Understanding the Relative Reliability of Vintage Cars
I am not a professional mechanic. I don’t fix other people’s cars for money. I do, however, repair my own vehicles. And having owned over a hundred cars, including 70 BMWs, 40 of which were the boxy little 1970’s BMW 2002 sedan, I think I have a pretty good hobbyist’s bead on repair and reliability-related issues. Occasionally I make errors of myopia—drawing incorrect conclusions from too small a sample—but generally, when I bounce things off friends of mine who are professional wrenches, I’m not too far off the mark.
With that oddly defensive-sounding preamble, let me say what’s on my mind.
If you’re thinking of buying and daily-driving a vintage car, or taking an extended road trip in one, you need to either have a decent level of do-it-yourself mechanical skill, or expect to be writing checks to a specialty repair shop. And even with that, at some point the car is likely to break at an inconvenient time and location. If you’re not willing to deal with those realities, you perhaps shouldn’t own and drive a vintage car further than to occasional cars and coffees. And it doesn’t matter if the car was “restored” (whatever the hell that means), whether that’s by you, a big-name restoration shop, or a seller on Bring a Trailer with a good photographic studio that makes the car look like it’s a finished product. While there is a lot of truth to the view that well-cared-for vintage cars, even rolling Lucas jokes like my two Lotuses, behave very differently when treated as pampered sunny Sunday drivers than they did as rain-soaked dailies, you’re kidding yourself if you think it’s the same thing as daily-driving a ten-year-old 150,000-mile Camry. Got it?
I first began to feel the need to drop this truth bomb during the post-pandemic run-up in vintage car values. A good friend who is a professional wrench and I fielded a flurry of questions from folks who’d clicked and bought high-dollar “restored” (there are those quotes again) BMW 2002s and were disappointed when what was delivered was not the like-new fully-turn-key car of their dreams. I’m not a body-and-paint person, so I can’t comment on nuances of body restoration, but I can comment on why, mechanically, a repaired/refurbished/resurrected/restored vintage car is highly unlikely to be “like new.”
Don’t get me wrong—I adore the simplicity and the design aesthetic of pre-big-bumper pre-catalytic converter cars (which is what I usually mean when I say “vintage car”), where you can open the engine compartment and know what every component does simply by looking at it. That simplicity does mean that you’re likely to be able to diagnose a problem—and hopefully fix it—on the side of the road, but it doesn’t mean that that car back in its day was more reliable than late-model car is now, and it certainly doesn’t mean that a vintage car, even a well-maintained one, is less likely than a late-model car to wind up in the breakdown lane.
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I’ve given a lot of thought over the years to why this is true, and I’ve come up with five layers of reasons. Not surprisingly, the first has to do with technological improvements in modern cars that you’d really have a hard time seriously arguing don’t offer a step-improvement in reliability over their vintage counterparts. I have written multiple articles about what I call “The Big Seven” things likely to strand a vintage car (fuel delivery, ignition, cooling, charging, belts, clutch hydraulics, and ball joints, the last of which is on the list not so much because they’re failure-prone but because if they break, you lose control of the car, so you can’t afford to be wrong about them). The first three of these are dramatically improved on newer cars. There is zero question that modern electronic ignition systems are far more reliable than points-and-condenser systems, that the electronic fuel injection that’s been in nearly every car since the early 1980s is vastly superior at letting a dead-cold car start instantly at the crack of a key, and that cooling systems in newer cars are actually designed for the temperature extremes that are experienced in hot American summer traffic as opposed to those in vintage cars designed for cool breezes in Bavarian forests, overcast British days, and balmy motoring around Lake Como. (I vividly recall attending the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix in the heat of July a few years ago, and as I approached the venue, seeing increasing numbers of Jaguars and Lamborghinis in the breakdown lane with their hoods up.)
To look at two more of The Big Seven, with charging systems, the reliability advantage of newer cars is less of a slam-dunk. On the one hand, modern alternators with the voltage regulator integrated inside are generally more reliable than their older counterparts with external regulators simply because there’s no longer the failure mode of breakage in the wires and connectors that tie them together, but on the other hand, if the alternator dies, a vintage car can probably run for half a day on a fully-charged battery, whereas a modern electronic-laden car may drain the battery in less than an hour. Similarly, belts are a toss-up. Vintage cars often have their belts slacken due to degradation of rubber bushings in the adjustment track. Modern cars have serpentine belts with automatic tensioners that keep the belt tight, but if the tensioner fails, all hell breaks loose.
