Bench seats, at least as an option but it will never happen because today everyone needed what used to be called, a central console between the bucket seats. .
Vent windows were billed as "no-draft" ventilation when introduced in the 1930s--an irony when they began disappearing in the 1960s. And the column shifter was billed as more convenient than one company called "the wobble stick" on the floorboards!
Absolutely! I loved the vents. On long rides air conditioning caused overheating, and in the rain they were great for ventilation as well as anti-fogging.
@@karenrussell2091 Reminds me of an episode of Top Gear where they were driving across a dusty area. Two of the three guys were wearing face covering to deal with the dust, but the one with the wing windows said he just adjusted it so it pulled the dust right back out of his car.
@@georgesheffield1580 Honestly, those old cars were pretty damned easy to break into, anyway. All you needed was a coat hanger. And the ignition was easy to “hot wire,” too.
The actual reason for the column mount shifter and bench seat was that for many years a family had only one car, no matter how many kids you had, you shoved them all into that one car. Bench seats allowed more occupants per seat, but a floor mount shifter got pretty intimate for the middle front seat passenger so the column shifter was introduced.
We were a family of 4 kids. Bench sits allowed 3 in the front and 3 in the back. It would have been crowded traveling with 4 kids in the back if we had bucket seats. Of course seat belts would not have been an issue in the 50s and 60s because our cars then did not have them.
Bench seats with a floor shifter was the best thing for dates back in the day. No seat belt laws, so your date sat right next to you. Lots of shifts into 2nd and 4th. Those girls were minors, too, but they didn't seem to mind. (lol)
Ford, GM, and Chrysler still put column-mounted shifters in certain vehicles, particularly vehicles made for law enforcement. They free up space on the center console for radios and controls for lights and sirens.
“Those girls were minors too” well done, you are officially the creepy old man with bad breath and erectile dysfunction. You outed yourself. @@DesertRat332
Bench seats. I would bring them back simply to give kids today the thrill I used to get when I was a boy of sitting in between mum & dad up front. Great memories.
One thing lost to us with bench seats is the ability to easily access the drivers side from the passenger side. Like when you get back to your car and someone parked too close to the drivers side.
My first car was a 1977 Ford Granada. Just parked the car, slid right over, and had my girlfriend’s shirt over her head. Bench seats were great for 16 year-old me.
Some other features not mentioned: Oversized tail fins on many cars in the late 50's and early 60's; Push-button automatic transmissions; Vent doors located under the dash that you could open or close; floor-button high beam selectors; and of course, the full-sized spare tire.
Yes, we had a couple of Chrysler cars with push button automatics, and I was always surprised they went away as I see them to be much safer than a column shift automatic, especially before the wearing of seatbelts became common as I always pictured the front seat passenger being thrown over and the shifter piercing one's eye.
@@scrambler69-xk3kv I remember reading years ago about the push-button automatic, and I remember two reasons they gave for its demise. The first was mechanical; it was simply difficult to implement and thus more prone to failure than traditional shifters. With modern electronics that problem has no doubt been obviated, but the other reason was safety. People were more likely to forget to push a button than they were to move a shift lever at the necessary time, which led to more accidents.
Not to quibble ... the vent was actually in front of the windshield where a lever inside the car was applied, allowing ram-air effect to force outside air into the passenger compartment. It didn't really "cool" it just moved air.
@@scrambler69-xk3kv You are correct. The button panel (flat) was much safer but the advent of the floor shifter for auto/manual negated the benefit. Funny ... there were virtually "no" seat belts through 1957 and they became a paid option after that. My 1965 AC Cobra MKIII has conventional lap belts and remain legal. Not So Funny ... There is no legislative act requiring seat belts on a school bus.
Omg the floor vent door... Dad had a little 2 door Plymouth Valiant. We had a family of 5 at the time. 3on the tree. Open the vent floor door, get a faceful of dirt/sand. He did love that car.
I guess my 2010 car is considered 'old'. Both ashtray, lighter and extra lighter style outlet for charging/power plus an apple Iphone/walkman plug for playing music over the sound system.
I use my cupholder to hold change. A nice feature-when it gets full, I empty it and cash it in. Since I don't budget it, it's like having a $100-$150 bonus when I do this!
