I'd be willing to bet I could find 500 of them given the resources to really
look in more than just my backyard. Heck I almost bought one a few years
ago myself. I can think of at least three off the top of my head - not a
lot, but that's only between two places, and doesn't count at least one
that's on the road up here. And the thing is I don't pay much attention to
them, because I've never thought of them as rare or even particularly
desireable to most folks.
How was this survey done? The problem with going by what is registered and
on the roads is it leaves out those cars collected by people, wether it's
someone with grandpa's old car in the barn or the guy with 5000 cars on a
mountain somewhere, that are not registered and yet still exist outside of a
junkyard. Not to mention those that do still exist in junkyards. One of
the Chryslers I am parting out was decent and restorable for 15 years after
it was last registered, it has a 1970 sticker in it, and I bought it this
spring after it sat in a back yard since roughly 1985 and is now rotted
beyond repair. There are lots of cars like this around in varying
conditions. I saw a '59 Pontiac the same way a few years ago, and my '57
hasn't been on the road in ages, but still exists and is actually pretty
nice, so nice I am still surprised someone parted it out (especially given
how easy I found about 90% of the missing pieces to put it back together,
everything but the factory air).
40's MoPar sedans are so common up here it actually wouldn't bother me much
to strip and crush some of the rustier ones. And I can't give them away for
scrap value. Now those have another 10-15 years on the Forward Look stuff.
What I do note in visiting most junkyards though where the stuff has been
there for a while is the average lifespan of an American car built in the
40s-60s is about 10 years. Almost every single car that still has readable
remains to it's last registration or inspection is about 10 years after it's
model year, plus or minus 2-3 years on most. They also appear to have just
over 100K to about 130K on the odometers I have looked at. Now and then you
find the oddball older car with stickers in it and the newer car that was
wrecked, but most seem to have been straight and complete on arrival show
7-12 years of use. So I am sure you lost a good 50% of a particular car by
the time it was 15 years old, but I would bet there's at least as many
simply not registered and parked somewhere, as registered and in use, at
that date.
What would be helpful is some statistics giving an idea how many cars are
scrapped in a year in the US, to compare to how many are sold that year and
how many are registered and on the road in that time. I have a suspicion
you'll find a good many more cars coming into existance each year than were
scrapped, with exception of WWII and maybe the Korean War, and various
recessions. Maybe not on the order of 50%, but 10-15% would be my guess.
Bill K.
----- Original Message -----
From: "firesweep" <firesweep@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <L-FORWARDLOOK@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2004 5:15 PM
Subject: [FWDLK] Forward Look Survivor Statistics
Dear All,
Thanks to all those who replied to my query regarding the numbers of 59
New Yorker convertibles left. The following may be of interest to show the
harsh reality of the consumer society, especially in the sixties when your
economy
started booming again, on the numbers left on the streets of an average 10
year
old car.
In 1972, Special Interest Autos ran a report on the survivor
ship of an average American car. It showed that at the end of ten years,
60% of production was gone from the road-way, that is 6 out of 10 cars
being scrapped, wrecked or otherwise abandoned. (I would like see a more
updated study of this subject.)
For an example, they selected the 1956 Plymouth. Starting with 1957,
there was an estimate 98.5% of all 1956 production still registered and
on the roads. That means 1.5% of 1956 Plymouths were gone by the end of
1957. And it got worse. At the end of ten years (1966), only 40% of the
1956 Plymouths were left, and when this study was done (using 1971
statistics, 15 years from date) only 9% remained. Following their
projections, they estimated that by 1981, only 1/10th of 1% would
remain, or only 1 out of a 1,000 Plymouths produced for 1956 would still
exist. Well, it is now 48 years and I would venture to say that out of
the 471,634 built, you would be hard pressed to find 471 Plymouths from
1956 still in existence today, or 1/10th of 1%.
The cars that we cherish today were pretty disposable in the early to mid
sixties.
For example who needed a 1959 NewYorker convertible in 1962, when you
could get a brand new Chrysler convertible without fins! The damage had
already
been done by the mid sixties just by "Keeping up with the Jones"
Robbie Garrow
56 Imperial Southampton 4 dr. hardtop
59 New Yorker Convertible
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