June 15, 1940

[1940plymouth]

Here are the first two pages out of a June, 15, 1940 issue of "Motor Service Magazine" about a twenty five dollar tune up.  What I found interesting is that the engine bay appears to be a 1940 Plymouth or atleast some type of MOPAR from that time frame as the coil, intake and exhaust manifold and engine block all appear to be MOPAR,.  The article states that the owner didn't have the valves ground at the 5,000 mile point.  I remember my Father telling the story of his Father sitting at the kitchen table saying his 1937 Plymouth has been a good car as it has gone 10,000 miles without the valves being ground.

 

From the rest of the article for 25 dollars it appeared the shop did a nice complete job.

 

I wonder what 25 dollars would be in today's economy?

[MiltYergens]

$418.12 today...

as per

http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=25&year1=1940&year2=2013

[desoto1939]

25 dollars is the fee they charge you to dive into their garage and then you walk in to the office and they start they paperwork. $25 dollars really does not buy anything today

Rich Hartung

[Plymouthy Adams]

lot of the so called valve jobs of old were nothing but a de-coke operation...the facing of the valves every 5000 miles would be not only ridiculous but a waste of precious metal in doing the operation...proper "blowing out" of the engine would have been most sufficient and often the very reference to the valves at such interval in mileage would most likely have been to adjust, not reface.  I sadly listened to one poor girl remarking to her friend that they had just charged her 625.00 and had her car for two weeks just to put a starter on a very common VW bug of later vintage..