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I very much doubt that it is safety laws that have caused the deterioration in visual quality in many modern cars; rather, it is cost. Reliability - and a reputation for lacking reliability, which is something that really is non-negotiable when driving - cost some of the more stylish cars a lot more in lost sales than perceived safety flaws.

Moreover I suspect that it may be perfectly possible to design a safe, and gorgeous looking car, but it may cost too much to do so, especially if cars must be able to successfully translate cross platform.

Besides, these days, while few car manufacturers have their own designers in-house to the same extent that they used to, designers, such as the Italian company Pininfarina, have designed some lovely production cars.

Cost really isn't a barrier when you get into certain classes of cars. At the end of the day, safety requirements dictate A LOT about modern car designs, particularly in the US market.

Probably one of the best examples were pedestrian impact requirements in the mid-1970s which required both a raised ride height and "5mph" bumpers. The bumper requirement could basically only be achieved big, blocky rubber bumpers. Even cars designed and put into production at the time-like the Porsche 924 my dad had years ago-were plagued by it. As much as folks love to hate on the rubber bumper MGBs, if you look at their design vs. most everyone else at the time, the folks at Abingdon actually did a halfway decent job of integrating the shape of the rubber into the entire front grille of the car rather than just slapping on rubber blocks like everyone else.

The height regulations for bumpers(again, pedestrian impact) were really detrimental for appearance. The band-aid most cars used at the time was to just raise the suspension which not only looked silly but also ruined the handling. MGs(I know them best, which is why I keep mentioning them) did better sway bars in the later years that brought back some of the handling, but raised rubber bumper cars are nowhere near as nimble at the earlier chrome bumper cars. If you look at modern designs in that vain-the Mazda MX-5 Miata being the best known-they've incorporated the height requirements into the overall design of the car and kept the ride at a reasonable height but the high bumpers still give the cars drastically different designs.

There's also no way around the fact that crumple zones, air bags, and the like both add weight and bulk to a modern car. It's amazing that Mazda has kept the MX-5 at a shade over a ton(I think 2200-2300lbs) without resorting to exotic materials-something that's prevalent in today's super cars. The MGB was one of the first cars built with engineered crumple zones and the folks at Abingdon were proud enough of that to display a crashed one in their factory, but it still pales in comparison to the safety of a modern car(assuming that your MG is actually is still mostly steel and not iron oxide :) )

I won't complain about the positive impacts of pollution control in terms of cleaner air, but they also dictate a lot of complexity under the hood that takes up space and adds weight. Earlier pollution controls absolutely killed power because of the compromises needed to keep emissions legal. Compression ratios dropped, smaller single carburetors where there had previously been multiple ones became common(and the corresponding intake strangling), and early catalytic converters restricted exhaust. Now, fuel injection combined with electronic engine management and more advanced engine design allow cars to turn out jaw-dropping performance numbers(your average family sedan can now keep up with your average 1960s muscle car) while also pumping out amazingly clean exhaust and impressive gas mileage figures. Still, though, all this extra stuff does change the look of a car.

One thing that has changed in the last 30 years is headlight design. In the US, up until(I think) the early 1990s all cars were required to use a sealed beam headlamp. There were basically two kinds-the round 7" lamp and the rectangular one. Dropping this requirement has had probably the single biggest impact on the design of vehicle fronts and has also-in general-allowed more efficient reflector design to improve visibility without adding glare for other drivers. It has also, unfortunately, resulted in some absolutely ugly headlights in the name of aerodynamics.
 
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Reading many articles online and magazines....

designers of old cars where a little upset as they had to use lucas lights.

this limited the design of cars and why headlamps where interchangeable.

one custom lights where used they changed the car design considerably.
sometimes not always for a good design though!
 
At the end of the day, safety requirements dictate A LOT about modern car designs, particularly in the US market.
It's a worthwhile sacrifice for the extra safety you get with modern cars.

A chap who I worked with was killed a few years ago when another car hit the side of his Morris Minor Traveller. The impact literally tore the car apart and at the inquest the accident investigator stated he would have only suffered minor injuries if he'd been driving a modern car at the time. :(

morris-minor-traveller-01.jpg
 
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in very minor accident the old cars sustain less damage as thicker metal.

new cars are plastic and crumple but safer for those inside.

I have seen a 2014 VW hit a 1970 austin 1300 in a very low speed que of traffic.

The austin had two slightly bent over riders....
the VW was written off as bumper and both front headlights where damaged.

but yes at speed older cars dont fair so well.
 
Reading many articles online and magazines....

designers of old cars where a little upset as they had to use lucas lights.

this limited the design of cars and why headlamps where interchangeable.

one custom lights where used they changed the car design considerably.
sometimes not always for a good design though!
I bet they weren't as upset as the designers of the Austin Maxi who were forced to use the existing doors from the larger BMC 1800/2200, severely compromising the finished car which was supposed to rival the top selling Ford Cortina but ended up being much too long.
 
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A chap who I worked with was killed a few years ago when another car hit the side of his Morris Minor Traveller. The impact literally tore the car apart and at the inquest the accident investigator stated he would have only suffered minor injuries if he'd been driving a modern car at the time. :(

Very sorry to hear that.

Even with as much as BMC like to brag about the engineered crumple zones on the B, heaven help you in a T bone on the door. The sills of the unibody are about the only structural element there(which in the US doesn't mean squat if the front bumper impaling you is on a pickup truck and is at the level of your head) and you're banking in them actually being solid rather than rusting through.

