What Forgotten Car Features Ought To Make A Comeback? Autopian Asks

Aa Oldsmobile Vent Ts
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Usually, when features on cars get phased out, it’s because the world’s moved on. Think about compact cassette players, vacuum-operated wipers, or six-volt electrical systems. The majority of people simply don’t miss those things because what came next was a sizeable improvement. However, every so often, a feature gets discarded for no immediately apparent reason. A feature that we miss. Today, it’s time to talk about gadgets, gizmos, and doo-dads we want to bring back from the automotive graveyard in the sky because not everything leaves when its time is truly up. I’ll start with an example.

This might come as a surprise to anyone more familiar with my premium hooptie tendencies, but my first few cars were all old and American, and most of them came with a delightful component of the HVAC system — a driver-facing vent under the steering column. While frequently referred to as the “ball-chiller vent,” this ingenious solution of ducting and grating will keep your unmentionables cool regardless of what you’re packing, to the point of being more effective than many ventilated seats on modern cars.

Plus, it’s a relatively simple system. There’s a vent set into an interior trim panel, a bit of ducting, and boom — you can stay fresh, even in high humidity. There are no extra electrical components, little additional weight, and it doesn’t require perforated upholstery. It was a great idea, and something sorely missed on new cars.

1988 Chevrolet Monte Carlo 2

 

So, what car features of the past do you think should make a comeback? Maybe you’re a huge proponent of velour over leather, or found the turn signal-activated cornering lights on old luxury cars immensely helpful, or you just want normal cars to be available in actual colors aside from dark blue. Whatever the case, make your voice heard in the comments below.

(Photo credits: Bring A Trailer)

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325 thoughts on “What Forgotten Car Features Ought To Make A Comeback? Autopian Asks”

  1. Buttons. They are gone in the majority of new cars because reasons. Now it’s a notable thing when a new car allows for manual control of HVAC and seat heaters.

  3. Oddly not mentioned yet so: physical controls for HVAC/Radio.

    If you must put it on a screen, then give me a row of hotkeys like old radio preset where I can assign often used functions to the front screen without needing to dive through multiple screens to find the feature I want.

  4. Column shifters for automatic transmissions – frees up floor space (especially on FWD cars) and if it’s purely an electronic selector, not a mechanical one, it could be placed anywhere. And it can be operated by feel, unlike a dial or touchpad.

    1. That is on my 2017 C300- it is great to have! Now there is a minor issue of being careful to do a slight bump up to put the car in neutral and not reverse.

  5. FRIGGIN ASHTRAYS!!!!

    Seriously, where did they go? Look, I don’t smoke so you’d think I wouldn’t care but plenty of other drivers do smoke and I’m can’t $#@&ing stand when cigarette butts are thrown out in front of me. In a car I imagine they’re getting stuck in a radiator or intercooler and on a bike I’m sure it’s going to end up between me and the seat and burning something. I know that’s unlikely but it wouldn’t be a damn problem if the auto manufacturers would just PUT BACK THE DAMN ASHTRAY!!!

    Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

    P.S. Column shifters were a thing.

      1. Yes, I remember the commercials in the 80s, but anyone doing it back then were just jerks. Today you’ve got jerks and non-jerks tossing their butts because there isn’t any other option short of swallowing the butt. I mean, what else are they going to do, buy some aftermarket ashtray to stick in one of their 14 cup holders? Nobody is going to do that.

        1. I think someone who tosses a cigarette butt out the window is a jerk by definition. There are no non-jerks engaging in that behavior.

          Surely they can arrange for an aluminum drink can or something for temporary storage instead of littering.

  6. Full-sized spare tires.

    Even donuts are being phased out. I can’t put all of my trust in the can of fix-a-flat they put in the roadside kit. Bring back full sized spares.

    1. This is one of the reasons why we take my Sportwagen on long trips. It has a full size spare, so if I happen to get a flat, I can put on the spare, drive normally, and fix the tire when I get home.

    2. My mom was a stickler for this.

      Before I was born, in one of the family vehicles (some sedan), she’d gotten a flat tire once, and put on the donut, and apparently had a drive so miserable with it that she got a full-sized spare later and put it in the trunk.

      …and proceeded to never need it for the remaining many, many years of that car’s life.

      (But I’m not complaining…I replaced my car’s donut just because it was 12 years old.)

      1. Replacing the donut spare is not a bad idea. Childhood friend recently punctured a tire and it went flat at his house. He proceeded to install the donut spare to take it to the tire shop and it shredded apart due to age within the first mile.