Of course, advancements come at a cost. When a vintage car has no spark, the odds are strong that the points have closed up or a wire has broken off the connector to the coil, both of which are easy fixes. When it has no fuel, it’s almost always a dead fuel pump or a clogged fuel filter. You may not have spares with you, but once procured, you’re soon on your way. In contrast, these things are non-trivial to diagnose on complex modern cars. And some of you may have gagged when I said that cooling systems in modern cars are far better than those in vintage cars. To be balanced about it, yes they’re designed to perform in actual real-world high-temperature environments, but they also have many plastic components, and when one of them breaks, the car can suffer a catastrophic coolant loss which can easily result in engine damage.
The second layer of vintage car problems has to do with issues of parts quality. Most of our beloved vintage cars exist in small quantities, certainly not the millions or even tens of thousands like those models still under warranty or those still used as daily drivers. Once cars pass a certain age, the manufacturer bears no real responsibility for parts quality (or even availability) on older models. Even if you buy a “genuine” part in a manufacturer-logo’d box at a dealership, there’s no guarantee whatsoever that that part is the same one that went on the car when it was new. It may or may not be made by the same subcontractor, and may or may not (but likely not) be subject to the same quality control standards that it was when the manufacturer and/or dealership would have to eat the repair cost if it broke under warranty.
The third layer is that, even if you’re doing a systematic restoration or paying someone else to do so, you’re never going to replace everything. You usually can’t, because of either parts availability, cost, or both. And it’s usually not necessary. For example, on vintage BMWs, front subframes almost never break (well, the left engine mount plate breaks, but that’s weldable). Front MacPherson strut housings last the life of the car unless they’re bent in a collision. Instead, you replace what’s broken, and prophylactically address what’s likely to break. Of course, as cars from the 1960s are now in their sixth decade of service, things that never used to break are now breaking. So when you turn the key and nothing happens, don’t be surprised when it’s not the battery, or the starter motor, or the solenoid, or a broken wire, but turns out to be the ignition switch in the steering column. Or when there’s play in one of the wheels, you find that it’s not the wheel bearing but the stub axle about which the forums say “those pretty much never wear out.”
The next layer took me a while to see, but it goes like this: The issues of quality control and quality assurance apply not only to individual parts, but also to the entire car viewed as a manufactured system. Restoration shops don’t refurbish cars in sufficient numbers to be able to do anything comparable to the systematic testing, evaluation, data-gathering, and statistical analysis that manufacturers do. They may have opinions regarding which alternators and water pumps seem to be less failure-prone, but they’re not testing fleets of vehicles in Death Valley. No matter how thorough a restorer is, or how good your trustworthy mechanic is, the result is never going to be the same thing as a manufacturer building a commercial quantity of cars that they and a network of dealerships are on the hook for repairing under warranty. And you as one backyard DIY mechanic, reading opinions on enthusiast forums, are doing the best you can, but the idea that you’re an automotive W. Edwards Deming running a six-sigma total quality management system is ludicrous.
The last layer is one of expectation. Many of us love vintage cars because of their pre-wind-tunnel lines, their period and nationality-evoking interiors, and the nostalgia they trigger because we wanted them in high school or when we were young adults, couldn’t afford one then, but can now. But even questions of reliability aside, it is highly unlikely that a vintage car is ever going to approach the tightness, quiet, and comfort of the modern car that is probably your daily driver. Personally, I prefer the honesty of a vintage car with patina—it doesn’t surprise you when you drive it, and the car actually feels like the age that it is. Door seals are a big topic in the vintage BMW world. I get that, if you have a pretty shiny car with a redone interior, you want to stop that whoosh and whistle at highway speeds, but even if you do, the car is never going to have the hush of your daily.
I’m certainly not telling you not to buy the vintage car you’ve always wanted. I’m just saying that you should love it and respect it for what it is. It’s probably nearly as old as you are. It’s got quirks. It’s got needs. Hell, it’s probably got bunions and gout. Maybe even a little incontinence. It’s likely to need the same amount of professional attention that you do these days. Give it to it.
All this is pretty true in my experience, I have a pal with a Lincoln Continental Mark III that has come up with so far 7 different reasons to refuse to run in the past two years. Pertronix and good fuel filters have stopped most of that but it’s still waiting for me to replace a no-brand aftermarket starter that has it stuck since last week.
