Make absolutely no mistake about it – modern cars are just better than old ones. Remember when 120bhp was considered pretty decent for a family car? Or when any speed over 60mph meant as much aerodynamic lift as your average Cessna? Or maybe just velour seats that managed to be musty, clammy and filled with electrostatic shocks at the same time? We do. And it sucked.
That’s before we mention the constant breakdowns, crash safety best described as ‘absent’ and rust to rival the Titanic. And even if you didn’t buy something from British Leyland, chances are you’d still have to contend with the creature comforts of your average gulag, the brute power of a AA battery and plastics that wouldn’t make the grade in a McDonald’s tray.
Let’s not forget that, if you were American or Australian, old cars offered fuel economy that really couldn’t even be called ‘economy’ anymore without just declaring the entirety of the English language ‘useless irony’ and learning Esperanto instead.
Truly, cars really weren’t as good as you remember. Even the ones you have tucked away as ‘pretty damn special’ really don’t hold up after a few decades of progress have left them languishing. But that’s not saying that everything’s better in our bright and happy automotive future. That would be like saying that everything is better in our bright and happy future in general, because pretty much everything in that phrase is a lie. So let’s hitch up our hammer pants, lace up our Air Jordans, snap on a slap bracelet and take a stroll down Nostalgia Boulevarde, with the best (and possibly blurst) of all the car things we miss from back in the day.