is a key consideration to getting any vaccine. You want to get it a few weeks before that big trip or wedding, if that’s the reason for getting boosted, doctors say. But, for most people, it may be worth waiting until the fall in anticipation of winter cases of COVID-19 really tick up.
“You want to be fully protected [sic] at the time that it’s most important for you,” said Dr. Costi Sifri, of the University of Virginia Health System.’ — APe News
https://apnews.com/article/covid19-stratus-nimbus-razor-blade-flu-summer-9c9522e398956c528a89e04a24244cf1
‘Stratus-nimbus-razor-blade-flu’ — STOP, you’re killing me! Seriously, my stomach hurts when I laff this hard.
The pitch behind this brazen product-placement article is the old A or B sales close. You can ‘choose’ to get your shot now or later. But never is not an option.
Death to the Lügenpresse.
They ought to make OTC MRNA gummies. For the tard-types that still insist on injecting themselves with safe and effective. A daily booster to help balance out between the release of new strains. Covidians need to be leveling up.
Morning, Norman!
I think there’s an obvious connection between the legalization of drug pushing ads and the general spread of hypochondria. So many people nowadays obsess about illness because they are programmed to obsess about it. Advertising works. Barrage people with ads telling them to “ask their doctor” about Loquacia – or whatever the new thing is – and they’ll believe they need to ask. Anyone who is old enough to remember the Before Times – i.e., the ’80s and prior – will remember that in those days, it was almost exclusively old people who were constantly nattering about sickness. Younger people who did were understood to be hypochondriacs. What’s happened is that hypochondria has been weaponized – by normalizing it.
Speaking of the Star Trek/Big Pharma overlap. Don’t all these drugs sound like planets and species from Star Trek? Or is it just me.
I can hear Shatner now, “Star date 5432.1, we just entered orbit around the planet Ozempic where a plague has endangered half the population. We’ll be meeting with Vraylar, the head of the council of elders.”
Names for your edification: https://xtalks.com/top-10-new-prescription-drug-tv-commercials-in-2024-4024/
Hilarious, Mark – and spot on!
Good morning, Eric
I honestly don’t even remember old people talking about sickness back then. The ones I knew told cool stories, or took us fishing. Sad that its all most oldsters live for now. Sickness this and test for that, their lives have become little more than a white coat caricature of the hypochondria Faux/MSNBC news spews out hourly.
Its like two separate stories magically playing to the same audience at the same time. If you only watch commercial free streaming everything looks OK, you never need to see or hear Fat Loquacia.
But then, once you turn on MSM TeeVee, You’re Rip Van Winkled back to the current thing. I’m reminded of this when I travel. Its a nonstop barrage of Miscegenation, better living through chemistry, and the battle between Nasty Flo and Black Jake the roast beef lover from State Farm.
The article goes on to say: “Wastewater data from around the country estimates “moderate” COVID-19 activity. CDC wastewater also shows the XFG variant — nicknamed stratus — is most common in the U.S. Stratus can cause a “razor blade” sore throat and is considered a “variant under monitoring” by the World Health Organization.” Aside from injecting yourself with poison, it suggests that one “wear a mask.”
How about fuck you lying AP, WHO and Devi Shastri (author)! What is wrong with these idiots?
You know what we need?
A color-coded Covid-19 threat alert level system that runs frim green to red, but never gets below orange for some reason.
I was thinking of the same song, Eric. I put this article under the “It was not broken, but we fixed it anyway” category. Oh how I miss the old vehicles without the modern crap on them. Yes! I will manually roll down the window for “air conditioner”. Yes, I do not mind manual transmission, I prefer it actually. No touch screen? That is great! No nannies of any kind? Oh my, how will I function without the beeps telling me what to do? Oh, I dunno, drive the vehicle like I learned how to do?? Here is the song link, and wow, back from 1988!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i28UEoLXVFQ&list=RDi28UEoLXVFQ&start_radio=1&ab_channel=CinderellaVEVO
My aunt had a ’93 Corolla. It was a loaded LE model. When she passed away in 2003 nobody in the family wanted the car, so I took it. Was in great condition with only 31K miles on it at the time. Needed a battery and tires which had dry rotted. I drove that thing for years. It was an awesome car. Never had a problem with it. Sold it on to some guy who was buying it for his daughter. Had about 170K on it at the time. Biggest enemy of these cars is rust.
