New cars have many features old cars never had – LCD touchscreens and WiFi, for instance. But new cars are missing some things, too.
Maybe you remember – and wonder why?
Bumpers that could take a bump –
Until about the early-mid 1990s, most cars still had external bumpers designed to be . . . bumped. They were made of steel and so didn’t easily tear, like today’s plastic bumper covers do – leading to very expensive repairs, usually involving the replacement of the torn bumper cover and then repainting it. 
So, why?
Environmental regs made chrome-plating steel bumpers expensive – so they were replaced with cheap plastic bumper covers painted body color. Underneath these plastic fascias – as they’re called – are structures designed to crumple up like tin foil, which is another reason why new cars incurs so much damage in even minor accidents. In the Bumper Days, there was often no immediately noticeable damage after bumping into another car – and if there was, it was often possible to just pull the bumper back into place.
You can’t do that with a torn plastic fascia.
Visibility –
It’s getting hard to see where you’re going, especially to the sides and behind you. It’s become so bad that most new cars have sensors that beep when you’re about to bump into something – operating on the same principle as the blind man’s cane – and cameras with TV monitors to let you see what you otherwise couldn’t. It used to be that only huge RVs had back-up cameras – because only huge RVs needed them.
So, why?
Saaaaaaaaaaaaafety regulations have turned passenger cabins into tank command centers, with about the same view of the outside world. The pillars which support the roof are easily three times as thick as they used to be – in order to support the weight of the car if it rolls onto its roof, per the federal requirement.
Of course, the poor visibility makes it more likely that the car will end up rolling onto its roof – but at least you’ll be saaaaaaaaaafe if it happens.
Most new cars also have bloated/jacked-up kaboooses – sheetmetal and plastic Kim Kardashians – and that plus often tiny and sharply slanted rear glass makes it very hard to see what’s going on behind you – and whether, in particular, there’s a child playing in the road behind you. Hence the back-up cameras and remote TV displays – which older cars never had but which all new cars have to have, per federal fatwa.
The floorboard headlight dimmer switch –
My ’76 Trans Am, like most American cars of its time, has a floor-mounted dimmer switch. If you want to cancel the high beams, you use your left foot – enabling you to keep both hands on the wheel. In modern cars, it’s usually necessary to take at least one hand off the wheel in order to dim the headlights via pulling back on a steering column-mounted stalk. This stalk also often houses the controls for the turn signals, windshield wipers and (in some cars) other things, too. So it’s fairly easy to turn on (and off) other things when all you wanted to do was turn off the high beams.
So, why?
Packaging. The car companies make money by figuring out how to sell you a car for more that cost them less to build. A single multi-function steering column-mounted stalk apparently costs less in the grand scheme of things than a separate, floor-mounted dimmer switch. Another (and less snarky) reason has to do with keeping the high beam control clean and dry. On the floorboard, it’s more vulnerable to getting wet – and to dirt getting into the works.
And then, not working.
Wing vents for the door side glass –
Most cars didn’t use to have air conditioning – which for a long time was a high-end (and highly expensive) option. So it was necessary to make sure the air flowed some other way. One way was by installing moveable wing vents in the door glass that could be opened – and canted – to direct air into the car. When the car was moving, this was a very effective way to “air condition” the car for free, particularly when the wing vents were paired up with under-dash vents that could be opened and closed by pulling on cable-actuated levers. Those have gone away, too.
So, why?
Air conditioning – which is standard equipment in every new car – eliminated the need for “free” air conditioning but there were also the issues of the physical security of the car (it’s easier to break into a car with wing vent windows) and the phsyical integrity of the interior (wing vent windows tend to leak both air and water over time, as the rubber seals age and shrink).
An irony of the times is that many new cars have fixed vent windows that seem to be begging to be opened – if only they had hinges to allow them to do so.
. . .
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I’ve had several 70’s vehicles with side mirrors. There hasn’t been a rear view mirror in my last two vans, because they either didn’t have back windows or had a barrier between the cab and the box.
