Yep , bench seats ( or at least enough seats all the way accross the front to seat PEOPLE not consoles and cups ) My 79 Chevy pickup has seat belts for FOUR…and wing windows.
Ditto on the positive comments for the older generation ventilation systems. My old Cadillac had vents or ‘no drafts’ in the front and back windows plus enormous floor vents - never needed the air except when stuck in traffic on a warm day. It also had a six way adjustable power bench seat and, in addition to the floor switch for the high beams a ‘twi-light sentinel’ automatic dimmer feature. Talk about being from a totally different era, I think that car had at least as many ashtrays and cigarette lighters as most modern cars have cup holders…
When I was a kid, I thought that the emergency crank to start a car when the battery was dead was a good feature. My dad’s 1939 Chevrolet had an emergency crank and I have seen him start the engine by hand cranking. I realize that with today’s high compression engines, this wouldn’t be possible.
I was always fascinated by the speedometer on the 1946-48 Dodge and Desoto cars that changed color–it glowed green from 0 to 30, amber from 30 to 50 and red above 50.
I also liked the Borg-Warner automatic overdrive coupled to the three speed manual transmission. It gave the vehicle 5 forward speeds–first, second, overdrive second, high and overdrive high.
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“Yeah vent windows and the vents down by your feet.”
Panel vans still have that setup
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About the only thing I “miss” on new cars are the wing windows.
new cars, compared to the old, are MUCH more reliable and long lived. I remember when you’d throw a party if you reached 100,000. And that was the exception. I was moaning and complaining about having to think about getting new tires after 80,000 miles, and my dad just snorted. “Heck, I remember when tires were little more than old t-shirts dipped in molten rubber, and I considered 10,000 miles good wear.”
“new cars, compared to the old, are MUCH more reliable and long lived”
+1
Back in the '50s, when I was a kid, it was unusual to be able to drive your car beyond 50k miles without having to replace the piston rings and grind the valves. Even if you did that, the body/chassis rot was such that it was not likely that you could keep your car on the road more than 10 years–at least in the Northeast.
The handling of older cars was just plain awful, the brakes were weak, and they were just not safe–as compared to cars of the '90s and beyond. Their drivability in cold weather was just plain…bad. Yes, I enjoy going to Classic Car shows, and I love looking at those cars, but, as daily drivers, today’s cars are light years beyond them in virtually all respects.
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I once owned a 1958 Pontiac Star Chief. 371 V8, with 4 speed Hydro. A big heavy fast car.
With really crappy brakes. Really marginal.
One emergency stop, and your best bet was to pull over and wait for the brakes to recover.
Back then, the American public was just beginning to get aquanted with powerful cars, and a lot of people killed themselves because of it.
“One emergency stop, and your best bet was to pull over and wait for the brakes to recover.”
+1
My '71 Charger had brakes that were so weak, you could actually feel them beginning to fade by the end of a panic stop. I wished that it had brakes good enough to allow me to just pull over and wait for the brakes to recover!
And, what many people have forgotten was the lack of load-carrying capacity of tires on the cars of yesteryear. Up until the late '70s, the tires on most cars were at their load limit with just the driver in the car. Load the car up with 3 or 4 passengers and several suit cases, and the tires on the cars of the '50s, '60s, & early '70s were overloaded by several hundred lbs, thus creating an elevated risk of blow-out–especially if the tires had not been pre-inflated several lbs over their normal pressure.
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I am another one who prefers my 2002 Sienna over any old car. It just starts and runs.
However, pure fantasy for me would be a brand-new 1936 Chevrolet modified by being made with new alloys in motor, transmission, and drive train, ;fuel injection OBDII motor, disk brakes, safety glass, but the same body otherwise and the same upholstery. That was a fun car, and the seats were more comfortable than any easy chair I ever used.
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The less common full size spare. I miss the easy to work on nature of older cars. And lastly, I miss all cars having the same basic colors. I like white, black, brown, green and grey. I don’t like pearl, deep charcoal, sand, toup and sterling.
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Vent windows, bench seats, shift levers on the steering column, floor dimmer switches, key locks on the right side door and trunk lid, handle on the trunk lid (very handy for us short folks!), simple knob for adjusting the comparative treble/bass on the radio by feel without having to work through a series of menus, throttle response without the drive by wire hesitation, back seat legroom, fewer blind spots with better all around visibility, and lots of shiny chrome…
On the other hand, things I much prefer about current cars include highly improved safety, better suspension, better braking, a/c and improved heater, rear window defroster, variable speed wipers, actual engine temperature indicator rather than just an idiot light, wheels that don’t have hubcaps that go flying off every time you hit a pot hole (although I do love and miss the old look of shiny chrome hubcaps!), tilt/telescoping steering wheel, cruise control, FM radio and CD/MP3 rather than only AM radio…
I’m curious if any of the people who miss floor mounted dimmer switches were from areas that had a lot of snow and salt usage. Because my experience was not so good. They were often frozen solid by corrosion from salt exposure during winter.
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One accessory I miss from the old days was the woven fiber seat covers. These seat covers were inexpensive, but would only last 2 or 3 years. My parents preferred them over plastic seat covers because the plastic was cold in the winter and hot in the summer (we didn’t have air conditioning on our cars back in the 1940s and 1950s). The interior fabrics, particularly the mohair, didn’t last all that long, so seat covers were very popular items to either protect the original upholstery or hide the original upholstery.
TwinTurbo makes a good point, though it’s still easier to replace a floor-mounted dimmer switch than a stalk that’s broken.
Outside mounted sun visors…Automatic car washes doomed them…wing windows, cowl vents, rumble seats, two-tone paint jobs…
As TwinTurbo and Oblivion noted, I’ve had enough headaches with floor mounted dimmer switches (due to snow, mud, dirt, and rust) that I am happy to see them gone.
I miss floor vents.
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I grew up near DC. What’s this snow and ice stuff you’re talking about?
I had a '96 Dodge van with wing vents for 15 years and never opened the vents once. They were probably stuck after 10 years. I prefer the dimmer switch at the steering wheel.
I miss the sealed beam headlights and the lenses for other lights that could be removed by backing out screws on the lenses. I also liked the higher seating position in cars through the mid 1950s. I remember a 1992 Consumer Reports article where they compared a 1952 Buick Roadmaster to a 1992 Buick. CR found the seating position and the seats in the 1952 Buick more comfortable than the Buick built 40 years later. I also liked the hood arrangement on the pre-1953 Buicks that could be opened from either side. The hood could also be removed entirely without tools. It made repair of that fabulous straight eight engine easy.
I would miss the cigarette lighter if I had a newer car. I think most manufacturers have dropped them by now, right? To free up dashboard space for electronic gizmos? You know, the one where you push it in, then it pops out when it is ready? I don’t smoke, but sometimes it comes in handy, like when camping and I forget the matches to light the camp stove, I can use the cigarette lighter to start a piece of paper on fire. I would miss the ashtray too, as it is a good place to put a pack of chewing gum, some fuses and pencils.
I like the foot button to dim the headlights too. Seems more sensible for some reason, no need to remove your hands from the steering wheel like I have to do w/the Corolla.
But the wing windows? Don’t miss them. The ventilation system in my wing-less 90’s Corolla is much better than my wing-ed 70’s Ford truck. & on the wing-less Corolla, it works whether you are moving or not, as it is the fan that pulls the air through, not the motion of the car. Makes for a more pleasant idle at long traffic lights on hot days. The ventilation on newer cars in my opinion is a vast improvement over older cars. Not talking about AC, just the normal ventilation system.