They made a wagon version which was really awesome but of course didn’t really sell good. Every once in a while, I’ll see one around.
I had a 1990 Corolla. Terrific car and nice looking. Drove it for years. Wish I had one now.
I feel the same way about landline phones. Only, I still have one, and greatly value it. No smart phone for me- ever! Ditto paying with cash; my 20+ year-old vehicles; living in a place with no zoning or “code enfarcement”; physical books and media; paper and pens; old non-electronic appliances, etc.
These are all the vestiges of a once-functional society, and of maintaining autonomy as well as economic freedom, which are falling by the wayside because not enough people care about not being corralled and controlled. When they are fully gone it will be impossible to live freely unless we live in a cave.
I still have a 94 Corolla which was first my oldest daughter’s car then hand me down to my youngest daughter now hand me down to my grandson. My old school Datsun mechanic who steered me towards the Corolla model said this: Toyota in its continuous quality improvement planning took the tolerances to the 10,000th level and their tooling provided consistency. Toyota lap seated the valves into the head while no one else bothered. Most importantly was metallurgy of using hard cylinder walls and soft rings, while Chevy et al, were soft cylinder walls and hard rings. Moreover, Toyota *wanted* to build an affordable car that could go over 300K vs building a car with the idea of selling you another one shortly in the future.
*That was the equation!*. Survival cancels programming.
I have a theory as to what happened to many Corollas we use to see on the road…they got bought and stuffed into empty shipping containers due to trade surplus coming to the US and sent back to the third world.
My ‘03 Corolla is on its second 100k miles; hope to keep it going until I can no longer drive. The only thing that might interfere with that is rust from the massive amount of road salt they use up here. Luckily being retired I can usually wait for a few days for it to wash away, then take it to the car wash for an undercarriage spray.
Its “second” 100k miles?
Pfft!
It’s just gettin’ broken in. My ’06 Corolla’s odometer stopped working, froze actually since it’s digital, at 299,999 nine years ago. I don’t know how many miles it has but, I reckon it’s over 500k, easy.
Things I’ve had to repair/replace: Water pump, alternator, LR wheel bearing assembly. Oh, the upholstery looks great with no significant wear or tears. The paint is getting a little sketchy but, it’s never been parked inside on a regular basis.
Oh, I forgot the clutch had to be replaced around 275k and the catalytic converters clogged two years ago and needed replaced.
“ We bought these cars as first cars (new and used) when we were young and lacked the means for something fancier.”
Seems you’ve answered your own question.
May just be a misunderstanding on my part but it seems that many here look down upon such cars as ya’all continue to buy bloated, oversized, cod piece trucks with a Hemi.
I just saw a guy who did a 10-hour, 600+ mile drive in a ’97 Escort wagon. I would have no problem using such a vehicle for local daily driving, but I would be leery of doing it on the interstate like that. On vehicles that old I would genuinely worry about stuff like water pump, fuel pump and timing belt failures, unless all of that had been replaced recently. Those are not roadside fixes. Lacks of parts availability would also be an issue for road trips. You can get what you need for a car that old on the internet, but you local NAPA may not have an alternator for it on the shelf any more.
You can drive almost anything locally, and if you have a problem usually you can get it home and order parts and fix it at your leisure. Even if you need a tow and you are only 20-25 miles away it’s not too big of an issue (although towing costs have gotten STUPID lately).
Problems 600 miles away are a different matter.
I have seen people do road trips in some pretty old cars but I think I’d have to personally have replaced or rebuilt almost EVERYTHING on it and know the car intimately to try something like that.
Philosopher mode: at some point, one must accept that all risks can’t be controlled, and just take a leap of faith. Since the so-called pandemic I made five round trips to Austin — a thousand miles each way — in my ’97 RAV4.
