QOTD: What Defunct Automotive Feature Would You Like to See Return?

Steph Willems
by Steph Willems

Most of us are slaves to convenience, but there’s a good number of motorists who long to relive a nostalgic chapter from their younger days; back when cars were less sterile (externally, anyways), and less overburdened with all-thinking, all-knowing technology.

“Those were good days,” they think, their minds drifting back to a warm, hazy period washed clean of all the bad things they’d prefer not to remember. “Cigarettes were ten cents a pack. I didn’t have the government choking things up between my carburetor and tailpipe.”

There’s no going back to the days before seatbelts and airbags, nor would anyone want a return of car bodies that fold like wet cardboard during a crash, but there are some extinct features we’d like to see again — even if it’s just to satisfy a tiny, memory-filled recess of our overburdened brains.

Maybe it’s front vent windows, designed to suck the fragrant emissions of a carload of Winston and Camel smokers into the great beyond. Rear vent windows — like those found on 1980s Oldsmobile Cutlass four-doors — didn’t do much to cool down rear seat occupants, but it kept your kids from tossing popsicle sticks at other motorists.

Simmer down back there, and fasten your lap belt!

Hey, maybe you’d like to see a return of an actual cigarette lighter and ashtray, rather than hunt high and low for the increasingly elusive optional smoker’s package. The Pall Mall Package, perhaps.

It could be your vehicle’s wide and commodious console that’s got you annoyed. Look at all that wasted space! A nice front bench seat would not only allow for easy egress if your door is pinned against an obstacle (or if the thought of dooring a cyclist keeps you up at night), it would also make the front seat a chummier place. Of course, such a setup could also spell the return of the column shifter — a satisfying and calorie-burning way to wrestle that automatic into gear.

Perhaps you’d like an external spotlight, but don’t feel like buying a mothballed cop car. Sure, your phone’s GPS or your car’s navigation system will take you right to your date, but having a multi-directional high beam attached to your A-pillar is simply cool. Full stop.

For others, the returning feature might lie in the trim category. Modern cloth and leather seats are nice, but why the lack of velour? Why no pillowed option? Some of us like having a foot or more of foam padding behind our backs. And what bureaucrat took away our deep pile carpeting?

The list of defunct interior and exterior features is a lengthy one, so we’ll let you take over. Let us know: which would you like to see return on your next vehicle?

[Image: Wikimedia Commons ( CC BY-SA 2.0)]

Steph Willems
Steph Willems

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  • WildcatMatt WildcatMatt on May 01, 2017

    Rain gutters, so I can have my windows down in a light rain (or use my windshield washers) without the wipers throwing water into the cabin. And I loved the way my Volvo 850 had an extra vent that would pull a bit of fresh air into the center vents regardless of temp settings.

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  • Wolfwagen Is it me or have auto shows just turned to meh? To me, there isn't much excitement anymore. it's like we have hit a second malaise era. Every new vehicle is some cookie-cutter CUV. No cutting-edge designs. No talk of any great powertrains, or technological achievements. It's sort of expected with the push to EVs but there is no news on that front either. No new battery tech, no new charging tech. Nothing.
  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
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