What the hell happened to body side molding? Even $50,000 cars don’t have it anymore.
Part reduction programs eliminated them.
My current van has the same front channel iron bumper that the last one did, by way of modification so that it would bolt to the crumple frame rails. Since it has three protrusions that would seriously scratch anything that contacts it, I’ve seen several people relent from pulling in front of me.
One afternoon I was sitting, alone, in a parking lot. I’d stopped to park and look up something. Before I moved again, I had to make the obligatory depression of the brake pedal to release the shifter interlock, which caused the brake lights to warn anyone in sight that I was going into gear (I don’t mindlessly rest my left foot on the brake pedal like some clovers might). I checked both side mirrors for any vehicles and seeing none, took my foot off the brake. As I started to move to one side, a mexican came out of nowhere in a SUV, running up the right front corner of the van. The channel iron bumper opened the flimsy sheet metal up like a sardine can, leaving the sliding door wedged open. I joined the other driver on the tarmac and he asked me what I was going to do for him. I told him that my damage was minuscule (a broken turn signal lens above a still dented fender) and pointed out that he had caused the accident. He got in and drove off, never to be seen again.
New cars: Performance and reliability- Totally destroy old cars in those categories, no question.
Costs? Well, that is another story.
As far as I can figure, the only way to beat the game with new cars is to buy one slightly used, picking out the best value possible, and drive it into the ground. You keep it maintained, should last at least 300k miles. After you pay it off, the insurance can come down and the cost per mile plummets.
I am driving a 21 year old Jeep Cherokee! Cost me nothing to acquire it, has 186k miles on it. A lot of stuff doesn’t work right, so what? It is fun to drive, is relatively safe, and runs. I don’t have to read the owners manual just to operate the damn thing. Even with terrible fuel economy (14mpg) it is still much cheaper than buying a late model used vehicle. I see in my area, Nebraska, leases for new cars in the mid to upper $300 range, leases!
I think I will stick with finding vehicles built in the late ’90’s early 2000’s range. For the cost of a new car down payment I can find a decent working vehicle that my mechanic buddy can fix, and I can keep just the legal minimum on it for insurance. I cannot imagine how much full coverage is for some of these new cars…damn!
When will driving an older car become probable cause in of itself? Soon….trying to avoid surveillance by driving older vehicles…may soon become a crime.
I have a 29 year old Jeep Cherokee. Has functional wing windows (and air conditioning.) California keeps offering me $1000 for it after it passes each biannual smog test.
IMO, Cali(porn)ia and other libtard states are doing their darnedest to frustrate the ability to LEGALLY keep an old sled on the road, either in, as Eric would put in, the name of S-A-A-A-F-T-E-E-E, or emissions. Never mind that finding parts can be a hassle.
However, at least as the (once) “Golden” State is concerned, there is STILL a “Loophole”, IF you’re willing…a pre-1976 vehicle doesn’t require a smog check. I guess they figure that what are now 42 y.o. vehicles, if they’re not collectibles, and for all practical purposes relegated to the “Trailer Queen” role, there’s so few left that its’ not worth hassling the diehards. Likely the “Dummycrat” appratchicks figure that either the vehicles or their owners will die out and solve their “problem”. My now 34 y.o. son and I have discussed this as a business opportunity…to buy and fix up old heaps, not necessarily as collectibles, but as “drivers”. And also sells parts and service (probably taking a “finder’s fee” for the referrals to willing shops for the latter) for the old sleds. If the Cubans could do in in the wake of the US embargo, why can’t we?
Anyone want to take bets that should such a business take off that the bureau-“rats” in the DMV, CARB, and “Bureau of Automotive Repair” (part of the so-called “Division of Consumer Affairs”) will go out of their way to find phony pretexts to shut it down?
I miss rain gutters, manual windows, and metal dashes that never crack.