I didn’t know a single smoker who used their ashtray for actual ashes. They would spend most of the time driving around with the cigarette out the window, then toss it out when done, completely oblivious to the fact that 1) it could start a wild fire, or 2) land in another car, burning holes in their interior (which happened to me often, since I owned a convertible). I would ask the owners why they didn’t ever use their ashtrays, and they would always say it was because they didn’t want their car smelling like smoke. It always seemed odd to me that they never realized that their car always smelled like smoke, because they smoked in it, and that when I left, even I would smell like cigarettes. When my brother was a minor, his car smelled like cigarettes. He always claimed he never smoked, but then I’d take a towel, wipe down his dash, and there would be an orangey red substance on it. A dusty dash of a non smoker is grey, not orange.
I grew up in the 60's and never heard of record players in cars. You said they were replaced by cassettes and then CDs, but before cassettes, we had 8-track players for many years in our cars and at home.
He forgot to mention 8- track tapes and C- B radios were very popular in 1970s through 1990s during 6 thousands miles driving across America STATES and winter time driving . Before cellphone vehicle were invented in 1980s ‼️🇺🇸
I remember them as providing mostly SUCTION, because the the angle they were at when partially open. If you were going fast and you opened one, you could sometimes hear your ears "pop" as though you were suddenly brought to a higher altitude. When used that way, it would cause the air in any other window slightly open (or "cracked" open) to get pulled into the car with more force for a better cooling effect.
Pointed to pull air out, they also doubled as the ash tray. My aunt would flick her cigarette towards the vent window and the ash would get sucked out. It also sucked the smoke out.
The ones that should have never left, or should come back are vent windows, bench seats and column shifters. In 2002, Toyota offered you a choice on Avalon, buckets/floor shift or bench/column. We argued in the family about this option and so we bought one of each. Earlier, when bench seats phased out, everyone noticed to their unhappiness that suddenly your girl couldnt sit next to you so many people hung onto their bench cars longer or found ways to fill the gaps. A/C....I wont believe vent windows stopped because of A/C, it was to save cost and complexity on the production line. Im willing to pay a custom shop to re-convert windows to have the vents again, or even consider having an old car permanently, thats how important it is.
My first auto was a 1956 Ford Pickup that came with a bench seat. The bench seat allowed my girlfriend to slide over right next to me while driving. A cool feature back then.
Bench seats were a boon to population increase. I had a friend who was stopped for suspicion of drunk driving. When the trooper found out the problem was the driver's girlfriend sitting next to him and getting handsie. The trooper let them off with a warning to the girl, "let him drive!"
Loved the vent windows! I believe they would stand the test of time, if they were allowed to exist! Liked the land-o-bars (sp?) back in the day, too. But, not as much as the vent windows. Really miss them. Wish they would bring them back!
My 2009 minivan had something similar to vent windows at the back row. My nephews loved it since I couldn’t close them from the front, and I didn’t mind them since they weren’t as noisy as rolling a window down. They were a small but really appreciated design touch.
A major reason for bench seats originally came from the fact people were not advised to enter the vehicle from the "street side", so they entered through the passenger side and slid across the seat. Not very easy with buckets!
I miss the bench seat- with fold down center arm rest! They were supremely comfortable- especially in Cadillacs.. and offered room to move around in. (not like being pinned in the current bucket seats with fat center consoles) I also like the column shifter. easter to shift instead of looking down to do so.
@@rdmineer1it is true I don't look down to shift, but the H pattern on the column was likely safer as your hands are closer to return to the wheel. I had 3 on the tree in the 70s which looked just like the lever for a column mounted automatic selector.... they both complimented the bench seat for maximizing space. By 1978 in an attempt to look more European sport-touring, bucket seats, a center (space eating) console and shifters on the tunnel came into vogue in the US. US sport cars had had them since the 50s Corvette, 60s Mustang, Camaro, Firebird, Cuda...copying the British and German cars. Originally all cars had tunnel floor shifters as that made the mechanism cheaper and less complex...directly connected to the transmission. The 1940 Ford Coupe column shifter had complex linkages.
You are missing a few: 1) Vinyl roof tops, which you are showing in the Landau Bars segment. 2) Headlight switch in the floor. 3) Lap only seatbelts. 4) Cupholders in the door of the glovebox.
Ahh the wee Dents on the Glove box door , What a cup of coffee use to imply ,,,, Built in a era, more Polite than now, you can actually see folks inside of the Car, non locking gas cap as standard,, even when I check my Blind Spot, folks next to me in traffic, react to the body language, I always wave for letting me over,, this is sometimes funny due to the reaction I get from the driver.. this awkward wave back hahaha.. daily driver 68 Dart.. in Fierce Orange County California traffic everyday
@@AtZero138 I hear you, I waved a driver a few month ago and he showed me his gun (he probably didn't understand what politeness is) Suburban Detroit here.
