Car analogies - repost

I often use car analogies when talking to non-tech people about computers. Just like a car, you have to do regular maintenance on your computer in order to get it to run well. You can modify a car to get better performance, same as a computer. I recently got to wondering what analogies people would use for this sort of thing before the invention of the car? "Dude, this is just like your cotton gin, if you want to get the best performance you have to take regular care of it." "Well, yeah, of course it's going to act like a piece of junk, i mean you don't go around writing with your quill and not clean it, do you?!?!" I bet people had a hard time finding analogies.