The multi function turn signal stalks are closer to the steering wheel rim than the old ones, so you CAN dim/bright the lights while driving with both hands – IF you are going straight ahead!
And in the winter with heavy gloves it is almost impossible to not bump the stalk and turn who the hell knows what on or off while you are trying to navigate some tricky situation. Hell, this is true with vehicles going back thirty years now.
My “perfect vehicle” would be a 1973-80 Chevy K-20 pickup/suburban with a TBI engine.
tallpines, I concur on the perfect vehicle. The only thing I’ve had to mess with less than a Q jet is TBI….and the low end torque is great, better than a carb and so much better for when the a/c is on.
To be honest, I did prefer my ’93 with IFS 4WD over the ’82 with a straight axle but that straight axle had a 4 shock setup from the factory and was pretty comfy.
Even without gloves I was constantly turning on the wipers on my Nissan, a real pain in west Tx. with lots of bird sized bugs that would smear around, the reason I always have carried a bug rag in the tool box and a can of Windex for when it’s too cold to use water…..and generally a gallon of windshield washer fluid.
I have or have had both solid axle and IFS. The IFS is wonderful for mostly highway driving and really has done okay as a stump jumper, but there’s a lot more stuff to fail: ball joints, half axles, disposable wheel bearings, and aluminum differential. Right now my $800 wood-truck needs about $2500 worth of work.
The 1980 and older K-series had not only simple solid axles and two tie rod ends, but an iron gear-driven transfer case.
My “unicorn” is a good condition 1987 K-30: TBI and NP205!
If you ever lived in a snow belt region, you hated the floorboard headlight dimmer switch. Salt water would get in it and it would cease to work. So you’d have to go out and buy and install a new one.
Unless you opened it and cleaned it instead of making it disposable.
By that time, in the snow belt region, that whole car has been eaten by rust anyway, so you may as well just get a new car!
I have always lived in a snow belt region and rust is only a problem where they spread salt instead of plowing.
More regress:
1. Replacement of manual functions with electric motor driven analogs – and no manual fallback. Friend of mine almost burned to death trying to get out of burning car because of that. Couldn’t unlock and open the damn doors until he had the presence of mind to put the key back in and restart the engine.
2. Headless anti-theft door lock stalks. I have an F-150 with some broken linkage inside the driver side door & I have to reach through the window and open the door from the outside if I accidentally lock it. The stalks are only usable if I grip them with pliers. I keep meaning to get around to gluing heads on them.
3. Replacement of mechanical and electrICAL control systems with electrONIC ones. Less reliable and usually more expensive to repair because instead of just replacing the one broken dingus you have to replace a multi-function electronic module & God help you if they no longer make it, ’cause GM sure won’t.
4. Systems like Onstar that add more 1984-ish “features” with each revision.
5. Engine compartments that aren’t packed like Chinese box puzzles. Most of you probably don’t remember those.
And finally a couple from before my time:
6. My father used to lament the “Hudson Hill Holder”, a gadget that made it easy, with a manual transmission, to idle pointing uphill and then move forward without stalling out, without rolling back a foot before moving forward, and without having to do a clutch/brake/accelerator dance requiring superhuman coordination.
7. Gas burning heaters that got the interior warm in seconds. I think they are still available as after-market items.
The day I can no longer find affordable old cars without all these modern features is the day I’ll take a close look at street legal home built go carts. Or move to a free country if there are any left.
You shouldn’t need to glue heads on. Simply pocket a couple headed ones at the junkyard or buy them out of the dorman ‘help’ selection at the local auto parts store for an older ford. they should be the same thread. Thread the old ones off and the new ones on. You might have to enlarge the hole in the door panel or remove a grommet since the slim ones are well slimmer.
One other advantage to the floorboard-mounted high beam actuator was that it was used properly, which means it wasn’t used so often. It was functional, and drivers tended to use it only when necessary. With it mounted on the Stalk, it gets used for mundane things, like driving at normal speeds on rural roads, where the driver thinks it needs to be on “high” all the time. Until an oncoming car is ten feet in front of him.
