In my opinion, it is more appealing when it can be driven.
Also need to swap out the points for a conversion kit. I forgot that earlier.
Folks, please don't think that I'm trying to start an argument here, but people who don't own/drive older cars regularly seem to think that they can't cope with today's traffic without upgrades. I own several older cars and while I don't drive them every day, I do take them on tours and longer trips.
Drum brakes are only a problem if you either don't maintain/adjust them properly or if you're driving in the mountains or in traffic so dense that you have to make repeated stops on very short notice. The old car I drive the most is a box-stock 1951 Chevrolet. No, you can't drive it like a Honda. When I'm driving it, I'm almost always at or below the speed limit. If I see that I have cars following me, I pull over at the first convenient spot and let them pass. As for actually stopping, I just give the car ahead of me twice the room that I would in my Focus or WRX. If someone passes and cuts in, I just drop back a little more. The point here is that most of us who are driving older cars just aren't in that much of a hurry to get somewhere... the trip itself is the reward.
Points and related items fall into the same category. Cars and trucks have been on the road with points and condensers for around a century. Points adjustments, once you learn the process, are easy and quick. A dwell meter and a screwdriver are usually all that's needed. If you
really want to go retro, a 'feeler gauge' works just as good as a dwell meter. Once you 'adjust' a set of points, you can generally expect to leave them alone for at least 5,000 miles - unless you have some sort of problem with the distributor. Points and condensers are relatively cheap, so most of us curmudgeons carry an extra set in the glovebox.
If you want to know about the one single problem that causes old-car-owners the most grief, it's ethanol 'enriched' gasoline. Cars built since the early-'80s have fuel system hoses and diaphragms designed to withstand ethanol. Older cars don't. Just when you think you've replaced that last older rubber part, you discover that there's one more hiding somewhere that will fail at the most inopportune time! Both my '51 Chevy and '72 Chevelle are 'living' proof of this - having had to be towed/flat-bedded home after the failure of relatively minor parts!
What else can I say? Be adventurous! Try driving an old car the way it was meant to be driven!!
SL