I'm very surprised they didn't include the foot petal bright light. My first car was a 1973 Buick Regal. It had a small button on the floor board to put on the bright lights.
At one point, engineers were considering bringing back the dimmer switch on the floor, as too many blondes were getting their foot hung in the steering wheel trying to operate the column mounted switch.
I don't think they ever should have changed. Why would they think that a person with two hands on the wheel, (with a turn signal) needed to have something more to do with their hands, when there was a left foot doing nothing?
Ash trays, the biggest crok ever! When I bought a car it just had a hole, the ashtray was taken out! Not by the car maker but by the yutz selling the car! When they got the cars in new OR used the ashtrays were then out! That's exactly what I was told by the guy selling me the car. They refused to put it back! Because of this smokers tossed their cigarettes out the windows! Pathetic or what?
I'm old enough to remember all of these features except record players. I never heard of such a thing and i'm shocked anyone would even think that was a good idea! The vent windows were great, especially if you were in the car with a smoker. You could control the amount of airflow that you got, and it wasn't anywhere near as noisy as opening the bigger window.
In car record players were great when you were out for a picnic, or at the beach. Just not while you’re driving, unless you want your vinyls scratched.
Wing windows definitely very useful when the air conditioning didn’t work also floor vents that used to be on the kick panels back in 60s and 70s was useful
I really wish manufactures would bring back the wing windows. They were so very handy and functional. I miss them! I also miss the high beam switch button on the floor. That too was more functional than being on the column.
The problem with the switch on the floor was that they would get cruddy with dirt and during winter snow and salt. Eventually they would start sticking or stopped working.
High beam switches are becoming obsolete altogether, with even entry level cars in most markets now having auto high beam switching at the least, if not matrix pixels that deactivate the light pattern where they need to
As a 90's kid, I absolutely loved the popup headlights. Those cars looked SO cool to me. Our neighbor had a red Mazda with lovely popup headlights. I think I'd still want one today. :D
Remember cars without the "B" pillar between the front and rear doors? You could roll down both the front and back seat windows and have a great expanse of wide open space. Not quite the same as a convertible, but for kids on a hot day, it was great fun when your parents would permit it.
I remember those, they called them hardtops. My parents had a 72 Pontiac Catalina "coupe." I think coupe is a funny word for that car. The thing must have been 20 feet long and each door seemed to weigh 500 lbs.
They existed, but they never really caught on. I don’t think anybody really figured out how to keep the needle from skipping in a moving, jiggling car.
I was also born in ‘58. As a teen 8 tracks were popular but I was one of the ground breakers to install a cassette deck in my ‘68 Cougar. Never saw a record player in a car.
Another feature of hood ornaments was it allowed you to align your car on the road. You could line up the ornament with the line on the side of the road or the dashed line if you were in the left lane and you knew you were in the center of the lane. I used to do this with my 1st car a 1972 Ford LTD. That car was a huge land yacht...lol.
My brother in law has a 1930 Cadillac limo. He has a radiator cap that is a leaded crystal hawk that is about a foot high. Last appraisal for the radiator cap was $16000. Needless to say, it isnt on the radiator when going down the road.
Bucket seats were NOT introduced because of comfort or safety! They were a marketing feature to make cars seem more sporty. Safety and comfort came along MUCH later- an afterthought for marketing and selling more cars.
Now it's definitely a safety issue. Those old front bench seats without belts were an accident away from you going through the windshield. The lack on a headrest meant whiplash, broken neck if someone rear ended you. The expense and difficulty in adding an airbag for a front center passenger also killed it. Second row 3 person bench seats still common option, only because each person has a headrest and 3 point belt available
In my honest opinion, bench seats were automatically the PERFECT angle/height for my leg room as well as comfort for my back. I absolutely CANNOT get a bucket seat adjusted for comfort for very long. Yes bring back vent windows too.
You forgot about the high beam button! That's the one I miss the most. I began driving in 1980, and to this day, I still wish I could mash a button on the floor to turn my high beams on and off instead of trying to remember on which steering wheel stem the high beams are and on which is the windshield wipers. I noticed that some of the cars featured in the video had high beam buttons, but you didn't even note it!
Yeah, trying to find a 3/4 inch wide button on the floor, with your foot, in the dark, while an oncoming driver is flashing their brights at you to dim your lights. Fun. I began driving in 1973 and I don't miss those floor mounted headlight dimmer switches at all.
Let us not forget the VINYL ROOF! Also on my list of car features long gone include chrome window trim and rain gutters. And while hubcaps are still a thing, wheel center caps (small hubcaps for the center part of the wheel only) and wire spoke wheels have all but vanished.