Dimming lights is a thing of the past for most of the driving pubic. Then again, it’s probably hard to tell without looking for the indicator if new vehicles, esp. pickups, are on dim or bright. Blindy sumbitches they are.
I’m also less than fond of all these new lights that blind you on dim. I’m even less fond of mounting the turn signal light in the same housing as the headlight and all those other bullshit lights. You can’t see the turn signal because the headlights and all those other bullshit lights overpower them. What’s so wrong about a turn signal light well away from the other lights? Sure, cheaper to make and install and increases the price of the entire unit should it need to be replaced.
Speaking of being replaced, not only do pickups use such as Ranchand cowcatchers but so do cars and big rigs. Ol Bambi is hell on that plastic stuff up front when you’re doing 75-80.
The reason for so much high beam usage is they are now ‘automatic’ in many cars.
Then there are drivers like my 75 year old father who inadvertently turn them on (and then not notice that he did, so he is driving around blinding people). Probably lots like him.
My 1985 Ford Country Squire has amazing visibility and very comfortable seats. But it is hard to describe it as a lovely looking car. Majestic; yes. Classic; arguably. Lovely; hmm …
Hi Anonymous,
There is beauty in functionality and practicality… your car s an example. The old VW Beetle is another…
My first car was a 62 Beetle. Talk about an easy car to work on. Things were easy to work on. Parts were plentiful. Wiring was basic. All in all, if something went wrong, it was easy to fix. I was 17 when I had mine.
As to the the various things on the steering column, the dimmer switch, the turn signals, windshield washers, etc. If something breaks or goes bad, it is a big hassle to fix it. I had to fix one in a 93 Corvette once.
My current car is a 1999 Acura Integra. It is an amazingly fun car to drive, there are few bells and whistles to go wrong. It seems to be a car that was well designed.
When I was 17 I had a 55 Chevy pickup with a wraparound back window. It had a cowl vent as well as kick panel vents and vent windows. As with lots of pickups back then, the top of the cab was white regardless of the color of the body.
The DPS stopped me one day because of virtually no lights on the whole damn thing and read me the riot act. I was motivated enough(we’d already gone round about other things)to go to the Dal-Paso parts supply and buy a few rolls of different colored wire. I grabbed the whole wiring harness(not much) and walked to the trash barrel with it and then re=wired the entire pickup. When you’re 14 and can rewire an entire vehicle you know it wasn’t such a big task. It was nice to have brake lights and such(no signals since it didn’t come with them). I loved that pickup, even if the doors sometimes swung open on corners(kept you on the ball). Back in those days a knob on the steering wheel was a given on pickups since they were 8 turns lock to lock or so. If I ever do bodywork on a pickup again, I’m going to install a cowl vent. For one thing, it kept dust and debris from building up in the back of the dash….and would clean the floor at speed.
“Beauty” is truly in the eye of the beholder, especially with regard to automobiles. I miss my old 1968 Rambler American WAGON (which was meant for “shaggin’ “) with the “three on the tree”, overdrive, and the dependable 199 Six that ran SMOOTHLY even if it got the beast up to freeway speed at a rather LEISURELY pace…what the late George Romney considered to be the ideal car for a young family on a budget! And by the time I had it (1976 to 1978), it’d seen better days.
Same with my 86 Crown Vic…. and nobody seems to want to cut me off as much as they do when in my 2016 Suburu.
Another problem with false facade new car bumpers is that they’re plastic and can’t take wear and tear. The cellophane cover on my Civic is badly cracked, part of it’s come off, and it now catches craploads of mud/slush on my country roads this time of year that immediately turn to adamantine rock (because it’s still cold this time of year here) and threatens to separate the fascia from the car with its weight.
In fact, I prefer the old car approach in nearly every way to the new except for a) the old bodies didn’t last very long compared to new and b) I could grudgingly put up with fuel injection and its attendant complexity for emission purposes.
