I drove several new cars recently. The Impala Premier was very comfortable. The Avalon was not. The side bolsters on the seat back pushed into the sides of my back at the rib cage. I’m just not built for that car. Besides that, it was comfortable.
The reason is very simple. Manufacturers must and want to meet or exceed government emission and fuel consumption requirements. In order to do so they design cars that are as aerodynamic as possible. Within each (price) class there can only be one design that is the most efficient. The result is cars these days lack different styles.
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I had a similar experience when looking at new cars, my description is the seat is like a clam shell, like you say about the seat back pushing in on your sides I concur…
Exactly. That is why current NASCAR “stock” cars look the same. Optimum aerodynamics. When I had the opportunity to attend cup level races in the mid 1970s the cars still looked like something you could purchase off the dealer’s lot.
And safety requirements. Crash tests almost force specific shapes in order to create “crush zones” and to transmit crash forces around the passenger compartments.
Having said that, I agree with those who feel the industry could and should do better. More often than not they bring a great new design to shows and by the time their internal committees get done making sure it “looks like a Chevy (or Ford or Chrysler or Toyota or whatever)” it exits the manufacturing plant as just another tweaked version of a current design.
And for years I’ve had a problem with interior designs. I have degenerative disc disease, and most modern seats are terrible. The “standard” seats are designed to feel “sporty”, with little padding and excessive “side bolsters”. There are many family cars now with “sport seats” and between the large side bolsters and the more forward B-pillars (I suspect to create more side-impact resistant doors) I have great difficulty folding myself into them. I truly believe that seat designers have lost the art of designing comfortable seats. They’re “ergonomic” now… and that does NOT translate to comfort. And driving positions are often terrible too. A comfortable seat and a good driving position in a new cars is almost impossible to find.
Visibility? Forgetabout it! Visibility in most cars today is appalling. Some, such as the new Camaros and Mustangs, are like looking out of tank turrets.
In short, I believe manufacturers could and would do far better of they could only ban the executives from the design meetings. 
My mom has two cars . . . a 1999 Benz C280 and a 2014 Honda Civic
Both cars are similarly equipped, and both have leather seats, in case anybody’s wondering
Guess which one has the more comfortable seats?
You guessed it . . . the older car, the 1999 Benz C280
Nascar “stock” cars ARE all the same now. Nascar got tired of all the manufacturers lobbying for different spoilers to equalize the supposed disadvantage of their body vs the competition, that they mandated the same body for all the cars. The different styling cues between Ford, Chevy and Toyota are just decals that look like grills etc.
About seven or eight years ago I had the pleasure of riding about 50 miles in a friend’s all-original 1957 Chevy convertible. In excellent shape. The seats were built more like a couch than a modern car seat, a sprung base with lots of fibrous padding and covered with vinyl. It was great. Not as slippery as I remembered either.
My sister had (years ago) a '76 Eldo Biarritz. Leather covered “pillow seats”. Those were great.
My '64 Fairlane, '72 Vega and '76 Corolla all had comfortable seats. Even my '61 Beetle had comfortable seats.
My '05 Corolla, on the other hand, was typical of today’s seats; injection-molded high-density foam shaped to force my body into some idiot textbook-writer’s idea of a perfect ergonomic shape and glued together with a covering of some odd manufactured material. The seats were terrible.
I sometimes wonder what they’re teaching kids in design schools today. Whatever it is, it ain’t right.
I’m sure I have already posted my similar tale somewhere on this forum. I stopped at the corner grocery store and was inside for about 5 minutes. I walked out the exit and pushed unlock on my remote entry opened the door and climbed in. The first thing I noticed was a horizontal crack across the entire windshield that was not there when I parked my 2010 Kia Forte. The second thing I noticed was the Mazda emblem in the steering wheel center. It was a same exterior and interior color as my Kia but was a Mazda 3. An SUV had parked between the Mazda and my Kia effectively hiding my car. Before our electrical engineers start posting concerning keyless entry fob near identical frequencies and solar flare interference I am convinced the Mazda was simply unlocked to begin with.
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Sometimes I determine what brand the car is supposed to be by the patch on the driver’s fire suit.
I know the reason…There are so many possible styles that meet the best aerodynamic vehicle you can design.
So if you think about it then, instead of the design studios coming up with unique designs, it is DC with the EPA etc. setting the parameters of sheet metal design. I’m not sure this is really what we had in mind, and kind of sad when you think about it. That old song “and they’re all made of ticky tacky and they all look just the same” or something like that 40 years ago comes to mind.
Edited.
It was “ticky tacky”…
OK, OK, i’s been a long time and I’m getting old. Man that’s even better than I remember and they’re all wearing safety pins and pink hats . . .
I got away with it. '07 TL. I’ve spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $60 in car repairs (not counting maintenance). The evap purge valve went, which was 40 or so. The power steering inlet gasket went, which was something like 3 bucks. And the hood props finally got weak this year, which cost me just under 20.
Of course, one thing that helps is that the navi computer died in-warranty, so there was 5 grand I didn’t have to spend. 
I managed that with my 06 accord, few months ago I got a new cv joint, other than that no major repairs or rust.
“I am not convinced the 10 year window of no expensive car repairs these days does not seem probable, many expensive electronics.”
With my previous Outback–an '01 model which I kept for 10 years–the only repair that was needed during that decade-long period was replacement of the purge valve on the evap system, and that took place during the first six months that I owned the car.
Obviously, that repair was covered by warranty, and because no other repairs were needed during the period that I owned the vehicle, I spent zero dollars on repairs. And, I should add that none of the supposedly troublesome electronic gizmos on the car ever needed repair.
Is it any wonder that I bought another Outback?
My example is a 1981 Mazda RX7. My future Daughter in Law Bought it in 1987 when she was 16 years old as her first car. It was in excellent mechanical and cosmetic condition and she kept it that way. In 1991 she fell in love with a 1988 Honda Accord coupe and needed to sell the Mazda. I paid her asking price of $1,600. 2 years later I had my blood drawn by my buddy’s Wife who had owned an identical RX7. When I showed it to her she recognized the license number. It was her RX7 which she bought new. When I sold it in 1997 I had replaced tires, wiper blades, air filter, and a side marker light bulb. All normal wear items. I advertised it and the first potential buyer was my 2nd grade girlfriend. She bought it. I call it my “All in the Family” car.
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Wow! My wife is nine years younger than I am… and I thought I was robbing the cradle! 
CSA
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Actually my 2nd grade girlfriend was 4 months older than me when we were in the 2nd grade so she was robbing the cradle. LOL! I do appreciate your sense of humor.