Back in the 70’s while driving through Lion Country Safari we watched the vinyl roof get ripped off the car in front of us by a group of monkeys. The guy had been warned and even had to sign a waiver before entering the park. I think it was something to do with the smell of the glue used to attach the roof.
I just try to hit the middle of my steering wheel - works most times but I rarely use it! Just wish my Hinds CR-V had a loud semi air horn!! Scare the crap out of idiots!!!!!
The bad thing with the bench seat was if the driver had short legs the passenger knees were in their chest. It was great when they came out with the 60/40 bench seat. Couple of other items they didn't mention that faded away, T- Tops, Crotch Coolers, Cornering Lamps, Some cars had a light under the hood to see the engine at night to work on, Few cars had a vent by the back window. There were a lot of great features that cars companies had on their cars. Wish they would bring back some of the features they had on cars
My 2001 Buick LeSabre has a light under the hood but it doesn't have a Mercury switch like some of the old ones where it would come on when you lifted the hood.
Early-60s Chryslers had front bucket seats that swiveled outward to make entry and exit easier; to exit you opened the car door, then pushed a button to unlock and swivel your seat, then stood up, and the seat returned to its straight-ahead position.
I’ve always liked column shifters better. The newer cars with dials or push buttons are at least an improvement over floor/console shifters. They take up too much space in my opinion.
I remember seeing an ad on tv fin the 1950's for a self emptying ashtray feature. While driving you push a button and it opens a pathway to the slipstream which sucks out the contents of the ashtray. Could have been a littering problem and fire safety problem if the butts were not completely extinguished.
The 1931 Rolls Royce has an interesting vent window alterative. Instead of a wing window the window could be rolled all the way up and if you keep turning the crank the glass started to move back into the pillar leaving a vent gap. It also had a horn volume control and dimmer knob for the headlights.
As someone who lived through the era of "car phones," I must say that they did not quickly give way to mobile phone. Due to work, my dad had a car phone with hands-free integrated sound for two decades prior to the common use of cell phones.
@@electrolyticmaster8396The Early car phones weren't on an integrated national system. They were only used within range of a local call center, possibly with remote receivers and repeaters to help extend range. Car phones disappeared when engineers realized that with evolving designs outside antennas weren't necessary. The compactness of phones was also being realized with improved circuits and better batteries.
@@joewoodchuck3824 Yes. Frome early on & well into the 80's they were mobile radios. Basically a 2 way radio to contact the mobile operator who could then patch you into a landline. Heavy equipment installed in the vehicle & the service was expensive & available only to a limited number of users.
Many of the things mentioned did not "flop". The main one that was a bad idea from the start was the car record player. It was good only when parked, and useless while driving. Car phones were much older than stated. Car phones were first used in 1946. They did not quickly become obsolete.
There were lots of errors. Like column shifters lasting into the 90s. Maybe elsewhere, but not in the US. Column shifters were only in pickups by the late 60s.
@@TeaParty1776it wasn’t a big deal that albums only lasted a few minutes. You simply got up and flipped it to play the other side or put on a different one to play. Getting off your arse to do things like that wasn’t a big deal back then. It was part of life and simply not viewed as an inconvenience.
Here's one that nobody talks about, map lights. My first Dodge had a little bitty light bulb in the dash, right above the radio that shone downward. You could turn that on while you were driving at night to look for something, but it didn't wash out your windshield like the overhead dome light does
@@georgeselby3376 I'll have to take your word for it. I've never been in a BMW, and I know Rams didn't for several years. My '90 had one. My '99 didn't. My '05 didn't. But I'm poor and buy exclusively base models, and only when they're 10+ years old.
Vent windows made it so easy to break into for the novice . Bend a coat hanger. Feed it through the gasket . Flip the lever. Push vent open. Reach hand through vent. Unlock door. 4 seconds😮
Gotta say, there were things you could do in a car with bench seats that you just can't do in a car with bucket seats. Especially at the drive-in or parked in a dark, secluded spot. It was possible for the driver to get in or out on the opposite side of the car as well if something was blocking the driver's side door. Or the same for the passenger.
not to mention, as I have done numerous times over the years, moving long distances and "reclining bucket seats" can NOT rerplace the comfort of sleeping on a bench seat...
I love the way you just skipped over one of the first big breakthroughs in automotive entertainment innovations. How can we forget the 8 track tape era. Ok I get it, they had their share of issues but they were the best option to the often unreliable and occasionally undesirable factory radios of the time.