Torn plastic fascia sounds like a football injury you’d incur after playing at a high school reunion game following knee surgery.
There’s only three things I’d say modern cars are better at: comfort, performance, and reliability. They’re obviously terrible when it comes to affordability, choice, repairability, visibility, and aesthetics.
I often wonder what today’s auto industry would look like if it wasn’t for government meddling. What if we could buy a brand new 1st generation Mustang (or any true classic) with the comfort and performance of a modern car? Automakers would then sell perfection. Porsche is somewhat of an example.
BTW, glass headlights!!!!!
the modren cars in which I have ridden or driven are NOT “more comfortable”, particulary for driving Seat back angles and all those stupid “lumps” that hit my back in the wrong place, steering wheels cannot adjust to where I need them, and I sit too cramped in many of them. Nah, I’l take my late 70’s to mid 80’s Benz over ANY modern car I’ve ever sat. Or the earlier Volvos, mid 60’a through 70’s. Handling, performance, fuel economy, ease of repair, ready availability of spares, even in “strange places”. Water pump for my ’77 300D on the shelf at a NAPA store in Redding Calif? For $35, new OEM German.
I hope Volvo’s cars are better designed than their heavy trucks.
New cars perform “better” BECAUSE they’re NEW! It’s WHY you pay the precious bucks to be “baby’s” FIRST, not unlike being the first to ‘pop the cherry’ of the Prom Queen (getting a “working girl” that’s “tried and true” is usually CHEAPER and more CERTAIN).
It is true that newer cars have IMPROVED insofar as durability, reliability, and performance are concerned. In part it’s because to achieve both the emissions standards and consumer demand for power that the old gas-guzzling V8s delivered w/o complaint, they had to go back to the drawing board (or CAD terminal) and rethink the fuel and ignition systems, make the car lighter and yet still comply with S-A-F-E-T-Y standards, and in general, put engines and drivetrain components together with tighter tolerances and use oils which are chemical marvels as compared to when they came in those cylindrical cardboard cans which you used that spout with the can opener to open and pour the oil in (remember those days?). This all came with a PRICE (literally), not only do the cars cost a LOT more, requiring six, seven, or even EIGHT years of financing (whereas in my youth a loan term longer than three years was unheard of, a down payment of at least a third of the price was minimum, and, unless you were a college graduate with a great job, you had to get Dad or a generous Uncle to co-sign!), but they’re a wonder of “life-cycle” engineering…yes, in most cases, they will deliver 150K to 200K of relatively trouble-free driving, provided what maintenance is prescribed is followed (but $1,500 to $2,000 bills for “50,000 mile service” on ‘average’ cars are common, the days of the “tune-up” for $79 for 4 cyl, $99 for a six, and $119 for a V8 being long gone), but at that point, when it will take $5,000 to replace the dual-clutch transaxle, or a new catalytic converter will cost $1,500, or, come hell or high water, the thing won’t pass smog anymore, and the dealer won’t even touch it as it’s “too old”, and you can’t find parts nor information to tackle the job yourself, you’ll give up and junk an otherwise perfectly serviceable vehicle. All parties concerned, the automakers and taxing authorities especially, want to frustrate your ability to drive it forever!
Many other items now missing are better off gone.
AMF to artificial wood trim, vinyl roofs….and especially, fake wire wheel hubcaps.
Nothing to miss about floor dimmers. Just a few more screw holes in the floorpan to allow water access into the car. And with my dry eyes, I don’t miss the floor or window vents. I now use AC full time. As soon as I open a car window, I get blasted with any grit floating in the air that sticks to my eyeballs better than superglue. And the dimmer switch in the cars that I have had with them could be operated with both hands on the wheel. A far better idea in my opinion. And with open windows my hearing in the upper and middle frequencies disappears after 10 minutes. I don’t like AC at work or home but consider it indispensable in the car.
