#TBT If You Remember These 9 Car Features - You're Old!

It’s hard to picture what today’s teenagers will wax nostalgic about 30 years from now when they reminisce about their first car. (It still required gasoline and a DRIVER, perhaps?) Who knows how automobiles will change in the future; what we do know is how different they are today from 30 or more years ago. If you fondly remember being surrounded by two or three tons of solid Detroit steel with a whip antenna on the front from which you could tie a raccoon tail or adorn with an orange Union 76 ball, and enough leg room that you didn’t suffer from phlebitis on long road trips, then you might be old enough to remember a few of these...



                                    

1. BENCH SEATS

Back before seat belts were even included in cars—much less mandatory to wear—three passengers could fit comfortably in the front of most cars (or four if one was a child or a skinny relative). Many sly males took advantage of the seat design while driving with a female companion; a quick, unexpected sharp turn made with his right arm resting on the seat back sent the lady sliding right into his embrace.

2. TAILFINS

Tailfins were the brainchild of General Motors design chief Harley Earl. The first fins appeared on the 1948 Cadillac, inspired by the WWII Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter plane. By the late 1950s, most folks had shrugged off the war and were fixated instead on all things space-age. Tailfins grew to enormous proportions, giving cars a futuristic look.

3. VENT WINDOWS

Vent or “wing” windows were popular in the pre-air conditioning era of automotive manufacturing. But they were convenient for many purposes that are still valid today. For example, on those days when it’s temperate enough to open windows rather than run the A/C, the vent windows allowed air to circulate freely without blowing street grime in your face and messing your hair. Smokers also appreciated being able to flick their ashes out the “no-draft” without the fear of them flying back inside the vehicle.

4. HORN RINGS 

Horn rings were originally considered a safety feature as well as a convenience device. Previously, the driver had to completely remove one hand from the steering wheel to depress the button in the center to honk the horn. The horn ring was designed so that both hands could remain on the wheel and just a stretch of a finger or thumb would be able to beep a warning sound. As driver side airbags started entering the market, horn activation was relocated to a button in the steering wheel spokes.

5. Crank Windows 

When I took my son out in my Blazer for the first time, we drove around for a bit and he said “What’s that?” I couldn’t figure out what he was looking at, until I realized he’d NEVER SEEN A WINDOW CRANK. These kids today.

6. Hideaway Headlamps

From the 1950s through the 1970s, there was one headlamp design: Round. You either got two or four. In order to give cars a cleaner, more distinctive appearance, automotive designers started putting the headlamps behind doors that looked like the grille. Most headlamps either operated electrically or via vacuum, siphoned off of the power brake booster. In at least one instance — the Opel GT — the hidden headlamps were operated manually via a giant lever under the dash. In the 1960s and 1970s, unique, more aerodynamic headlamp designs were offered around the world, but in the parochial United States, we stuck with the horrible sealed beams until well into the 1980s. When the DOT finally caught up to lighting developments introduced in 1970, the era of the hideaway headlight came to an end.

7. Floor Mounted Dimmer Switch

 For most of the post-war era, the headlamp dimmer in American cars was located on the floor, so you could operate the high-beams without taking your hand off the wheel. Again, safety concerns moved the dimmer to the turn signal stalk, where Ford even experimented with putting the horn for a short period of time.

8. Optional Shoulder Belts

 In the 1960s and 1970s, the thought was that most people weren’t even wearing lap belts, so why bother coming up with a shoulder belt that would require a complicated mechanism and would block access to the rear seat. Manufacturers wanted to offer the option, though, so they folded them up and suspended them from the headliner with spring clips. The shoulder belt would then attach to one side of the lap belt buckle via a slot cut in the shoulder belt buckle, and a post on the lap belt buckle.

9. Motorized Shoulder Belts 

 Once manufacturers decided that people dying in their cars was bad for public relations, they tried encouraging passengers to buckle up. Prior to mandatory seat belt laws and airbags, many manufacturers experimented with motorized shoulder belts that proved to be the most annoying safety “feature” since the FASTEN SEAT BELT buzzer. Manufacturers like Honda allowed a buckle so that you could disable it, leaving the motor mechanism to impotently shuttle from one end of the door opening to another.