That said, I think that there is actually a sweet spot where cars are far more reliable than a ‘70 Lincoln (or Lotus, for that matter) and quite possibly more reliable than a five-year old modern machine. You don’t wrench for a living, but I do. And I have almost as many cars as you have. All of mine are between 20-40 years old. Yep, the sweet spot of EFI, disc brakes, and far simpler systems than in 2025. That’s intentional. Most of the things that cause a a car show up on a hook at our shop, CAN’T break on my cars, because they’re not equipped. Air suspension? Immobilizer? Stupid plastic tubes that split and empty your entire cooling system? Nope.
I drive mine hundreds of miles without a care. Throw your baggage into the back seat and take off. Turn and burn pickup of a race car in Missouri- no problem for my 1990 F250. Laguna Seca and back in the Range Rover Classic? Turn the AC off on the Grapevine, and you’ll be fine. Might want to bring a quart of oil. Crossing the Mojave in summer in the 1995 540i? Done it more times than I can count.
I’m not trying to gloat, just pointing out that in reality, I’d guess more of the audience here drives cars like mine, than like yours. There are old cars, and really old cars. And the “sorta old” cars seem to work even better than new ones.
OTOH, the couple who drove the prewar Lagonda v12 across America didn’t have much trouble, so maybe some cars really were built better back when:)
I fully agree that there’s a sweet spot of the era of cars built with electronic fuel injection and electronic ignition and not yet having cooling systems with a preponderance of plastic components.
“Preponderance of plastic components” is a phrase I need in my life.
Sajeev, you owe me a quarter every time you use it.
That deal is worth every penny to me!
I’ve owned and daily’d a couple dozen E12’s, E30’s, E23’s, E24’s, E28’s, and random E3’s and 2002’s and never thought they were unreliable.
Drove many of them cross country from California and back, sometimes they needed something repaired to continue the trip, but they never left me stranded.
The “Sweet Spot” for me seems to be between 1980 to 1992.
Yeah plastic and composite parts not designed to withstand any sort of long term stresses and fracture, rack, warp, etc. But if it was Ford they did it to save $0.25 per part, maybe $0.05.
In 1972 while a COOP student at FOMOCO, I worked on testing hydraulic lifters where the cost difference was $.001. That’s right a tenth of a penny. At the time all Ford (pushrod based) hydraulic lifters were the same. Ford produced pretty close to 1 million car and truck in NA in 1973. If you assume that 50% of the cars sold had V8’s and 25% had L6’s and the other 25% were Pintos with with OHC 2.0L engines or maybe 1.6L Kent motors, that comes out to saving about $11,000 for one year or about the salary of one entry level mechanical engineer at the time. Not much of a bonus for Lee Iaccoca even then. So $0.05 would have been a huge amount back then. $0.25 was a fortune at those volumes
The test fixture was cheap: an over the center lever, a spring, a dial indicator, a stopwatch and a low paid college student (me at about $650/month not including OT) to run it. The test came down to this; which vendor’s lifter had the slowest leak down time. Most boring job I ever had at FOMOCO. The hardest part was staying awake. I might have run that test for 3 weeks for 8-12 hours a day then it was over. The contestant vendors were Johnson and Eaton. I don’t recall the winner. At the end of the test the engineer in charge gave me a box of 144 brand new hydraulic lifters. I don’t recall which brand they were. I gave them to my room mate who was a Ford guy and also was working as a COOP at Ford. I was a Chevy guy running solids at the time so I had no use for them or juice lifters in general.
That’s an interesting story. Any guesses as to how many lifters you tested in those 3 weeks?
As an owner of a 26 year old Miata, I agree with this. In the 13 years I’ve owned the car, the only time I’ve touched an accessory belt was when I removed the alternator to have it rebuilt early in my ownership; that was the only show stopping repair I’ve had to do on the car, and it manifested as a charging light that appeared while parked in front of my apartment. The 30k miles I’ve put on it (90k total) aren’t a ton, but they aren’t nothing, either, and it was my only car for a few years.
The car has seen about 15 hours of race track time, has done 600 miles in a day and really hasn’t needed much fiddling at all for the enjoyment I’ve gotten out of it. When I’ve needed them, parts have been plentiful and of decent quality and price. There is lots of room under the hood to do most work, though the motor mounts were a little annoying, I admit.