Floor dimmers worked well–the one in my ’85 Dodge worked for about 30 years before I replaced it for 16 bucks. It took all of five minutes to take the two screws out that held the dimmer in. Ever price a multi-function switch lately?
I’ve never had a drop of moisture enter through a floor dimmer, and in fact rusty floors always start on the outside, not inside.
Clearly you’re unacquainted with side-vent windows. Their glory is that they direct a small amount of air at chest level, not at the head as with all open windows, and if even that is too much they can be rotated to direct the air at the dash. You then get an indirect breeze, very comfortable. AC is nice sometimes, but as one pundit remarked the air that they condition is like already-breathed air–stale and stuffy.
Don’t confuse change with progress. In a number of ways the two are completely different in new cars.
Of all the floor rust I’ve ever had to deal with, only one hole came from the outside. The rest came from water leaks into the car or too much with regard to slush and such being brought in on ones shoes/boots.
But salty water corrodes the switch because you drag in in on the bottom of your shoes.
Salty water wouldn’t corrode the switch if it wasn’t brought in on the bottom of your shoes?
On my ’69 Dart, which was the last of that line to have the side vent windows, a neighbor, who had brought his 65 Plymouth Satellite with the 383 four barrel (and like other “hot rods” in Long Island from where he’d recently moved to Florida, the paint was faded and the car looked like crap in general, in “New Yawk”, if you went to the trouble to repaint your call and make it look nice, jerks would come along and “Key” it!), told me a trick to keep someone from shoving a coat hanger through the rubber weatherstripping to lift up the door lock and enter the car to vandalize or steal it, or at least nab the tape deck)…make an “L” out of a 1/2″ PVC elbow and two 4″ lengths of pipe, and snap the vent lock over it…that would block any coat hanger or wire and make it all but impossible to simply pry the vent window open. Also, changing the stock flared door lock posts to tapered ones helped to frustrate thieves and vandals.
I agree – two cars in the course of my growing up, a late 60’s Impala and an early sixties Mercury Comet, both had issues with rust around the dimmer switches. The Impala had to be plated and re-fitted.
I do think the floor dimmer is convenient, but so are many stalk switches. The function and position of the stalk switches is something I take into account when shopping – VW and toyota good, Ford awful, for example
I miss the giant two door coupes of the late 1960s and 1970s. These things had doors as long as a Honda CVCC. A high school friend had a 1975 Monty Carlo that had doors so long you didn’t need to release the seat to get in the back (he wasn’t very tall though).
Only problem was, once you were back there you couldn’t see out the “opera” window. Of course I’m sure he was more concerned with keeping spying eyes out of the back seat…
Floor mounted dimmer switches don’t work so well with a manual transmission. There’s something else competing for your left foot’s attention. Also in the land of snow and road salt they rust.
Something not on the list. Rain gutters that worked so the windows could be cracked open in the rain. Or opened even after a rain so water from the roof didn’t come into the car. Sacrificed for aerodynamics and the use of AC I suppose. Oh and speaking of aerodynamics and AC, proper air flow through the windows has been sacrificed too. Fixed glass by the C pillar that used to be at the very least pop open vent windows.
Also you past up the chance at a dagmar bumper reference….
About the floor dimmers: That’s true with a manual transmission. It’s also what I learned on, with my dad’s Jeep CJ-7. If you have to be switching the dimmer that often, you might be using the high beams too often/wrong.
Accelerating from a stop should never be done with high beams on. I almost never used the high beams before reaching 4th or 5th gear.
Wing vents: Every smokers friend!
“Wing vents for the door side glass”
Those “CVs” (“Control Ventilators”) per GM terminology were also very expensive to make. Die cast frames chrome over nickle over copper plated, stainless steel frames for the safety glass, tension springs and locking handles (unless you had the more expensive later ones with the crank-out design) and gaskets. “My” now defunct GM/Ternstedt Division used to bill Fisher Body a lot of money for them and it took a lot of floor space for the several lines on which we built them. Die casting is one of the “nastiest, dirtiest” manufacturing processes, and the plating equipment is among the reasons the ground is now condemned where the plant used to sit before demolition. One step backward, one step forward?
