Being an IT guy I fear the day a windows splash screen comes up for touchscreen.period end.
Puzzle: If a manufacturer had touch screen transmission controls, how many menus would I have to go through to find the shifter to downshift?
Answer: One. I’ll have crashed into a bridge abutment by the time I find the right menu.
^
Nah!
That would only be the case if the car in question was from Germany…
;-))
@VDCdriver
I was responding to a picture Barkydog posted on the first page. Looked like an old bumper jack from years ago
@VDCdriver
You’re reading my mail.
My old Buick rivieras had touch screens and I liked them, except when they went dark and had to buy a new one. Very interesting figuring out where to touch a blank screen but doable.
@oblivion, two things: it shows how rarely anybody around here uses profanity of any degree, and because no filter is perfect, I will always have a job. 
The latest Jag did away with the stupid pop-up knob. With Jag’s horrible reliability there is no way I would have bought one. The pop-up mechanism was one more thing to fail, leaving you unable to put the car in gear.
Making the knob a popup was IMHO making a basically good idea overly complicated. I think BMW did that a few years back when the first came up with their “I-Drive”. I haven’t personally driven one, but every reviewer I read complained that it tried to do too much and thus was too complicated to operate.
BMW did a poor job with I-Drive, but at least they listened to complaints and fixed it. Reviewers seem to think it is fine now, though many prefer the Mercedes or Audi equivalents. I have just played with them at auto shows, which is pointless. You really do need the manuals first. Even the simple menus on our Elantra need some study to figure out the more esoteric features. Most of it is easy enough. Luckily.
You really do need the manuals first.And we all know how important manuals are to 99% of the motoring public !
One car design that seems to have a cult following nowadays is the old Geo Metro/Suzuki Swift type design because of mileage. Sure, people and the government would want upgraded safety features but the little cars are perfect for something simple, inexpensive, and easy to repair. I have one with a 3 cylinder engine and am amazed at how I can get 52-55 mpg out of such old and simple technology. I am sure that modern tech and improvements in fuel injection could do even better.
There are two things I would definitely change if they were to come back. One is rust proofing. These things are horrible for rust if you don’t watch it and is probably the reason for the demise of most of these that are junked. The other thing would be the requiring the use of synthetic oils which were not as common when these cars came out. These engines are solid and will run forever if maintained but are not forgiving to dirty oil and neglect. Running a quality synthetic oil seems to make a big difference in how they hold up. Part of this issue is probably because they were such a cheap car that many considered them disposable. There are a lot of engines that died because of this, not because they were bad. Stuck rings and burned valves are common on neglected engines.
Besides this, these cars are like driving a big go kart and as simple as anything I have worked on. Everyone assumes there will be no room to work under the hood because the car is so tiny but there is actually a lot of room and everything is pretty easy to get at. There aren’t many cars where you can swap an engine in a couple hours if you really know what you are doing. You don’t even need a hoist! I can lift the little engines in and out by myself. The water pump and timing belt are not hard to get at. Besides this everything is pretty much right there and a simple bolt on.
Sure, these are no frills cars but I know many who would prefer cars without all the stuff they seem to include nowadays. I know two people who have recently purchased top trim levels with voice commands, navigation, and the like who wish they had gotten the next level down without all the stuff. These features sure don’t seem to have all the bugs worked out yet. The car overhears a conversation and decides to turn the air conditioner on or off.
In reply to the first answer, I would replace the 53 Plymouth with a 52. Much roomier and more comfortable, and better seats with the same reliability and economy. The only difficult repair on either one was setting the valve lash, but done properly, you could not hear or feel the engine run at an idle.
Those old Plymouth sedans,made fine family cars-Kevin
You won’t be able to do much in one of these cars without at least skimming the manuals. I designed software for a living and couldn’t get very far in most of these systems. They’re seriously quirky.
Personally, I think any vehicle that requires a study of the manual to operate the basic functions is a manifestation of techies run wild. It’s ridiculous.
On the subject of things I’d like to see again, one is T-tops. T-tops were a great compromise between convertibles and hardtops. I like the wind in my hair and the sun on my forehead, and T-tops provided that without the wind noises, leaks, and compromised structural integrity (wobbliness) of convertibles.
@the_same_mountainbike I have to disgaree with you about t-tops. I had a 300ZX and the t-tops were never off, because they just didn’t store well anywhere in the car without a bunch of fooling around. And, a convertible is just completely different. For a lot of reasons I got rid of the car and bought a Miata, a far better car for those dinosaurs among us who want a straightforward car that does what it’s supposed to do and leaves you in charge. Except for missing the joy of doing battle with dripping side draft SU carbs, the Miata is the MG you wished you owned, but never could.
Good point about the storage. I thought of it when I posted, but figured they’d have that problem solved by now.
I’ve always had a soft spot for the Miata. I tested one when the first came out, and it took a week for my smile to fade. It cast me back to the MGBs. I read that the Mazda team actually tuned the exhaust to emulate the old MGBs. I believe it.
@cwatkin
"one is rust proofing"
You will see NOTHING on the part of the manufacturers to address rust unless it is ancillary to some mandate made by the govt to now, . or for example there is a mandate that 5 to 7 year old cars must behave the same in crash tests as new ones, then a huge jump in rust proofing; similar to what happened in mandates for safety pollution controls over x miles filtered into increased longevity for supporting systems.
Ford and others will use more aluminum as a reason the address weight savings for fuel economy mandates which indirectly has a positive influence on rust. But, we are all sitting around with our collective fingers in our…“ears” if we think that manufacturers will make cars more rust proof on their own. They never have, they never will. It’s directly attributed to govt. mandates and market demands for safety. If we started valuing cars that don’t rust by keeping them from rusting ourselves instead of using it as an excuse to buy new ones, they would listen.
Everyone has it within their capability to double the body life of their car with little effort now, and few do.
Dag, I would argue that most if not all of the technologies that make cars far less prone to rust are also significant cost reducers to the manufacturers. Bonding instead of welding, electron beam welding instead of arc welding, highly precise spot welding, the use of advanced polymers to replace materials that corrode, better casting methods, stamping methods that stress the materials less, and many more advancements have been made to make more cost efficient manufacturing that also reduce rust.
Alloys and conformal treatment of metals have also advanced tremendously.
And, frankly, auto manufacturers have a vested business interest in developing a reputation for longevity… and that includes not prematurely rusting. A lot of design money is spent to prevent corrosion that is not government mandated.
The aluminum change in Ford’s trucks is clearly fuel efficiency driven, but remember that unless the alloys, processes, and treatments are selected and done properly aluminum WILL oxidize. Ask any career sailor.
Auto technology advanced greatly between 1909 and 1969, almost all without any government mandates. There is absolutely no evidence that it would have stopped advancing without government intervention. Market forces and manufacturing efficiency requirements would have driven advancements, just as they always have.