I had an 8-track player in my '73 Chevy Nova 2-door. It had 3 on the tree, fold down front seats, under dash vents, and, of course an ashtray. It also had the easiest engine to work on - a straight-6. I could do my own oil changes without the need to crawl under because I had room under the hood to reach underneath and the car from the top-side. It was my first car and I learned to do all the maintenance jobs on my own. I loved that cool old car.
@@DeepSkyStories my first car was a 68 Biscayne but I always favored my 71 Plymouth Satellite. That was the car that set me on track to become a mechanic. Now, 40 years later I don't like working on cars anymore, I'm a mechanic not a computer technician.
I knew people that kept a big box in the back seat filled with 8 track cassettes. They'd always ask the passenger to reach back and get a certain one. People liked them because the tapes were big, then suddenly they were replaced by small cassettes.
@@parrsnipps4495 and then CD's. They are ok until someone forgets to put them back in the case. Never, not even one time have I ever scratched an 8 track or a cassette but I have had to replace CD's that were scratched beyond repair.
I love the old cars. I own three Studebakers, a 1941, a 1950 and a 1955. They all have bench seats, vent windows, column shifters, ashtrays and cigarette lighters. It's an experience to drive them.
I have a bench seat and collumn shifter in my '03 car, it is SOOO nice to be able to get in on either side if someone parks too close or one side is under water.
I loved vent windows. Too easy to break in I guess. They should bring them back. You could open the window and the vent window at the same time with minimal wind entering the car.
Loved the split bench seat, but it is more comfortable with only two in the front seat. In the 40's 50's girls always sat next to their guy. Vent windows were great ! You could direct it where you wanted it, especially when it rained ! Still love the hood ornament I still have one on my MB S-CLASS.
@@that_thing_I_do I had a 1974 Charger with a bench seat. My gf used to always sit next to me in it until some cop pulled me over and had her move to the passenger's side because "she was obviously distracting me". She wasn't and I think the cop just was sore about my car.
Dates were different with bench seats: you either remember or 'figure it out'! Also, look up VW's built-in coffee maker from the '50s. Thirdly, early '90s Honda Preludes had rear wheel steering that turned the rear wheels opposite the front to tighten the turning radius.
I was born in ‘86, but still remember little transom windows, crank windows, bench seats, and also that seat in the back that faced the rear of the vehicle. Good times as kid! They all need to make a comeback.
I remember the old "Column Shift"- the 1st 3 cars my parents had (all front *bench seat* cars) used those. Brings back memories - you could tell what kind of mood my dad was in by how roughly he'd wrestle that thing.
My mom's 57 T-bird was an auto with the shifter on the floor. After driving it a bit I noticed when in drive it only shifted once, meaning it started in 2nd and around 35 would hit 3rd. If you wanted 1st you needed to manually pull it all the way back - it had a lot of torque and getting rubber was easy.
@@terrylandess6072 You also could get first by flooring it starting mid 54. More than a few older ones were later fitted with that later trans for that reason.
my petrol inlet is on the side opposite of driver(right hand drive car, so petrol inelt on left hand side), so just pull in along side the petrol pump. No big deal.
Not mentioned is the vynil and half-vynil roofs. The vynil degraded over time, looking bad and letting moisture underneath, to rot out the steel roof. When I stripped the peeling half-vynil roof off my '75 Firebird, there were a couple rust holes I could actually put my fist through. Took a lot of fiberglass and bondo to fix it. I miss vent windows, especially in the hot Florida summers. My earlier cars had no AC. My '68 AMC Javelin and AMX cars had no vent windows, but did have sliding vents in the kick panel beneath the dash, to let in fresh air. Another good idea that died.🎉
Bench seating is wonderful, a kid can sit in center, it is still present in japanese cars like Nissan Moco. I like bench seating and driving control on dashboard 😊😊
Yeah a driver and 3 kids on the bench seat and three more in the back headed to the roller rink or swimming pool or for burgers with no seat belts and the driver smoking while cussing at traffic ah thats my childhood.😂
Bench seats are still somewhat of a thing and can commonly be found in pick up trucks (specifically fleet models as they are useful for construction crews moving guys around on sites). The difference being in most cases the middles section can be folded down to act as a center console and there are reliefs in the back like buckets seats for better comfort. The cup holders are just so convenient that no one ever uses the third seat unless you have that 5th passenger. And the luggage racks were more or less just moved to the roof (the now common place "roof racks" present on most all SUV's) and use bolt on containers that can lock most the time instead of strapping the luggage directly to the car.
I had a 45 RPM record player in my old 55 Chevy BelAir. I could load as many as 10 records on it in a stack. We would often ride down bumpy dirt roads trying to get it to skip, but it seldom did. The biggest problem was that the records warped whenever left in the car on a hot summer day.
