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.
(Excerpt) Read more at mentalfloss.com ...
I like bench seats. My first car had bench seats and drove sooooo smoothly that I didn’t need cup holders. I could rest a coke on the middle of the bench seat and it never moved. Steering could be done with one finger. Cars were better built and easier to drive back then. I also got better gas mileage.
Sparky doesn’t appreciate being called a retard.
When was the last time someone saw a manual choke on a car? My dad had a 1969 Nissan Patrol which had one. This was actually branded a Nissan and not Datsun like everything else that Nissan sold in the U.S. at the time.
Here’s two I haven’t seen listed:
1. Floor mounted mechanical windshield washer fluid pump.
You could actually squeeze the air pressure accordion on the floor harder to make the fluid shoot up higher! One crack in the plastic, though, and you are through!
2. Little doors for the floor vents mounted under the dash in the corners. A simple, bullet proof design.
3. Cardboard glove compartments. The economy ‘66 Dodge Dart I drove had a cardboard glove box. That’s one change I do not miss.
4. Manual window lifts. Though you can still find these on some sub-compacts and pickups, they are extinct in cars built for American style humans. Since all GM cars have poor electric window guides, I find this to be a nuisance, as my ‘94 Caprice Wagon with the rumble seat had four bad ones.
5. A fuse block with five fuses. Again, the ‘66 Dart was elegant in its simplicity. You could trace electrical problems yourself. In that year, Flashers were an option. More than once, I would have liked to have had them.
6. separable lap/shoulder belts. There was a time when the occupants of the car could decide how belted in they wanted to be. If you wanted the lap belt but not the shoulder belt? Cool. Just detach the shoulder belt, and you are at least part covered. Also you were less likely to get the shoulder belt of an older GM stuck in the door (weak belt return spring should be filed with bad window guides under GM nuisances).
7. A REAL tire jack. I don’t mean a silly little crank. I mean a big steel rod where you can get the car lifted in jest a few minutes.
8. REAL radio antennae, I had a Dart with a real serious radio antenna that scooted up half again as high as anything on the road today. Designed for serious AM reception, it could pick up favorites talkers with no issue. I had to manually put it down before entering the car wash.
9. Mechanical engine cooling fans. The engines on, the fan spins. he engines off, the fan doesn’t spin. Engine made of cast iron and steel so a little extra heat after a long drive doesn’t kill it.
10. Bias ply tires. Softer ride. Easier rotation. Less reliable.
Yes, but they were already tinted when I bought it. Even better, it still has cop lights discretely mounted behind the grill and inside the back and side windows (which I disconnected, of course) as well as a few stubby antennas on the trunk. It's all-black with the markings removed except for the police interceptor and high-speed pursuit emblems on the back bumper. I bought it from a former police officer who says it used to be a state DHS supervisors car, and local cops will tend to avoid it!
Pssshhht! Way cool back then.
Rain gutters were perfect bottle rocket launchers.
Light fuse.Hold in rain gutter with your fingertip as you drove along. Release and it shot out straight in front of your car.
That’s their excuse but tires are 90% air, they can’t save more than 5 pounds, 10 if you have some sort of super heavy rim, in a 2000 vehicle that’s not going to change the millage enough to even be measured. What it lowered is their costs, they substituted a real tire and rim for cheap crap that belongs on scooters and didn’t pass the savings on to us.
sorry but if she had lite up in my car she had better have taxi $ because her ride would be over
Pretty sure all Chryslers are that way now.
Chrysler products I meant- Dodge, Jeep, etc.
Today, they don’t feature style. Every car looks exactly like the others. Boring
They don’t feature comfort. The seats are buckets seats that don’t conform to many people’s backsides and the seat backs curve so that your back hurts after driving for 5 minutes. And the head rests are made for someone 6’4” so anyone shorter gets sore necks.
I never know how to change the radio station or a cd so never listen anymore. When the time changes, it’s a major production to find the clock instructions in the manual. Same when changing the oil.
The A/C and heaters don’t work nearly as well as they used to.
Handling is nowhere near as smooth or easy as it used to be. It takes the whole road to make a U-turn now. Zero to 60 is a joke these days.
Let a cat walk across the hood and it’ll dent. Forget trying to fix them yourself to save a few dollars. No full sized spares. No trunk room. No inside room. Cars are overpriced pieces of crap these days.
In 2008 my employer retired my full-size van in favor of a new Escape. I didn’t like it at first (hated the transmission) but after one winter season with the full-time all wheel drive you couldn’t pry it from my fingers. After almost four years they swapped it for one of the new slopers. I was impressed at first at the apparent increase in power but it had terrible visibility problems and didn’t handle for shyt in the ice and snow. Then they took all of our vehicles away as part of a cost savings program and now I’m back to driving a 10-year old Blazer - that out-performs the new Escape in the snow.
YMMV
Back windows don’t roll down all the way now days because kids are too dumb not to fall out.
You ever use a hand crank starter? I about had my arm pulled off trying to start my dad’s tractor when it kicked back on me. Not a pleasant experience. Luckily I just dislocated my shoulder.
I don’t have an Escape, but my Kia Sportage is similar in design.
Yes, the visibility is less. No doubt about that. But you do get used to it. The backup camera is helpful, I see why people like them. Really a boost to safety.
I can’t complain about how my AWD Kia does in the snow. Don’t know about the Escape.
I miss the rear windows in trucks that used to open to allow you to talk to the people riding in the rear.
And also the gun racks which were standard in all truck back windows.
My tires have, like, 32 pounds of air in them. ;-)
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