Nothing bad happened until the final return trip, when the exhaust pipe broke off just behind the muffler and started dragging on the road about 30 miles from Van Horn.
No problema: took the next exit, bought a couple of short bungee cords at a convenience store, wired it back up, and motored on west. Did $3,000 of repairs upon getting home: exhaust system, front struts, replacing an iffy brake line. No issues with parts availability.
It’s not the destination; it’s the journey. 🙂
“at some point, one must accept that all risks can’t be controlled”
A agree, but life is about risk management. The trick is not to control everything but to minimize the probability of bad shit happening and to have a plan if it does. I always drive with a few tools, flashlights, hi-vis vest, some tire plugs, a can of stop leak and a portable tire inflator.
None of that will help me with a bad fuel pump in the tank, though.
In June drive my 98 Camry 5200+ miles cross country. No problem.
Your disconnect from the reality of driving “old” cars is stunning.
Exactly. Know your vehicle, keep it up & no issues driving long distance in an old rig. I would trust my 1991 Silverado for a 1000 mile drive now more than the 2018 Grand Cherokee – yesterday the GC wouldn’t unlock the doors. The “hand sensor” door handle 5 tries no unlock. Well, key fob push the button (it has a fresh battery) nope! Six tries with the fob button it finally unlocked. There is a manual emergency key built into the fob, last time I experimented with that it set off the honking alarm immediately.
Everybody drives a used car.
“Disconnect”? Quite the opposite. I bought a 21-year-old Ford Ranger cheap from a guy who drive it across the country… then his timing chain tensioner went. Gotta pull the motor to fix it. Lucky for him it was a one-way trip, it didn’t go bad until after he was already moved in with the woman he came to hook up with. If he had been planning to drive it round-trip and/or didn’t have someone to move in with, he’d have been up shit’s creek…
Glad to hear that X
Sparky pegged it “Know your vehicle, keep it up & no issues driving long distance in an old rig.”
That chain tensioner failure didn’t come without plenty of warning the other dude had been ignoring. Glad you got a deal on a Ranger – don’t let it go once fixed.
I’m cranky this AM and something about the 600 mile local drive comment got me fired up.
That generation of Escorts were as reliable and bulletproof as Toyotas were. In fact, I’d rather have one of those than a Toyota, as they were a little more substantial. Parts were cheaper and easier to come by than for Toyotas, and the cars could be had for bargain basement prices. I actually had to drive a ’97 or ’98? Escort 60 miles on the interstate a few years ago for a friend. I’m not a fan of small cars, but I was impressed. Felt a lot safer in it than in any Corolla I’d ever been in. The trip- half in stop and go traffic, and half open road, went flawlessly. And the car was not some one-owner pampered creampuff, but had come from a salvage auction. Truly a well-kept secret.
Yep, 1990s Escorts were very reliable cars, as were the Focuses that replaced them (except for the Third Gen with the automatic). I knew a dude who put well over 200k on a 98 Escort wagon (nearly all of that with a cracked oil pan I patched with JB Weld for him after he hit a rock on a dirt road camping).
My parents are getting settled in at their new apartment. One thing that’s been an issue is contacting them, at least getting them a new landline. Mom hasn’t been picking up her mobile, claiming it wasn’t ringing. So my sister checked it and sure enough it had somehow gone on do not disturb, for the last two months.
Even simple mobile phones aren’t really suited for my parent’s style. They’re complicated, feature laden and spam attracting devices that minimize their core function (at least according to my parent’s generation): Making and receiving phone calls. Because they would prefer a landline phone I’ve been looking at different options, many of which look much as they did in the early 2000s, with monochrome LCD displays and odd backlight color choices. But they have to actually get the landline installed, something that the maintenance crew is apparently doing this week after we confirmed there’s no dial tone in their apartment.
Remember “Cash for Clunkers”? A lot of decent cars were destroyed, almost all for a pittance.
A friend of mine knew a girl to took cash for clunker money for her 5.0 Fox body Mustang.
