classic car

We got our first non-frozen rainfall here since November this evening, and man, is it a whopper! I'm thinking we'll have the same flooding as last year, where in some places the water bypassed the 4-foot deep ditch and spilled onto the road. All this sudden rain got me thinking about rust and ways to avoid the abomination:

1: Don't drive in wet weather or during winter. it's the simplest and easiest way to avoid the rust and also lets you get more attention when you DO drive your special car, because people don't see it every day. There used to be a '68 Camaro COPO clone that would drive past me every day, and at first I thought "Cool, a '68 Camaro!", but after a while it got old and lost its novelty (a lot like the Chevy Volt, huh?).

2: If you must go out, do it only for a short time and try to find some cover in a certain parking space, maybe under an overhang of the store's roof. I know it's nice to be able to park your car far away from everyone Else's, but in the rain, no one is going to come up to your car and gawk at it unless it's a Bugatti or they're stealing it (or both).

3: if your special car is also your daily driver, do a little touching up, maybe sand it and coat on some Rust-Eeze every few years. This helps protect against rust and you can apply a new coat of paint to keep it looking good after sanding.

If your car is the kind from the 70's that had door handles that fell off when you took the car for a test drive and were rusty before they left the design room (A.K.A. Pinto and Vega), you're pretty much out of luck. Trade it in for a new ride that doesn't rust out in a day and doesn't blow up when rear-ended (speaking of that, I can only find one genuine video of a pinto rear-ending on Youtube).

P.S. If your car looks like the one in the photo, I genuinely fear for you life with parts flying off and/or disintegrating as you touch them. Get a new car or do a 500k restoration. photo from lh3.ggpht.com