A 1990s Miata isn’t a 1970s BMW or a 1960s Jaguar in all kinds of ways, but there are vintage cars that won’t keep you up nights about their reliability.
Haven recently purchased my 5th NA Miata, I agree that they are near bulletproof. There are a couple of components that can cause you some grief though. Although they rarely fail, starters are a royal pain to replace. And, I mean that literally. There is some sheet metal along the firewall that have some sharp edges and the lack of much room to work pretty much assures that there will be blood letting. The other is the oil filter. It’s nowhere on the level as the starter but it isn’t easy to access and can be very messy to retrieve without spilling. That aside, the engines are well known to run a quarter million miles with little more than oil changes and tuneups. The only thing to watch out for is the radiators. If it still has the OG one and it’s starting to turn green it’s ready to fail and cook the head gasket if not caught soon enough. These are noninterference engines so a timing belt failure is nothing more than a stopped engine until replacement. I totally agree that late 80’s through Y2K are the sweet spot of just enough without too much tech.
Dear Type44:
I like a lot of what you say. I spent 40 years keeping summer commuter cars from the 1960’s on the road. I owned two of them, so that I could use one during non winter months while the other was in my shop being prepared for the next season. If you run a car from the 1960’s for 7,000 miles a year, you need to be prepared to drop the transmission about every four or five years for one reason or another and to pull out the engine about every eight to ten years. They are eternally repairable, but require constant work.
But now I run cars from the late 1980’s through 1990’s. I do a lot of work on them and they occasionally break down on the road, but mostly get me home. They aren’t as easy to work on as cars from the ’60’s, but a home mechanic can do most of what needs to be done on them. Some special tools required. German cars from the late ’80’s are my favorites, but American sedans from the 1990’s are often great cars that don’t get much respect. American V6 engines from the ’90’s are generally very dependable and capable of running well over 100K miles. American sedans from the ’90’s tend to get 25mpg and can run highway speeds. They have disc brakes, fuel injection and all of the technology that you need. Comfortable interior design, too.
Compare that to my wife’s 2023 Camry. That car isn’t designed for the home mechanic. You need a special tool to replace the rear brake pads. A two inch thick manual describes all of the electronic features. The car tracks where you go, which is Creepy. The third owner of the car will have a hard time keeping it running once the electronic gremlins start getting into it. The car lacks a soul.
Reliability just depends on what sand box you play in.
Some cars can be reliable and easy to work on no matter the time they were built.
Some older cars can and do offer reliability and ease of service while others are cars from hell.
Even new cars are not infallible. Look at all the Hyundai cars with bad engines. Look at the pay here now lots filled with Audi and BMW’s that once they get over 100K miles turn into money pits of unreliability. People get sucked in and see a nice new looking Audi and then find it will need $1200 ever dealer visit.
Even Toyota is not as reliable as it once was.
I chose my C5 due to the fact it is reliable, easy to fix if needed and affordable it repaired.
One needs to investigate what you buy. Have it inspected if you can tell the condition and chose a model that will fit your expectations.
Not all used cars and collector cars are equal. Some can be down right the car from hell and others can be a dream. Minimize your risks based on you abilities to work and pay for repairs.
No argument with any of that.
The Pittsburgh vintage grand prix has Lotus as the marque of the year, you should bring yours, one of them, or both
Bernard, I’m working on it :^)
All true, yet you dragged Bertha out of 20 plus years of hibernation in not the best of all environments, and have you problem driving the snot out of her. Don’t know if anyone will be doing this with more “modern cars 30 to 40 years from now. I love my (and loved your previous) E46 touring but there is nothing like hearing those Webers open up on a vintage 02.
Hi Rob,
I would say I’m mostly in agreement with your assessment of the carbureted, break-point ignition generation of cars… and completely in agreement with the rapidly growing difficulty in finding quality parts. However, I’m wondering where the trusty BMW E30 fits in for you? Modern engine management, but still relatively simple… so, vintage, modern, or somewhere in between?
I have an ’86 325es that I bought in 1988 that now has 465,000 miles without so much as a valve job. Yes, she’s tired and smokes a bit when you first start her up, but she still always starts, even after sitting for the best part of a year or more! BTW – I grew in a professional German car repair shop and have always done all the maintenance (except body and machine shop work) on my own vehicles.
