[Hugh R]

I'm generally not for regulations, but with the CAFE standards and stricter tail pipe emissions, cars ARE more efficient and require less tuneups than they did three decades ago. Remember when a complete tuneup, points, plugs, rotor, condensor, plug wires was every 10K miles? And cars then got like 12-14 mpg at best, and LA was absolutely choked with smog. Haven't had a Stage I smog alert in about 15 years, nor a Stage II in 25 or 30 years.

What about crash ratings, in the 60s, you had a head on with a bridge at 60 mph, you were pretty much guaranteed to be dead, now you've got a pretty good chance of survival.