They are great fun little cars. But they last exactly ten years and then they start to fall apart, one piece at a time.

I remember reading somewhere about the design philosophy of the first Fords (this is from memory so it may not be entirely accurate): everything in the car should break at approximately the same time. If the life of two parts is vastly different, then either one of them is not good enough OR the other is too good and therefore too expensive. So they would often redesign some parts to be cheaper but still last at least as long as the rest of the car. Sounds logical but somewhat disturbing...

These days cars are supposed to last forever but you should still buy the newest model every two or three years. Bah.

Borislav