The dumbest purchase I have ever made.

For reasons, I always have thought I was born at the wrong time in history. I honestly think I should've been born either 20 years earlier (1945), or 20 years later (1985), because I missed the late sixties/early Seventies car scene, and I went through the late eighties/early Nineties as a worker zombie, didn't do much of anything, so computers left me behind.

 

Welcome moose,great site,lots of good folks here

 

Case in point, recently posted by plumcolr:

 

I think that is my spirit animal.

 

I haven't had too many complaints as of yet, lol.

 

Oh but this was 1986 and I had never driven before. Every vehicle seemed like a whale to me. Especially when you are learning to drive on a two lane ( barely) county road and you meet people who are driving something equally as large. But your right my daughter was terrified the first time I let her drive my 2000 dodge 1500. She thought she was taking up all the road,.

 

Im not a very big guy ( 5-6 about 170) the Ranchero seems roomy to me. Much better than most cars today, even the supposed new large sized cars.

 

I'm 6-foot-1, with a long torso/tall seated height. I am locked out of soooo many vehicles.

The Ranchero isn't half bad, even with the reupholstered stock bench seat in there.

 

My daughter is 5/9 she struggles to get in some cars today.

 

Accidental cases of parking beside other cars drove home the shrinkage deal on modern cars for me. I drive 90 thru 97 Lincoln TownCars often but parked beside a 1967 Olds Cutlass four door at a show one day. That mid size Cutlass was the same size as the supposedly huge Lincoln. Pulled my 1996 Buick Roadmaster wagon up against a garage door along side of a 1993 TownCar and realized the huge wagon was a foot shorter than the Lincoln. Turns out the big Buick wagon is on a frame that dates back to a 1973 Chevelle Laguna frame. Put that huge looking 96 beside a wagon from say 1973 and it looks like a dwarf.
I too am 5/9 with big feet, back seat is a no go in most newer cars for me and folding up to get in the front seat makes me loose interest quickly even if the car is super nice otherwise. I do have an 06 AMG Mercedes four door E series that looks tiny to me but I can get in and out of it no problem. People didn't get smaller, the cars did.

 

That is something else as well: Modern cars.
SUV's and trucks have exploded...but meanwhile, depending on what you're driving, cars have either also exploded in size (A modern Corolla is around the size of one of my old Torinos), or they have shrunk, with the cabin space and greenhouse height of a current Camaro (and related coupes) is becoming absurdly small.

 

Y'all were saying about the shrinkage of modern cars?

 

Trucks have at least. That's a selling point you see lot on the new dodge pickup ads, for sure. "More leg room" they say.