Those of you who live in NASTY weather states.. Classic as "Daily"???

I live up in the great pacific NW. We're now about to get into our "rainy" stretch and I'll see sunshine again in about 6 months... sigh. Sitting here at work (shhhh) pondering my '49 and '55. (Chev and Buick respectively). Was thinking about making the '49 my daily (unless REAL nasty) and my '55 my weekender.

Just curious what you have, where you live and do you drive it daily???

Pics would be nice too. Need motivation here. Thx.

 

I live in the desert south west and it is warm and dry 98% of the time. (See no rain clouds in the pic) I drive my 61 daily. I sincerely apologize for not being able to sympathize with your predicament.......

 

I drove a '63 Valiant daily for a couple years, winter before last I was leaving work and the boss offered to let me take a 4x4 off the used lot home due the Biblical snowstorm. I said no thanks, rather drive my car. Never a problem. My daily now is a 'new' '79 Dodge Magnum, and I have run the wagon in my avatar a few times, but the ol' girl REALLY likes fuel, so i don't do it much.

 

I'm on the other side of the cascades. It gets pretty nasty occationally, but I've been driving the 53 in the winter for years. Always reliable, just make sure your heater works well. The early defrost sucks...but I'm sure you know that already

 

Dude......Washington is not a "nasty" weather state......So we get sprinkles everyday. It's not dumping rain..............all the time.....everyday...........

That being said. I drive ALL pre 1980 cars or trucks year round. My newest vehicle is a 79 and I consider that late model. A little rain won't hurt them.

 

Nasty weather state???? Try Buffalo,NY. The answer would be NO.

 

I drove a '67 IH Scout for about 2 yrs as a daily not all that long ago. Reliable as hell, it would always start, but the gear oil in the trans and transfer case would turn to molasses anytime it was -20 deg. or colder (read January and Febuary in Northern Minnesota). It would always take a few miles before it would shift decent (or at all). The heater could only keep up down to about 10 deg F. Below that you were driving with the Carharts on. On the bright side, I never found a ditch I couldn't drive back out of.

 

I live in Montana and I drive my '56 International year round...tend to get some really crazy looks when driving to work at -20 degrees!!

 

I drive my 61 F100 Daily and it can get bad here in the winter. I still would rather drive my 61 than some of this new shit that has the traction control and automatic brake crap, thats for people that can't drive. Drove my sister in laws new chevy on the ice one day and the traction bullshit is completely worthless on the ice.

 

I don't do do it, and I wouldn't recommend it. Drive a classic in crappy weather?...that's where the term "winter beater" comes in. I'll drive mine until it won't start (due to cold weather), but if the roads aren't clear and dry, forget it.

Call me a wuss, but parts aren't easy to come by.

 

No, I've got a pair of mid '90s S-10s for daily drivers. It's not the snow that kills the cars around here, it's the five billion tons of salt that get dumped on the roads every winter. It's hard enough to find an old car with anything left of it around here without destroying it yourself by attempting to drive it through that shit.

 

Oh if only it were just sprinkles occasionally. I live in the cascade foothills and we get bad weather. Anything that comes off the cascades easterly dumps in our backyard.

I AM referring to those (like us) who get 4 seasons.. not just mainly dry year round.

Tho' I live in Washington now, I grew up in Northern Idaho.. so I know snow, mud, and ice.

 

Sorry, you are right. There is that "WET ZONE" by the mountains. It's not nearly as bad 200ft above see level though.... In all honesty Washington has a really diverse climate. It's very mild in some area's and way severe in others.

We hardly get any snow and the rain is light in Seattle...most of the time.

 

I drove a 63 Ford F100 a few winters ago. Never failed to start even when it was 15 below outside. The heater worked okay but the snow would drift in through all the rust holes in the floor. Wound up stuffing a bunch of rags in all the cracks and holes so it wouldn't be like a mini-blizzard every time I had to go somewhere. I am planing on getting some old beat up early 50s car that is rusted to heck and doing some patch work on it and using it has a winter beater. Some drain oil and grease spread on the underside and I think I'll be golden

 

What do you mean by nasty? I live in Phoenix, and my avatar has been my daily since '95 or so. I just wouldn't consider a late model car ( which to me starts at about '62 or so) period. Won't do it. Signed on with a big company and they handed me the keys to a company car, and I handed them back. The trick is to build your car around your climate, and what you need it to do. At a 115 degrees, my car will idle in traffic with the A/C on, and not go over 195. I spent four summers running around Western Washington in my car, and that was rain, heat, even snow going over the Snoqualme pass a few times. Driven through two feet of snowfall in the midwest too. What it comes down to is this, it's just a car... A car I love, yes, but it's just a car. If I can't use it, what's the sense of owning it? It's not too pretty, so I don't have to worry about it, It will finally get it's reprime and straightening session this fall, two years over due. If it breaks, it gets repaired and improved. It's up to you man....

