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11 Features You No Longer See in Cars
Mental Floss ^ | February 11, 2014 | Kara Kovalchik

Posted on 02/14/2014 11:09:59 AM PST by EveningStar

It's hard to picture what today's teenagers will wax nostalgic about 30 years from now when they reminisce about their first car. (It still required gasoline, perhaps?) Who knows how automobiles will change in the future; what we do know is how different they are today from 30 or more years ago. If you fondly remember being surrounded by two or three tons of solid Detroit steel with a whip antenna on the front from which you could tie a raccoon tail or adorn with an orange Union 76 ball, and enough leg room that you didn't suffer from phlebitis on long road trips, then you might also miss a few of these.

1. Bench Seats


(Excerpt) Read more at mentalfloss.com ...


TOPICS: History; Society; Travel
KEYWORDS: automobiles; cars; oldage
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To: WorkingClassFilth

Wow, I forgot about those. Side vents too!


101 posted on 02/14/2014 12:14:10 PM PST by Flick Lives ("I can't believe it's not Fascism!")
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To: EveningStar

Foot controlled floorboard push button to flip between high beam and low beam headlights.


102 posted on 02/14/2014 12:15:08 PM PST by wxgesr (I wanna bodysurf down the luge run)
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To: EveningStar

Bench seat in the old Chevy pickup. My high school girlfriend would just about sit on my lap. I asked my wife the other day if she wanted to scoot over beside me in our pickup and make out for awhile. She looked at me like I was speaking Swahili. The Grandkids kept yelling from the back seat, “Give him a smooch!”


103 posted on 02/14/2014 12:15:52 PM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: Responsibility2nd

You can hate the “slopers” if you want, but Ford Escape sales are not down with the new design.

http://www.automobilemag.com/features/news/1401-ford-sales-december-2013/

**************

The Escape ran almost neck-and-neck with the Fusion in December, although the crossover managed to slightly edge out the sedan for sales. That performance pushed the Ford Escape to its best sales year ever, with a total of 295,993 sales last year — a 13.4-percent year-over-year increase and enough to make the Escape the second best-selling Ford of 2013. That could be enough for the Escape to finally unseat the Honda CR-V from the top of the crossover sales chart.

***************


104 posted on 02/14/2014 12:15:54 PM PST by SoothingDave
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To: EveningStar

I miss spot lights, like the one on our 1946 De Soto. They’re especially useful for illuminating street signs at night.

Moviegoers at drive-in theaters used to shine their spotlights at the screen and move the beams around between movies.


105 posted on 02/14/2014 12:15:54 PM PST by Fiji Hill
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To: Cooter
Do you have fully tinted windows so your fellow drivers can just never be sure if that guy is just maybe a...?
106 posted on 02/14/2014 12:16:01 PM PST by GreenAccord (Bacon Akbar)
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To: 1_Rain_Drop

“What’s a roach burner lighter?”

Younga$$ed straightlaced whippersnappers......


107 posted on 02/14/2014 12:16:18 PM PST by wxgesr (I wanna bodysurf down the luge run)
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To: wxgesr

Yeah, after they moved that thing I kept getting my foot tangled in the steering wheel.


108 posted on 02/14/2014 12:17:10 PM PST by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter admits whom he's working for)
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To: bicyclerepair
Still have my 73 Duster with every factory option except sunroof. Huge interior with most of the stuff in the article.

Back then, the Duster was considered a large compact! (A Body, along with the Darts, B body was the intermediate Charger, C body would be the Newport, New Yorker, etc.)
109 posted on 02/14/2014 12:19:40 PM PST by Dr. Sivana ("We are not sluts."--Sandra Fluke)
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To: discostu
One of the tire companies had a team compete in Car and Driver's One Lap of America in a Corvette with one tire as a compact spare just to prove how durable they are.

I think they "limit" the speed and range on them because no one ever checks them to see if they're properly inflated.

110 posted on 02/14/2014 12:19:57 PM PST by gura (If Allah is so great, why does he need fat sexually confused fanboys to do his dirty work? -iowahawk)
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To: IronJack

The Honda Element still has suicide doors.


111 posted on 02/14/2014 12:20:01 PM PST by Azeem (There are four boxes to be used in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury and ammo.)
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To: SoothingDave

I drove some Ford Flex’s working at the dealer as a tech.
They remind me of old station wagons.
Comfortable cars I was surprised how much I liked them.
I’m 50 YO so I know what a wagon feels like.


112 posted on 02/14/2014 12:20:46 PM PST by right way right (America has embraced the suck of Freedumb.)
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To: gura

They might last longer than 50 miles but they suck to try to drive with, especially if it’s on a front wheel trying to make a turn with that thing on the outside is a nightmare. They’re just a stupid idea and in a just world the guy that had it would have been laughed out of the industry.


113 posted on 02/14/2014 12:22:39 PM PST by discostu (I don't meme well.)
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To: ImJustAnotherOkie

Ah yes, still remember splitting a pair of slacks kick starting my buddies XLCH Sportster. You’d best use the spark retard as well.


114 posted on 02/14/2014 12:22:46 PM PST by doorgunner69
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To: right way right

Yes, a Ford Flex is very much a station wagon. Drove one as a rental once.


115 posted on 02/14/2014 12:23:14 PM PST by SoothingDave
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To: discostu

They exist to lower weight and to help the manufacturer meet CAFE standards.


116 posted on 02/14/2014 12:24:25 PM PST by SoothingDave
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To: SoothingDave

They’re down.

Add in the loss of thousands of Mercury Mariners and Mazda Tributes and you see what a disaster Ford has with the new redesign.


117 posted on 02/14/2014 12:25:39 PM PST by Responsibility2nd (NO LIBS. This Means Liberals and (L)libertarians! Same Thing. NO LIBS!!)
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To: EveningStar
Fins? The '58 Desoto Firesweep.

With the sloping trunk and the three-stack tail lights, if you were parked behind one at night, it looked as if you were at the entrance of the Golden Gate Bridge.

I saw one parked in Eufaula, Alabama in the late 1970s and left a note under a windshield wiper. Almost bought it for $700.

118 posted on 02/14/2014 12:26:32 PM PST by Scoutmaster (I'd rather be at Philmont)
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To: MrB

“Yeah, after they moved that thing I kept getting my foot tangled in the steering wheel.”

Classic...

Trunks...I used to sleep in the trunk on surf trips....of course I had to rig the latch so my “friends” couldn’t lock me in, again. I actually pushed through the rear back seat and crawled into the backseat to unlock the door. I think I was a wee bit smaller back then.

1965 Chevy


119 posted on 02/14/2014 12:27:27 PM PST by wxgesr (I wanna bodysurf down the luge run)
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To: Responsibility2nd
They’re down.

Are you disputing this fact from the article I linked? I am not sure what you are saying.

That performance pushed the Ford Escape to its best sales year ever, with a total of 295,993 sales last year — a 13.4-percent year-over-year increase

Best sales year ever.

Add in the loss of thousands of Mercury Mariners and Mazda Tributes and you see what a disaster Ford has with the new redesign.

I don't know about the Mercury, but if we're playing that game, why not add in all the Mazda CX-5 sales?

Mazda doesn't sell an Escape clone any more. They have their own CX-5, and it is selling well also.

Since the Escape is very near eclipsing the Honda CR-V in sales for the first time ever, I don't see how that is a "disaster."

120 posted on 02/14/2014 12:29:31 PM PST by SoothingDave
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