In fact, folks on the MG forums sometimes talk about patching rusted floor pans with plywood, and the prevailing advice is to be sure both the sills and the pans are actually metal and in solid condition(i.e replaced with the correct gauge steel correctly welded in place) due to how important of a structural element they are.

The B also got the much-derided "Pillow dash" in '68 along with a collapsible steering column. The only folks I've ever heard complain about the steering column are the ones who have inadvertently collapsed while trying to remove the steering wheel(side note-the John Twist BFH method really does work-mine came off with 5 bangs, and it stands little chance of wrecking the column if done correctly). The pillow dash is disliked on aesthetics and it has its downsides-namely no glove box-but you have to admit in a collision, it's a much more appealing target for your head than a steel dash. I have factory 3-point belts without interia reels-the end of the shoulder strap actually "snaps" onto a post behind the rear deck. It took a little bit of getting use to, but I feel very securely strapped in place. BTW, the belt set-up isn't totally intuitive and the guy I bought it from had never used the seat belts in his ownership. I managed to figure them out more or less before I drove off, and he was amazed.

Still, though, you can't get around the fact that engineering crumple zones for virtually every impact angle and combining them with soft interior materials plus side airbags give you a good chance of walking away from a 45mph or faster collision.
 
Beautiful Midget! Even though I'm a bit of a traditional list in that I'd prefer wires or Rostyles on any car I owned, I have to admit that every Minilite installation I've seen has looked great.

I dearly love to spend some time in the car that has been described as a "street legal go-cart" but my 6'2", 250lb frame is not overly compatible with it.

Fortunately at least-from the ones I've seen-I could drive it with shoes on unlike a TD or Big Healey :)
 
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Thanks ! Its a '73 , with the nice round wheel arches . I did the restoration over a number of years .Got it done in around 2001or so . Had a hell of a time replacing the rockers . Got to be real good at drilling out spot welds , grinding , and spotting in the new panels . Front end was lots of fun , too , as the lower kingpins were pretty much fused into place from never having been greased. Pretty much had to replace everything on both sides . Did everything but the paint . Shoulda done that, too , but a friend of mine owed me big and I was between houses at the time , living in 2 places at once , and having my shop split between them. Got about 64000 original miles . Sure is fun to drive though . Street legal go kart is pretty close to what it's like . The Minilites are on there to make available a larger tire size , which greatly improves handling . I'll probably end up selling it when I get the MGA up and around . I'm 6' and around 220 , with bad knees . Easy getting in , not so much getting out . Probably be easier if I could find 5 or 6 big guys who could lift the car up , flip it over , and shake it until I fall out .
 
Thanks ! Its a '73 , with the nice round wheel arches . I did the restoration over a number of years .Got it done in around 2001or so . Had a hell of a time replacing the rockers . Got to be real good at drilling out spot welds , grinding , and spotting in the new panels . Front end was lots of fun , too , as the lower kingpins were pretty much fused into place from never having been greased. Pretty much had to replace everything on both sides . Did everything but the paint . Shoulda done that, too , but a friend of mine owed me big and I was between houses at the time , living in 2 places at once , and having my shop split between them. Got about 64000 original miles . Sure is fun to drive though . Street legal go kart is pretty close to what it's like . The Minilites are on there to make available a larger tire size , which greatly improves handling . I'll probably end up selling it when I get the MGA up and around . I'm 6' and around 220 , with bad knees . Easy getting in , not so much getting out . Probably be easier if I could find 5 or 6 big guys who could lift the car up , flip it over , and shake it until I fall out .

Lovely post.
 
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Out of curiosity, whereabouts are you located? I'm curious enough about a Midget that I might be a buyer when you get around to it, esp. since yours looks and sounds like a nice one.
 
Out of curiosity, whereabouts are you located? I'm curious enough about a Midget that I might be a buyer when you get around to it, esp. since yours looks and sounds like a nice one.
Long ways away from Ky. I'm just outside NYC . Gonna be a while ( maybe a couple of years) before the MGA is done . Got too much on my plate right now to spend much time working on it .
 
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Ahh, okay-a bit far for me :)

You've motivated me, though. A local shop has four or five Midgets sitting up in a loft at the back of their shop. When I go to pick my car up from them(they're putting a new soft top on it now) I might see if I can climb up there and see if there's one that's at least close to being roadworthy.

I don't know Midgets like I do Bs, but I know a fair number of chrome bumper ones have split rear bumpers. That's a "signature" of the 1970 MGB, so it's a design near and dear to my heart. In fact, my car has fooled a couple of Midget guys for that reason until they took a closer look at the size.

Or, what the heck, maybe I'll go for an AH Sprite just to mix things up :) . A guy at work inherited one not too long ago and I made a visit to it with another co-worker. The guy had previously dumped some ATF into the spark plug wells, and we were at least able get the engine to make one turn with a breaker bar on the crankshaft pulley. It's a long way from being driveable.
 
I love the early model MGBs. I owned two at once--a 68 MGB GT and a 69 MGB roadster. I did all the work on them myself. They were the only cars I drove for the 25 years after I bought them in the mid-1980s. I since had totaled the GT in a high speed freeway crash (not my fault), but wasn't injured. I sold the roadster soon after that, and have regretted doing so ever since. I love these cars, and hope to own another one someday.
 
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