Ten years ago I parked the ’86 for restoration and an S-52/54 engine swap and bought a ’91 325ix for $1000. I am still daily driving this car and trust it more that any of the modern cars have tried to replace it with that inevitably let me down with some undiagnosable electronic glitch or another.
It’s also great fun this time of year when people are getting their brand-new, electronic-saftey-controlled SUVs and trucks stuck in the snow and the ol’ ix just keeps going like it’s no big deal!
I’m the generation that love the E30 as much as the previous generation loved the 2002, which was the first BMW I fell in love with… but I would firmly argue that electronics started going too far and quality started going downhill in the early 1990s!
Thom, yeah, “somewhere in between” to me. More to the point, if you’re someone who’s doing “an S-52/54 engine swap,” you’re not who the piece was aimed at. I was more trying to give a reality check to someone who has no mechanical skill at all who is planning on buying a dream car and taking a long road trip home in it without any planned support.
I do think we will still be driving (well, not me personally) our 2002, e24, e30, e36, and even e46 cars in 40 or 50 years time. But today’s modern cars more than likely won’t be on the road; they are made to be disposable. No fill plugs on transmissions, differentials, or transaxles. Smaller fluid capacities for “lifetime fluids.” And electronics that will certainly have a shorter lifespan than older analog mechanicals. Manufacturers want folks to buy a new car to replace the 4 year old car. The owners/lessees and manufacturers want the the cars to make it through the warranty period and could care less after that. Not their problem; everyone has moved on to another, even more technically bloated machine.
Your point is spot-on though, that vintage car owners need to be able to work on their car(s) or have an open checkbook handy. And I see young car enthusiasts who are willing to learn how to work on their cars with the plethora of YouTube videos and Hack Mechanic books and articles available to them. And that is certainly a good thing for the car community.
Ken, I don’t know. They were saying these same things when Motronics were introduced in the early 1980s.
Parts for the new cars will be available as long as the manufacturer has to provide them, after that, no one is going to manufacture them, they are too complex and too expensive to manufacture in small numbers. The complexity of a headlight or turn signal for your vintage MGA is a far cry from the $1,200 headlight assembly on a modern car.
As a former manufacturer and lower tier Big 3 supplier in the 90’s, American cars of that era also
-were made with Six Sigma/Deming Toyota-level quality standards. Why do you think those old LeSabres last so long? It was heavily preached and practiced–until China when it was forgotten about. Nearly all suppliers were domestic then for most all parts including castings and forgings. China wiped out the domestic metal casting business most of which was family owned. Price over all and let’s keep the extra profits after the lawyers are paid…
Wish I had any of my 90’s vehicles especially the SHO’s and late 90’s Tahoe and Sub. They were all good.
This is a very important comment. I worked in the plastics industry in the 80’s when Dr. Deming was a demi-god and there was a significant on shore auto industry- even in Canada! But I suspect price and cheap Chinese labour killed it as this fellow says. You could paraphrase Tom Lehrer and say “once the warranties are up, who cares where they come down”!
I’m pretty sure I must have been at the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix the year you are referring to. It was an exceptionally hot late July or early August day. I was sitting in that line of traffic nursing the AC on and off in my black Jeep Comanche with a cooling system that wasn’t holding full pressure due to a pin hole leak on the expansion tank.
I think there are two issues with ‘restored’ cars that shouldn’t be overlooked. One, a lot of these cars were not terribly reliable a few years out from new even when they were new. Restoring one to ‘new’ (if that ever happens) doesn’t exactly buy you any guarantees of reliability. Two… a lot of collectors collect and don’t drive. Restorers know this, and a lot of restored cars are made to look pretty in the garage and not much else.
I buy a lot of basket cases that weren’t too far away from the crusher if they didn’t come to me. My strategy has always been to keep them close to home until all the bugs are worked out, then start venturing out progressively farther. 50 miles from home is no sweat for most of my cars but I would never take them much farther than that. Not because I don’t think they could do it – more because if it does break down 500 miles from home base, whatever was on the itinerary isn’t anymore. If your 5 year old car breaks down in Nowhereville USA, someone in the general area can get parts and fix it. Not true for classics
The further I get from home the louder the funny noises my car makes get.
The same goes for phantom smells in the middle of the night – in the middle of Nebraska.
