Styling cues and features on vehicles are never static. Trends come and go with every manufacturer. We asked the readers earlier this week what were their favorite dead car trends. The answers covered basically every decade of automotive history between 1950 and 2000 and mentioned quirks from the exterior to the passenger compartment and the engine bay. Here are the most popular responses:
Cars with standard single and double Din radios. I miss the days of upgrading the stock radio to a new Alpine unit with a detachable faceplate so it doesn’t get stolen while I’m in Blockbuster, picking out a VHS to watch.
Submitted by: boneheadotto
T-Tops. Yeah, it’s more work than a convertible top or a sunroof, but there’s just such a cool factor going on with them.
Submitted by: Midlife Miata Driver
CB Radios! While this was more a 70's and 80's thing, in my hometown it saw a great resurgence as us late-80s and early 90's kid’s got our licenses and first cars. We grew up watching Dukes of Hazzard re-runs, so naturally, for the youth of Jefferson County Ohio, the first order of business upon getting your freedom sled was to head straight to King’s truck stop for a shiny new CB.
If you were one of the in-crowd in our little area, a CB radio was important as a set of tires.
So funny to think looking back, but it actually worked great for us. Even though it was the mid-2000s, very few of us had cell phones. No real reason for them, as there was no such thing as cell phone reception until you were a half hour away from home. But if you needed a quick jump, ran out of gas, wanted to find out what hole everyone was fishing or who’s field was having a bonfire, or if you just wanted to BS with the old guys driving truck at the mine, the dump, or the lumber mill, all you needed do was reach over and key-up the mic!
“Breaker breaker boys and girls, what’s everyone getting into tonight?”
Good times.
Submitted by: Caddywompis
Small rims + big tires. I’m tired of cracking wheels on potholes.
Submitted by: Tim the KNinja
Go Big or Go Home, I miss V16 engines. long dead but we could use them again. Mate it to a Hybrid so parts and repair bills really go through the roof
Submitted by: Scott the Stagehand
Not a trend per se, but I love the more wedge/low-angled designs of sports/supercars.
Submitted by: darthspartan117
Front bench seats. I had a 1994 Taurus wagon with cushy velour bench seats front and rear (the front bench was a 60/40 bench so you could move closer or further away from the controls), and rear-facing seats in the trunk, so you could fit 8 people. Glorious. It’s almost impossible to find front bench seats on anything other than work trucks these days.
Submitted by: neverspeakawordagain
Backward-facing seats in the Way-Back. The pair of center-facing ones were ok, but they made it too hard to give truckers the “Blow your horn!” signal.
Submitted by: DGUTS
Large Greenhouses! Give me some freaking side windows that I can rest my elbow on without lifting it to the height of my head (and I’m a fairly tall guy). I remember the windows in my ‘91 Integra were perfect. Hell, look at all of that glass. I think I remember the Integra catalog from the dealer stating that it had something like 310º of visibility. I know 47 airbags and rollover strength is important but surely engineers can figure out something. I think the gunport window trend is also because designers and consumers think that tiny windows look cool. Screw that, give me glass and visibility to allow me to feel like I’m driving!
Submitted by: 17 Seconds
Extra cushiony cloth car seats like late 70’s living room furniture. In fact, bring back bench seats. The whole thing can be an option, but I’ve sort of had enough with sport leather seats and 15 different support adjustments that always leave me stiff and uncomfortable after a long drive anyway. Just let me sink into a big pillowy lounge chair that envelops my ass.
Submitted by: elgordo47
Little flip-down sun visors above the rear view mirror. While a lot of cars have huge plastic things chock full of sensors blocking that spot now, many don’t...and those little visors on various cars (especially VAG products) were just great, as the sun picks that very spot to shine through my windshield at three separate points during my commute four months out of the year.
Submitted by: Osmodious
Manual switches, knobs, controls, and real gauges.
Why do I need to sort through three pages of infotainment just to turn on my AC?
And, I’d rather have dedicated gauges for the functions of the engine, rather than trust some laggy digital LCD “gauges”, that’s approximating the results.
We’ve gone from having everything instantly in reach of the driver to manually control quickly and easily, as well as all vital information of the engine at instant glance to systems that are “fancy”, but not as practical or reliable.
Submitted by: Knyte