Ford vans started with the "doghouse" design. The engine was between the driver and the front passenger. It had a metal cover called a"doghouse". I sat on it in my grandfather's van.
4:24 Our 80s' Mitsubishi Delica had one of those shifters and I was confused in what pattern did my dad change gears cuz I didn't see such a gear pattern diagram on it (probably it had worn out)
Bench seats were great. There is nothing comfortable about bucket seats in most every car. No leg room, no way to stretch your legs, and if you need to get out of the car on the passenger side it is almost impossible to get across. I hope and pray I can find a car with bench seats, or modify one to have them. Cars that had split bench seats were the best.
The most comfortable seating I've ever experienced was the bench back seat of my mom's old Cadillac. My younger brother and I enjoyed many comfortable naps, sleeping away the miles. I wish bench seats were still an option.
Front bench seats were a great idea (as long as there is a drop-down right side armrest). I also want wings, since my air conditioner doesn't always work.
We had a late 50's Mercedes diesel that had a front bench seat. The back of it flipped down entirely to make a large flat surface with the back seat. Great for sleeping or otherwise (😉).
The popup headlights were for smaller and sleeker cars because there was a regulation that the center of the bulb had to be 24" above the roadway. As cars got larger, it was no longer an issue. I had several cars with them when all I drove were sports cars. One time, one of them started going up and down constantly. You'd have to disconnect them and crank them up manually. I still loved them.
Which I'd why the "bug eyed" sprite came about..stick the lights up since the design didn't allow placement of pop up lights. What I liked about the pop up lights is ghey stayed relatively clean. A combination of brighter lights and better aerodynamics tend it make it less important now..but cleaning headlights used to be as necessary as cleaning windshields on back dark roads
This was also back when there were only a handfull (for a while just one round and one square) of sealed-bulb headlights allowed by gov't regulation. All cars had to use one of the approved bulbs and their size and shape limited the design of the front end. The flip-up was a clever way to achieve a sharp, sporty looking front end while still using a bulb the size of a cantaloupe.
@@Leightr there were 4 different lights for sealed beams..the start were the round, one that was low/highbeam, the other were separate lights for low and highbeam. When the rectangular lights came out (70's?), they followed the same convention
Apart from that, nowadays pretty much every car model has its own custom plastic lenses for headlights, and having LEDs instead of lamp, designers are able to integrate headlights into car’s body of any shape
Being employed with the auto manufacturers for over 50 years, I recall a few more that survived as component systems but had to be re-engineered for practically. For continuity let's stay with one area ... Air Conditioning: The 1st attempt at true air conditioning was a tube suspended from the passenger side rolled up window. The tube was filled with dry ice where directional vents drew air into the tube then exited into the car. Because the aggregate window volume exceeded the air volume coming into the car, the temperature differential was minimal. These units were sold in volume until it was established (a) they really didn't work and (b) securing dry ice was a pain. The 2nd attempt was to introduce "refrigerated air conditioning" similar to what we have today but with the cooling components located in the trunk and the air outlets directed through curved plastic tubes located in the "hat shelf" (no longer exists) in the rear of the passenger compartment. The refrigerated air blew directly on the back of the head of the rear seat passengers (not good), the clear plastic tubes quickly yellowed from the sun (not good), and the front seat passengers continued to suffer from the heat (not good). Today, everything is "front oriented" along with rear outlets in many cases.
I've never seen an air conditioner filled with dry ice suspended from a rolled up window. Before air conditioning, there were evaporation air coolers that were suitable for the southwest part of the US, where the humidity was low enough for evaporation cooling to be effective. These coolers were about 10 inches in diameter, open in the front for air to be forced in while driving. These coolers were suspended from a nearly closed door window. There was a water reservoir in the bottom, an opening that directed cooled air into the car, and a pump handle to pump water onto the excelsior that the air was forced through. For crossing the desert in the early 1950s (and many years prior to that) canvas water bags were hung from the front bumper to take advantage of evaporation cooling for cool drinking water.
@@JohnnyAngel8 Hat shelf is what people referred to it as, and they commonly used it for that purpose. Its technical name is the Parcel Shelf in automotive documentation.
One innnovative Japanese mini van maker even put a cooled storage area in the console that was just the size to keep your six-pack cool. (non-alcoholic of course)
If you watch older films and TV shows, you will notice that drivers will often enter the vehicle from the passenger side, then sliding across the bench to the driver's position. This allowed the driver to avoid exposing himself to road traffic and a less awkward method of getting himself under the steering wheel, which tended to be larger in the days before power steering. I can remember it being common practice to move the seats to the rear after parking in order to make it easier to step up into the car while almost simultaneously sliding under the steering wheel upon reentry from the driver's side.