 

I did it for two winters in 93-94 and the salt just attacked the shit out of the car, even with undercoating done. Would not do it again unless I could take the car apart and powercoat every piece, then undercoat on top of that. But we get the salt here. Even when these cars were new, they were needing quarters or fenders patched up at five or eight years old.

That said, I never had a better handling winter car, I would go along down roads with a coat of snow on them and pass dudes in 4x4s that had run off the roads, and I'd go just fine. Very predictable if I did have to jam on the brakes. Plenty of heat out of it too.

If I lived somewhere that didn't get the salt, I wouldn't worry about it so much. But now I just run a beater year round - haul crap in the summer, and it's heavy enough to handle fine in the winter.

 

Nope, the old cars wait patiently in the garage for spring, winter driver is a 96 Jeep Grand Cherokee....comfy, cozy, with leather and a V8 ...mmmmmm

 

That liquid ice melter they use here nowadays will turn a classic into a pile of rust in a matter of months. That stuff ate my Audi's wheel bearings, my 2006 Ford brake rotors, and the entire undercarriage of my Toyota pickup.

Classic as a daily driver here only works if you don't mind ruining the classic.

 

I live in the sticks,I have a very long rutted driveway,I enjoy driving in the snow.Winter means the small light Jeep Cherokees that me and my wife have.It's 4 wheel drive or forget it.2 wheel drive ain't shit,posi or not.I've tried to drive more than one old PU truck in the snow,old being like a 51 Chevy.Fucking old trucks will get stuck on a snowball.

 

I'll have to remember to stay the hell away from snowballs.

 

Same here in Nebraska. They put some kinda brine/salt mix down that makes total crap out of everything. I can't even justify buying too nice of a late model daily driver around here. Yeah I know they drove em all year back in the day, blah blah blah...but they didnt salt the streets as hard around here and people didn't commute as far. I got a 94' ford ranger that I dont mind destroying but I keep my expensive toys in the garage between December and March.

 

...Summer in Central NY State is 3 months of bad skiing...

 

Too much salt on Chitown streets, maybe more salt here in the winter than Bonneville, seriously, you'd have a pile of junk in a year. Plus these dolts around here don't know how to drive on good pavement, I get banged into every year.

 

I drive mine all year. I also go to the car wash with the bottom blaster every few days.

 

In Washington State (rainy area) be sure you don't have vacuum windshield wipers, or at least get a big vacuum tank to help out. And make sure your heater works and has a defrost vent on the windshield (or carry a hand squeegee for the inside of the windshield, as I used to do).

 

I would consider it, if it weren't for the salt!

 

Salt???? That would be nice if thats all they used, but here in Chicago they use Calcium Chloride and other chemical blends that are much harder on your car than salt. Drive a car once in that shit. (new or old) And you'll see it start rusting overnight!!!

 

just make sure your heater works well.


I couldnt agree more! Best thing I ever did was get the heatercore rebuilt in the '61! the day I took my avatar picture I had to roll the windows down it was so hot!!!!

 

Its called magwater. My daily is 10 years old and driven in the stuff every winter. Only place there is rust is the seam at the rt front of the bed where they spotted a new 1/4 panel on where I got hit. AND i AM GETTING THAT FIXED RIGHT.

 

Reminds me of the old VW advertisement from the 70s where the guy goes out and cranks up his bug and drives to work in a blizzard. The punch line on that ad was. "What does the snow-plow driver drive when he goes to work?"

Pick and choose which car I'll drive because of road conditions? Ha. Not me. Besides, there ain't anything I could do that ain't already been done to her in the past eighty years.


As far as the use of salt/chemicals being mixed into road sand; that's been a procedure used since Christ was a Corporal. It's a no-brainer; If one don't have time to drive through the car wash once in a while, souldn't have time to drive either.