The Chrysler K-Car Club

So was chatting online with a friend tonight, and was talking about collecing cars and such. He brought up something I thought was interesting. In the future, when we finally entirely move away from internal combustion engines (whether thats 50, 100, or 200 years from now), how will the cars of today be able to be driven to car shows and what not?

Think about it. If we do away with internal combusition engines, we do away with gasoline. With no gas stations or gas production, wonder how our classic cars will get around. What are your thoughts?

Alcohol my friend, Alcohol. You build a still. Engines can run on all types of fuel and can be converted to run on natural gas as you may already know. As an auto tech there were times I used a propane tank to drive cars with dead fuel pumps into my stall. As of now they still haven't come up when a better way to power a car, even Hybird cars have engines in them. The electric cars are limited on how far they can travel. Nuke cars would be the future but all the terrorist bastards in the world put an end to that. I WOULD convert my car to nuclear power if I could.

But then the car isn't "all original" and kind of defeats the purpose of being a collectible, no?

My Magic 8 Ball says it will be just like it is now for all the classic horse drawn buggys, covered wagons, stagecoaches, etc. from our (USA at least) past. Once a new way of power and transportation take over, the cars as we know them, or at least some of them, will also be museum only pieces, not to drive the highways again. As of now, the very few vintage horse drawn vehicles you see in parades have been somewhat adapted for the modern day. Some have tailights, most are tinkered with to make it both easier for the horse and easier to pull the wagon on a paved road it was never designed for. Some of our cars in the future may have to be adapted to propane. hydrogen, etc. just make it "out of the barn" once in awhile. Oil will increasingly get costly due to both politics and developing 3rd world demand, encouraging alternative power sources. When economical power alternatives are widespread and affordable, the remaining oil will return to the ultra cheap level, just because demand for that "vintage" fuel has fallen away for good. The remaining oil will be refined to make the remaining gas for the few internal combustion cars that may still be runable. But lets face it, unfortunately the deterioration of plastic and rubber parts will kill off most current cars for good long before that happens.

1of10K wrote:But lets face it, unfortunately the deterioration of plastic and rubber parts will kill off most current cars for good long before that happens.

That's an interesting point, but I'm not necessarily sure I agree. While spare parts (especially the rubber and plastic ones) will eventually not be able to be found at all, there is still the option to have those parts custom manufactured. Same with the mechanical and electrical parts. Unless there are no rubber, plastic, metal, etc. manufactures in the future, this will always be an option in my mind, although I suspect a costly one.