Huw
That was very much NOT the case over here. Engines of the 70s and 80s saw dramatically reduced lifespans, for a number of reasons. For one thing, draconian emission control mandates kicked in in 71, again in 73, and again in 75. The carmakers were attempting to comply with basically inadequate technology. Band-aids like putting the engines into an excessively retarded timing mode to combat NOx (and burning exhaust valves in the process), operating lean throughout the entire operating regime to combat HC and CO (Lord knows how many 70s heads I've seen cracked between intake and exhaust valve seat due to hot, lean combustion and a perpetually hot exhaust valve from the retarded timing). For another thing, the fuel crisis and emissions crunch effectively slowed R&D on new engines and on replacement tooling. A LOT of 70s engine blocks were cast and machined on worn-out tooling. Years ago I saw a comparison of key measurements taken on a 70s Chrysler block compared to a 1950s vintage Hemi block and the 50s Hemi was practically blueprinted from the factory, while the late block had a pretty bad deck height variation on both decks. And it was pretty good by the standards of the day. If you want to see horrific production variation, look at a big-block Chevy (454). It was so bad that there used to be an industry designing and selling esoteric things like custom-offset roller rockers, so that weekend racers could fine-tune their production blocks with the lifter bores cast-in as much as 4-6 degrees off so that they wouldn't have several cylinders with radically different valve timing than the others!
On the other hand, oil technology *was* getting better in that time frame. While all 60s engines were *capable* of long life, not all of them got fed decent oil. I don't know if you've ever seen an engine run on some of the ancient dino oils, like old Quaker State and Pennzoil from the 70s, or some of the refinery brands too... but WOW. The stuff would about turn to chewing gum in an engine. Today you can pretty much buy any oil and it will at least be harmless. That was not at all true in 1965. Nor really in 1980, for that matter.
Built like a Mercedes 3674Steve Interesting because as I remember it there were few emmission controls in Europe until catalytic convertors became mandatory some time around 1989-90. Before this we had a decade of...
To be honest, even the "bad" American engines of the 70s could do so IF the owner didn't just keep hammering on it when it started to ping because the analog vacuum octopus operated EGR wasn't working anymore, or because the primitive computer-feedback controlled carb was refusing to enrich when it should, etc. etc. etc. But the cars of the 70s and 80s were so soulless and pathetic that I think most of the owners hoped they'd blow up sooner rather than later.