  8. Round glass sealed-beam headlights. Gimme a headlight that I just unplug and toss instead of a bulb that may or may not implode is I so much as get a little grease from my finger on it surrounded by a one-car-old plastic enclosure that slowly turns yellow until you can’t pass state inspection anymore.

      1. It’s less passive safety but more active safety.

        As I was recently knocked off my bike and hospitalised by a guy who didn’t see me I’m thinking we may have sacrificed too much in order to feel invulnerable.

        1. I don’t know what the right answer is, but I imagine the policymakers and scientists involved with NHTSA, etc. greatly considered factors relating to “possibly more accidents, but less deadly on average, leading to fewer fatalities” when it came to things like increasing rollover safety standards.

          I wish they were thinner too, but if it makes them more durable and more likely to protect me, I’m fine “suffering” them.

          Generally, a crashworthy vehicle will keep me safe, yes.

          1. Also worth noting that width of the pillar and strength of the pillar are not necessarily the same thing.
            It’s the 21st century, and we have materials stronger than mild steel available to us. A-pillars seem like a great place to use said stronger materials.

            1. I agree that stronger, thinner materials would be nice, but if they’re more expensive, people are already complaining about vehicle prices…

              That’s an observation, not a refutation. Dunno what the answer is.

                1. I mean, totally fair, and wouldn’t stop me buying one if I was in that market. If anything, the noticeably thinner A pillar would be a selling point if it was unique to certain models.

                    1. Instinctively, I wouldn’t think so. Fewer accidents is likely more desirable on the whole, for both the victims/drivers and also the manufacturers.

                      Yeah, spare parts and labor are worth money, but we’ve seen many times that bad press, lawsuits, etc. can undo a lot of sales’ worth of profit.

                    2. I’m basing my statement on a couple of things:

                      1) the poor visibility of the Camaro was by design. The focus groups liked it so styling trumped the safety of others:

                      https://gmauthority.com/blog/2016/02/explained-why-the-chevrolet-camaro-has-such-poor-visibility/

                      2) People buy large pickups and SUVs because they believe such vehicles are safer. I think thicker pillars will look safer than thinner ones whether they actually are or not and as such will help sell the vehicle.

                      One nice thing about our Autopian community is there are folks here who know much more on this topic than either of us. If we’re very lucky The Bishop or our favorite Goth may have their say on the matter.

                      1. Well, that’s upsetting and surprising to me…but okay, point taken.
                      2. Against vehicles with smaller mass, I was under the impression they generally were.

            2. I remember seeing a Volvo safety car concept from probably the 1990s that had an A-pillar comprised of two (angled, of course) vertical pieces with a structure of crossing diagonals, all wrapped in glass or polycarbonate or emperor’s clothing fabric or something else that was see-through. That would look safe (like the structure of a bridge) and presumably meet any kind of impact standards, although I’m sure it would be more expensive than whatever carmakers use now.

              Maybe visibility will come back in style when the next generation reacts to their parents’ SUVs.

  10. Imagine my surprise when I sat in my new-to-me 2000 Vehicross and found a crotch vent. I was both surprised and elated that such a thing still existed (twenty-five years ago).

    1. Can we really call those “forgotten”? I think those are nearly as prevalent as they ever have been: only on certain very high end sports cars.

      2. Huh?

        From 1949-1980 or so you could buy pretty much every domestic car with a V8 engine.

        Until very recently every half ton pickup was available with a V8, now only a couple are.

        The V8 SUV is nearly extinct.

        “8+” does not mean “more than 8”, although those have vanished too, even from high end stuff.

        1. I totally misread your “8+” as a “>8”.

          Naturally aspirated V8s are indeed much less common than they once were, but it’s not like you can’t get them in any Chevy fullsize pickup or SUV, and Ford pickups. “Only a couple half ton pickups” is an interesting way to say “50% of all half ton pickups on the market still offer a naturally aspirated V8”.

  12. Ashtrays. Although it’s dropped considerably from the ’70s and ’80s, the US adult smoking rate is still around 13%, according to the CDC. As someone who rides motorcycles and bicycles, I’m tired of people who flick cigarette butts (often still lit) out car windows. It’s an annoyance, and it’s a forest-fire hazard.

    1. They did the same back in the 70s and 80s when the smoking rate was much higher. I got hit in the helmet more than once and watched people dump their ashtrays waiting on a red light in the left turn lane.

      Rather than more ashtrays, they should be locked in their cars with the windows up if cigarette smoke is detected inside. /sarcasm

    1. Agree on cloth.

      …serious question, but do handbrakes have applications besides “fun”/drifting other than as a parking brake?