Urban legend is that a GNX was turned in during Cash for Clunkers.
Until Cash for Clunkers, 1990’s cars seemed very common on the roads in my area. After that not so much. Those cars were just too “good” to suit the peasants. So they had to go.
As someone who drives a late 90’s car almost daily, nothing that is made today holds any interest for me. Whilst the odd feature might be useful the overall effect is off putting; sort of like a really nice chocolate chip ice cream but the “chocolate” chips are made from sh*t. It wouldn’t matter how good most of it looked if the taste it left behind was abhorrent.
Amen, Landru –
Every time I drive my ’02 pickup I am struck by how much more pleasant it is than any of the new vehicles I test drive. My truck does not even pester me to “buckle up.” No “assistance” of any kind. No “technology” that monitors how or where or when I drive. No god-damned LCD touchscreen. My truck is not a rolling smartphone and I like that about it. I do not have to take it to the dealer for anything because anyone who can competently turn a wrench can fix anything that goes wrong with it. No CAN BUS systems. No “flashing.” No “updates.”
The Frontier got CANbus in 2004 (all cars were supposed to have it by 2008). CANbus is not the problem, it’s the proliferation of pointless tech. Your already truck has OBD-II, which is the problematic invasive compliance interface. Due to that EPA/DOT/NHTSA requirement your truck will have several processors already and for that CANbus offers some advantage over the ad hoc interfaces evolved over the years for OBD compliance.
Hi Chuck,
Yes – but my truck’s manual roll-up windows and door locks and windshield wipers do not require “interfacing” with anything. And the OBD system only controls the engine/EFI. I can handle that.
There the rub – “sweet spot” for electronics, great for engine control as to easy cold weather starts, no warmup stumble, better engine life no excess gasoline wash down in the cylinders.
Nope, can’t have that. My first brush with too much computer the 2003 Escape has a “body module”. Features of that? One thing, that all important “opera lighting” fade out when you close the door. Just turn the G D lights off, thanks.
Apparently that module monitors electrical load so adding a set of fog lights would set a code unless reprogrammed at the dealer.
Hi Chuck:
I don’t see the problem with on board diagnostics software. Considering the cost of a new car it should indicate what the problem is suspected to be instead of just turning on a light vs for example: intermittent misfire on cylinder 4, bank 2, mode 6 data indicates reduced power output for that cylinder-> high probability of coil failure indicated. I know which information I might find more useful. The invaisiveness is the data logging that is accessible to GovCo that I don’t like either.
“What Little Girls Are Made Of” just ran on MeTV within the last month.
They don’t make character actors like Ted Cassidy anymore either. Cassidy was very versatile and successful but known mainly for his more unusual roles.
The closest we have now to Cassidy is Doug Jones.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akivd148HlM
Straight. White. Religious. Of course Disney didn’t want to use him as The Silver Surfer and recast the role with a woman.
Guillermo Del Toro doesn’t care, however, and Del Toro won the Oscar with Jones as his lead in “The Shape of Water”.
Hi Roscoe!
Yup. Remember this one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9KBOhPXhds
Sigh. I still need to watch Butch and Sundance.
Cassidy died young in 1979, but he was never out of work.
Remember this series? Pay attention to the narration in the credits.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9MysTXM_P4
The Corolla looks early 90s. My wife had a 94.
They weren’t cheap at the time. We paid $16k new. It was loaded, however.
I keep my 2001 Solara rolling, but body parts are unobtainable, even from a junkyard. And you can forget about interior trim.
My 2018 Camry is simple enough in most areas, but I have my doubts about the eight speed compliance transmission reaching 250k like the Solara’s four speed.
The real problem with lack of used cars for the last decade was Cash for Clunkers. We can’t afford a repeat, financially or philosophically.
I imagine a lot of 90s Corollas got turned in for Kias or GM’s Acadia/Equinox platform garbage.
Indeed, we paved paradise and put up a parking lot (h/t Joni M.)
Big Yellow Taxi…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY07dHiT2-s