[jcp123]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

Exactly. GM and VW were pretty good from the '50s through the '70s too. Many parts interchanged between models and especially model years; they didn't excessively throw away good engineering with "change for the sake of change", you could go to the local Pamida or KMart for brake and ignition parts; and they were good quality and they were cheap.

Now that's all gone.

I am not old enough to remember that directly, but I'm way into classic cars largely for their simplicity.

I was in a funk for my Dad's '00 Passat V6 4motion wagon about three weels ago. I looked up a stack or fairly common replacement items (air filter, wireset, alternator, starter, and some other stuff I can't remember). The list of the same parts ran over $1500 for the Passat, but only $342 for the Mustang even friggin' plug wires were $140 for the VW whereas the oil filter that goes on my Mustang fits almost all the other engines Ford had in that era, including straight sixes, big blocks, and mid-blocks, to give one small example of interchangeability.

*knock on wood* Harley's way expensive on parts, but they've thankfully been very helpful in going out of their way to make me happy.