The record player was not a product found on/in only luxury cars. As I recall it was Chrysler that pioneered the accessory (about 1957) and it was available at extra cost in the inexpensive Plymouth up to the expensive Imperial. I went to the dealer to buy a new car just about the time ashtrays were disappearing. Although I did not smoke I noticed this. The salesman noted the car was a little cheaper and smokers could order "THE SMOKERS GROUP" that included a lighter and an ashtray for $28.00 dollars. As a 18 wheeler (retired now) I said to him, I know a way to save a buyer a few more dollars. Why not make the lane change/turn signals optional too, most drivers in front of me never uses them anyway. We had a good laugh at my observance at the time.😝😝😝 A friend had some old (1930's/1940's) magazine car ads. I remember a few bragging/boasting that the gear shift was moved from the floor to the steering post at "no extra charge".🤣🤣🤣
I had a Rambler Classic 400 with front and rear vent windows. Opening all four along with the floor vents provided excellent air circulation with little road noise.
The early car phones were actually VHF radios with a telephone handset. You could either dial a number or just ask the operator to dial for you. This only worked in large cities as the VHF radios and repeaters were expensive.
Foot operated windshield washer. 64 ford custom had these. Headlamp washers were option on 69 corvette Camaro and caprice. These were just nozzles placed at the side of each low beam lamp. Chrysler had an actual moving brush that swept across the headlamps. Hidden headlamps were a required option to get washers. Only high end vehicles have them now.
The column shifter left the world in 1986 on a few ford F150s it was created to allow 3 people to sit across the front bench seat . That way you weren't reaching for "second base" instead of second gear .
With a date you wanted to reach for third base. Whole purpose of a bench seat and a floor shifter. Lots of shifts into 2nd and 4th while driving around town. (lol) Didn't worry about sexual assault charges back then. 😜
Pop-up headlights also were plagued with failures to pop up and would give it as he showed in one picture. There a winking effect where you'd have one headlight up and one down or you would have headlights that would pop up about halfway and would only eliminate part of the road. This was a problem that would happen frequently with these especially with age. If they were motor driven, the motors would be going bad or if they were vacuum driven the vacuum system would fail. They looked wonderful. They added to the features but when they failed they failed at the worst time. You usually didn't know that they failed until you needed to use them and they were costly and expensive to fix
@@mexicanspec I've seen several cars where they failed and there was no way to have them pop up and stay up. Maybe the mechanism for that also failed but it was a thing you can see quite frequently especially around where I live. They would pop up about halfway or not at all. Look like it's weaken at you and there was no way to make them stay up tried to make them stay up on a few of them they just would not stay up. They pop up and you can get it to stay up. But as soon as you drove anywhere and hit a bump it fall down so that might be on some vehicles but it wasn't on all of them. Or at least in my experience it wasn't on all of them
@@mexicanspec You're asking me to try to remember specific vehicles from 40 or 50 years ago. We didn't mess around with them long enough to try to fix the headlights. They wouldn't stay up. We didn't mess with them much. We just dealt with a headlight that didn't stay up but there was no mechanism in any of them that we had. A friend of mine's dad and his brother were both mechanics and if there was a mechanism they would know about it. They had years of experience with cars I do remember a fierro that headlight wouldn't stay up, but it was intermittent. That girl didn't keep that car very long because of other problems with that car. There was another car and I don't remember the model. I don't remember the make. I don't remember much about it other than the door headlight door would not stay up I don't remember which one it was. There was one of them we wired to stay open because it wouldn't stay open most of the vehicles that we dealt with that we messed around with or pickups or mustangs or I think there was a Camaro or two. I know one of the guys had a a 68 or 69 yanko SS most of these pop up or hidden headlights that we dealt with were people that we worked with or friends that came and went that had cars that had these that have problems but you're asking me to remember specifics from a long time ago
The headlamps on my '67 Cougar would come up and down individually and together at random. Sometimes at night I'd have both lights, sometimes one, sometimes neither. Finally the whole system crapped out and I'd manually lift the headlamp doors up at night, then lower them by hand during the day so the front would look pretty. Prettiest car I've ever owned, also the sh!ttiest car I've ever owned.
