Excerpt:
"There isn’t much difference between a vehicle made 20 years ago and the ones they’re selling today – except insofar as how much they cost.

One reason for that difference has to do with what you get for the money. Things like a good stereo and LED mood lighting. Interestingly, these are the least expensive things to incorporate into a car – including 20-year-old cars. Most of the latter have cassette-type head units that are easily removable and have universal connectors that are easy to disconnect and reconnect.

Having done that, you now have a 20-year-old car (or truck) with LED mood lighting and a good stereo, just like a new car or truck. For much less than the cost of a new car or truck with the same.



And you do have the same.

Not just the updated electronics. The old car – or truck, like my 2002 Nissan pick-up – has a fuel-injected engine that starts right up, just as quickly and just as reliably as the new cars I test drive each week. More so, arguably, in that it has been starting reliably for the past 20-plus years and probably will continue to do so for many years to come. The new cars (and trucks) probably won’t – 20 years from now, that is – because their fuel injection systems are much more elaborate and so inherently less reliable over the long term as complexity is at odds with durability. Direct-injected and often turbocharged engines don’t, however, start any faster or idle smoother or run better than the simpler, plain-old injected engines of 20-plus years ago."