Picked up my son his first tow vehicle

Grit dog wrote:
Mike, between you, me and 12V, we should stop posting pics of rust free 20-40 year old vehicles from up here, or all the Rust Belt residents may start coming and snatching up our gems! Lol.

FWIW, having lived in many parts of our great country, the coastal PNW IS the best area in the country for preserving old cars.
Enough that I’d barely consider desert SW and southern vehicles , in general, compared to up here.
While the south and southwest is rust free, the vehicles from here also benefit for the serious lack of UV degradation for 2/3 of each year AND they receive complimentary fresh water undercarriage washes each day they’re driven during the same time of year!

And based on the tire life I get out of tires here compared to other areas of the country, there is a component of decreased drivetrain wear on vehicles operated in the rain the majority of the year. You generally accelerate, corner and brake a bit lighter in wet roads compared to dry and the simple objective proof is Tires last longer.

Even if it’s rust free, it’s almost unheard of for a 20+ year old vehicle to have good factory paint, Anywhere else, unless it was a garage queen, in which case the climate doesn’t matter.

I’m not helping our cause by bragging about it......lol

You are correct and both of us need to stop telling people. I grew up in upstate New York. If you could keep a car clean for 7 years you were doing good. I tell people all the time it is not rare to see a 20 to 25 year old daily driver out here. No rust and clean as can be. "Yeah but you get rain so you should have rust" Nope, but we don't get heavy snow in the low lands and we don't use salt. First Ford Pinto I ever saw in person was when I moved out here for the Navy in 1995. It was an orange wagon with a bubble window. I'll take the gray winter for the summers and how nice our cars stay.