What you writing is interesting. In the late 60s and early 70s, I worked at a gas station that did about $1,000 a day doing repair work on mostly domestic cars. It was in the Detroit suburbs so that’s why. And there were probably 50 to 100 places just like ours in a 10 mile radius because even reasonably new cars broke a lot, needed tune ups, tires at 8,000 to 10,000 miles. Those are today’s collectibles. My dad worked for GM. Brilliant me, I got tired of the rusting out, continuous repairs on my GM cars, so I bought a new 1973 Audi 100LS. A car to love and hate. Great driving car that burned 3 valves within 6,000 miles…so….what do people expect?
Great article, Ron. I live this article recently. I purchased an almost 200,000 1985 Mustang GT last summer and did some work on it. It’s loud, stiff, hard to get in and out of, and am not sure who designed where switches, knobs, vents etc. went but so much of the car is uncomfortable.
Yet, I went on a 2,500 mile museum trip this month…..and did have one breakdown — an alternator bearing that gave up. Fortunately the problem manifested at the end of a day of driving so I was able to get a new one, replace the old, and continue on.
But, for most of the trip I was worried about another problem. So, while the trip overall went well, my 2012 Escape sure felt nice when I got home.
Old, vintage, whatever you call it, is fun within proximity of home :-))
Thanks again for your thoughts!
You make a very good and important point. Yes, your vintage car may be perfectly fine and capable for a long trip or to be a daily driver, but if you’re constantly worried something is going to break or its going to leave you stranded, is it worth all that headache and constant worrying? Probably not.
Sorry — Rob, not Ron!
I’ve owned and daily’d a lot of new and old cars over the years, starting with a ‘48 Plymouth when I was in school in the late 1980s. I’ve driven coast to coast in a 1960 Rambler. Last summer I put 1100 miles on a 1952 Crosley Hot Shot. I’ve also daily’d more modern “vintage” cars like a 2000 Honda Insight hybrid and a second gen Mini Cooper S.
No question that new cars are far more comfortable, reliable, and safer … for the first 100-200k miles. But they are not for the faint of heart when they get old and cranky and need diagnosis (looking at you, Mini).
For me there are two sweet spots. American cars from the Model A Ford era to circa 1970, if they sold in sufficient numbers that parts are mostly available, can be relatively trouble free if you drive them often enough to work the bugs out. Cars from 1946 to 1970 are mostly capable of keeping up with modern traffic – except perhaps the interstate.
The era of emissions controls, early electronics and malaise manufacturing doesn’t make for great hobby cars.
Then the era of early OBD2, late 1990s and early 2000s, is another golden era for hobbyists. Reliability was much improved, OBD2 simplified diagnosis, and technology greatly reduced the rat’s nest of tubes and wires needed to meet emissions regs. My two Honda Insights were delightful to work on and as reliable as any old car I’ve owned. Their biggest foible was needing twice-annual grid charging to refresh the NiMH battery.
Takeaway – find the right old car, drive it enough to work the bugs out, and it’ll be 99% as reliable as a new car and 999% more fun.
(Short stories of my car experiences… http://itisgood.org/auto-biography/)
HAck, I read your articles and see the comments. Your audience LIVES for the stories of “relative reliability” issues in your vintage cars, and how you tackle them. Don’t you think you’re kinda preaching to the choir here? Most of us not only understand the limitations of driving vintage vehicles, but EMBRACE them and – for most – actually enjoy dealing with those things you list. It’s all part of the experience to us, and we wouldn’t get near the excitement or enjoyment out of our hobby if everything was perfect. Plus, meeting and overcoming the challenge of a roadside hood-up-situation is one of the things that recharges our personal internal batteries!
As for the “preponderance of plastic components”, any of us from your generation or older generally consider those to be offensive words (although we have grown to appreciate the versatility of that medium).
Well-stated fact regarding vintage European cars, Rob: “designed for cool breezes in Bavarian forests, overcast British days, and balmy motoring around Lake Como”.
One must truly value the enduring “charm” of vintage motoring, fondly embracing some inherent primitive challenges (but definitely not motivated by a capricious, shallow attempt to impress others).
It’s what’s allowed vintage affordable, underpowered side-curtain-equipped British roadsters (from MG, Triumph, Austin-Healy, & Lotus) to remain popular, for instance (as well as the somewhat less-affordable, but still very desirable Morgan, Lotus/Caterham 7, and Jaguar SS).
Besides the reliability of fuel injection and electronic ignition, the modern ubiquity of air-conditioned comfort may be another significant technology most vintage-naïve drivers would hesitate abandoning.