It's a money pit because the only way to get spares is to find a junker (and even then all the rubbers will need to be replaced with whatever you change out) or to machine them.
This is a 60 year old car, it's not like you can walk in to your local car part store and order some parts. You're going to be buying your parts from places like this: http://www.willysjeepparts.com/ which will happily charge you a good sized premium for the parts because they're being made in much smaller series than for cars that are still 'current'. And that's assuming you do the work yourself, if you let someone else do it for you it'll cost quite a bit more still.
They also need quite a bit more maintenance per mile driven than a modern car because the engine clearances are not to be compared with modern stuff.
But if it came to your 'prius' or that 60 year old beast and we had to cross 50 miles of bush I'm pretty sure which one I'd pick.
A prius is not a rugged car, not even a little bit, it's a delicate piece of beautiful engineering.
I don't know about the Prius specifically but I feel like people underestimate modern economy cars. I've taken my 96 Saturn and my friend's 00 Sentra through some improbably bad terrain, and the combination of light weight and front wheel drive means that you can generally slide across a lot of crap that would technically high center such low vehicles, if you have some momentum.
Despite common perception cars are not designed to fall apart.
Sometimes being less rugged is a feature. Modern cars are designed to have the front crumple to absorb energy in a collision, reducing the impact on the passenger area.
A dashboard that's soft and light may be easier on the head and save gas, but it sure is annoying the way they dry out and crack from mere heat and sunshine.
Modern engines last longer, but I think that's mainly due to the process the Japanese developed for easily producing hard steel (amounted to a simple additive). Engines aren't worn out at 100,000 miles any more.
Yes, the crumple zone in a 60 year old car is you.
So best not to get in to an accident, but that goes for any vehicle, including modern ones. Sudden deceleration is a real problem, all the crumple zones do is change that from 1 ms to 15 ms. (that's a huge difference in terms of impact on your body, but still).
The dashboard in a Jeep is steel, but don't worry, in most accidents you'll be thrown clear of the vehicle on to the street, with a little bad luck in front of other traffic. Chances of you hitting the dashboard are much slimmer than you hitting the pavement.
You don't want to roll one either...
Materials science has come a long way since the 40's, I don't think you can compress the 60+ years of research resulting in our current engine life in to 'a simple additive', and it was definitely not just the Japanese that worked on this.
They do deserve a lot of credit for ceramics to metal bonding processes, but there too there was plenty of international collaboration.
Ruggedness depends on what you're asking the car to withstand. I'm hoping mine will withstand 150k-200k miles without unplanned maintenance :-) But right now I'm in the embarrassing position of trying to borrow a car from my mother to drive to a trailhead my Prius can't get to, so I appreciate your point.
This is a 60 year old car, it's not like you can walk in to your local car part store and order some parts. You're going to be buying your parts from places like this: http://www.willysjeepparts.com/ which will happily charge you a good sized premium for the parts because they're being made in much smaller series than for cars that are still 'current'. And that's assuming you do the work yourself, if you let someone else do it for you it'll cost quite a bit more still.
They also need quite a bit more maintenance per mile driven than a modern car because the engine clearances are not to be compared with modern stuff.
But if it came to your 'prius' or that 60 year old beast and we had to cross 50 miles of bush I'm pretty sure which one I'd pick.
A prius is not a rugged car, not even a little bit, it's a delicate piece of beautiful engineering.