      I only ever drove one vehicle with one and the only helpful thing about it was that it was visually clear if it was applied, but now we have that big red BRAKE light on the dash in case you forget to disengage it.

          1. Missed the “hand” brake in your comment. I do tend to snag my shin on foot brakes where the rubber has fallen off, but I drive old beat-up cars.

          3. I see you are not a manual driver. You use the parking brake for hill starting, and this is MUCH easier to do with a hand brake rather than a foot parking brake.

  16. The crotch-cooler would be okay, I guess.

    Most features have been forgotten for valid reasons, though. For example, having a floor-mounted headlight high/low beam switch was pretty neat, but current cockpit designs don’t really have a good location for such a thing.

    I would love to see lower beltlines and smaller A-pillars come back, but that seems unlikely given modern safety requirements. (That’s not a complaint; it’s an observation.)

    1. Current cockpit designs don’t have a good place for a floor mounted dimmer switch? Cars still have floors, if that’s what you mean.

      1. Modern cars have a “dead pedal” where the dimmer switch used to be.

        And the switch cannot go on the dead pedal because that is supposed to be a footrest / place to for the driver to brace with the left leg.

        1. Hey, thanks for this! My dad told me about those switches and they sounded like a good idea to me, but that makes sense why they’ve gone away.

  17. Since wing windows was taken 3 times before I could get here, I’m going with spare tires.

    The manufacturers are obsessed with trying to get rid of these.

    Listen up you twerps, that little inflator with your “connected services” as a backup saving 15 lbs of curb weight does a person very little good when they’re sitting on the side of the road with a 1″ gash in a tire and no cell phone service. It’s just stupid.

  18. I’m fairly young (for now…it will happen to me, I know…) so there aren’t many “gone in my lifetime” features I’ve particularly experienced.

    So long as there are still (relatively) cheaper vehicles with buttons controlling HVAC and basically all non-navigation, non-infotainment systems, anything I can suggest is a nitpick.

    The under-steering wheel vent sounds nice, but were those steering wheels height-adjustable? And, could those be closed or aimed completely off to the side? They sound nice for cool air in the summer, but I don’t think I’d want them blowing hot air in the winter.

    1. Crotch cooler vents were amazing. But, then again, my experience with them was in Southern California, where winter heating doesn’t get so intense.

      Our El Camino had a tilt wheel, IIRC.

      1. Oh yeah, they sound awesome for summer weather. I’m just wondering if you don’t suddenly rue their existence in the winter. (For example, I don’t know how far back cars had dials to change defogger/feet/face, etc., and which category the crotch cooler would fall under.)

        1. I believe the crotch cooler falls under the “face” category, and the selector has been universal on American cars at least back into the 70s.

          1. Thanks!…and actually, that’s the best-case, so you could do feet and/or defog without crotch heater. Yeah, I’m sold. Without ventilated seats, bring that back.

  19. I swear to got the nut cooler in my 95 k2500 is there just for appearance. Even with full ac/heat, I never seem to get anything out of it.
    Agree with the comments on vent windows. They are fantastic.

  21. Corner vent windows! Newer cars just aren’t designed with outside air in mind. It’s crazy satisfying to crank the corner windows on my ’68 Olds totally backwards and let them channel outside air exactly where I want it so I get optimum coolness without A/C and the perfect amount of my hair blowing in the breeze in the correct direction.

  23. VENT WINDOWS, DAMN IT! They are long gone from cars and light trucks. I work with medium duty trucks, and a few still come in with them, but they are getting phased out as the manufacturers redesign their cabs.

  24. Stick shift can come back. I’d be cool with that.

    I’d like to see every car in the universe equipped with a little manual release for the trunk lid and the gas door. Too damn handy. I remember some Toyota models in the 80s, lift up for the trunk, push down for the gas. So neat.

    1. Yes! Toyota had two levers — one for the trunk/hatch and one for the fuel door. Nissans had the push down/pull up. I think Honda had the levers as well.

    1. A sibling got a 2012 Prius v, similar to mine but higher trim level, and it has a button to spray the front headlights with wiper fluid, but no wipers. Still a nice touch, and I wonder what other USDM cars in this price range have that feature so relatively recently.

    2. When I was test-driving my Volvo 850, many years ago, the sales guy had to call me because they thought I’d been gone too long—I had stopped in a parking lot to have my friend that was with me activate the windshield washers so I could get out and watch the headlight wipers!

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