These days they would be removed just because they were so darned heavy!
Man I love my “control ventilators” on my 93′ GMC Conversation Van. I call them “1/4 window vent”- I think I’ve heard that terminology someplace.
Anyway, it’s a feature I wish auto manufacturers would bring back. To Eric’s point, a wino used one to break into my van and steal change off the console in a parking lot, but still, I use the 1/4 window vent all the time and love it even though the one that was forced open(drive side) now doesn’t seal that well. For me, it’s worth the security trade.
I also love that when I roll down my window my left arm is perfectly perched on the window sill for comfort and open air breeze while driving…that feature will never come back due to “safety” sadly and now they want people swallowed up inside the vehicle behind side intrusion beams.
My full size conversion van is like a rolling Lazy-Boy adjustable recliner. I love it. I’ve been getting an ever increasing number of people offering me money to buy it when I drive it around on the weekends too. No way I’m letting it go- I might have myself buried in it when my time is up.
It’s been about 10 years ago a friend bought a new racer-boy Toyota car of some sort…..or maybe it was a Mitsu. But a nice day found us cruising and he asked if I’d like to drive it. Soitanly says I. So I install myself in the drivers seat, roll down the window and attempt to do the old elbow thing on the door. WTF? My elbow was six inches above my shoulder, not very comfy, not even doable with my old wore out shoulders. It was a sign of the times and it ain’t no better.
A few years ago I noticed lots of Camaro drivers getting stopped, most likely for speeding, and i’d see them down in the drivers seat and wonder why they were all such small people. I could see them from a big rig but wondered if DPS just picked on them for being small or invisible. I finally realized they weren’t all small, they were just way down in there barely looking over the dash and window. Yikes, those are big cars and high beltlines. I pulled up beside one in the wife’s 95 Cutlass one day and felt like I was beside a big pickup or SUV….a foot taller and a few feet longer, what a monster.
“Butterfly window vents and floor mounted dimmers and radios with knobs.
Somethings mankind got right on the first try and should not be molested with after the fact.
Anti, I agree wholeheartedly. I operate a big rig with a floor mounted dimmer and love it. It also has vent windows. The radio is sadly, a dim, electronic thing that takes repeated stabbing of one button to turn off and on.
Comfortable isn’t in the lexicon of new cars in my view. Seats or foreign cars for the most part are too narrow for my rib cage keeping me pushed out and hurt my back. Probably the most comfortable car I’ve own was a ’77 SS El Camino with a Monte interior complete with rotating bucket seats. The only thing that would have made them better was arm rests both sides. Another comfy car was a ’72 Olds 98 with orgy seats front and rear. Sit 4 wide each seat and not be cramped and two wide gave you that expanse good for most anything. The glove box was so big you could store a pair of cowboy boots in it although we chose to use that space with a 2000 watt bi-linear amp for the two way. I would say CB but it had all sorts of frequencies. It took a while to find an antenna that would hold up but that’s no big deal.
That car had the big dash mounted cruise control and pulled a tandem axle trailer 120 mph. Try that in a new “car”.
Why are new cars have “bloated/jacked-up kaboooses” ? My daughters 94 corolla sits lower than most new cars as a matter of fact sits *almost* as low as my 69 Datsun 2000 sports roadster. Back in the day, it was cool to drop your hot rod an inch for performance and stance.
I remember the 70’s, when cane-cutters would jack up the asses of their cars to look “cool”. I thought losing your rear vision was stupid.
Now, due to collision safety requirements, I’m forced to drive a car with its ass way up in the air. I can’t see out back for shit.
Agreed. I want my G/F to have her ass up in the air for ME, not for everyone else…at least with that “configuration”, the view is BETTER.