You don’t see the round 7 inch, glass, seal beam headlight on new cars anymore like you did all the way up into the 80’s. You don’t see vehicles with factory chrome windshield wipers anymore. The incandescent light bulb it’s becoming more rare with every new generation of vehicle. I wonder when the AM FM antenna will no longer be installed on new vehicles? 0:30 You can still get a beach seat in a new single cab pick up truck I think? 1:12 Brand new freightliner trucks etc. still have “wing” windows, but definitely not in passenger vehicles anymore
3:37- showing a 1964 T-bird. Should have also said about the “swing away steering wheel. When the car was put in Park, the steering wheel would slide to the right, to make getting in and out of the car easier. (1964-66 T-birds)
I had a '63 Dodge Dart Wagon, Slant 6, that had the push button gear selector. Interestingly enough, it was on the left of the steering wheel and took a little time to get used to the placement. The car also had a power control rear window that would slide up and down which was wonderful for cooling the car--no A/C on this one. I also liked the foot operated headlight dimmer switch which was common on almost all cars, as far as I know, back then.
In cold weather where there's snow and ice, popup headlights were problematic. People used to have to keep them open at all times during winter or else they might not be able to drive at night. Sometimes, these cars would "wink" at you when only one light would deploy.
I wish they would bring back floor dimmer switches and wing windows along with big blocks and manual transmissions. And the indestructible inline six, the leaning tower of power in particular. I used to drive a 64 Valiant three on the tree as well as a 67 Dart both with the leaning tower of power.
@@jefffrayer8238 yes. Not a "fast" engine but indestructible. To each their own. Chrysler had quality problems but so did everyone else. They were highly innovative. I work for some people who were engineers for Ford. They said they would often watch Chrysler first before they tried some things. Also keep in mind that most all top fuel dragsters are still using engines based on the Chrysler 426 Hemi that was developed almost 60 years ago.
Had a few inline sixes in my AMC's and three slant sixes 1970 Dart Swinger a 1977 Plymouth Volare' and a 1980 Dodge Diplomat. Easy to work on , good on gas and all the power you needed unless you were a Gearhead. AMC's were a 1967 Rambler American, A 1975 AMC Hornet and a 1970 Rebel. Reliable cars all.
My 1972 BMW 2002's vent windows are an absolutely awesome feature. Many months of the year it means zero need for AC or heat. On my more modern car, a column shifter would be a big asset, freeing up valuable space in the center console plus not having to look down. The one thing I do like about the floor automatic shift is when I use it manually but that can be solved with paddle shifters and a column shifter.
Most people talking about the advantages of the bench seat say that it "was safer for the driver to exit on the side away from traffic". There's no "was" about that--it still is definitely safer, just much harder to do. Rear-seat passengers should always do it.
Vent windows were great and I have no idea why they're gone now. Eliminating them was another really poor and ill considered decision on the part of either car manufacturers or legislators.
Someone else in the comments said that the insurance industry had concerns about the wing-windows leading to easy theft opportunities. I'd like to see the statistics on that.
I remember some of the last versions could be found as electric windows - the 'vent' would drop first followed by the rest of the window - but without the 'wing' feature to direct air it almost seemed useless.
They originally were eliminated to encourage people to order AC - it was $500.00 - $600.00 extra, so most people didn't. With vent windows gone, more and more people did, which means higher profits for the auto makers.
The vent windows served more purposes than cooling air and would still have a lot of utility today. I trust a big part of their disappearance is cost reduction across the board.
We had a novel use for the wing widows in my well loved type 3 VW. The windshield wipers would rise but not go back down. We attached a sturdy string to each and it was the job of the passenger to pull the string rhythmically to keep the windshield clear in rain or snow.
Someone mentioned they liked the 2 way rear view mirror that used a lever. The last few cars I bought have the automatic daylight/night mirror, and they have all worked very well. I think Lexus may still offer a bench seat as an option on their high end cars. My old boss still had a bench seat in his Lexus because his wife preferred them.
My first car was a 1967 Triumph with those useful vent windows. But the simpler construction meant that it was easy to install your own gadgets. For example in 1982 I installed a 12v TV in the back seat to keep the kids happy. In the 1970s I really went to town with my Cortina. I installed a fibre glass box on the bonnet to make it look like a bigger engine had been installed. Then added chrome bonnet catches and spoilers front and back. Flame stickers were stuck along the sides and I made a large ! mark out of white sticky plastic and put this on the bonnet to warn other drivers. Then came wide sports wheels. I loved that car, the only downside was that it acted like a magnet to the cops, I was constantly being pulled over for documents check.
That's a good point modern cars are basically designed to use the AC. The ventilation is not set up for good air flow without using it and or at least the blower. You could open side windows however that could let in say rain or snow along with increasing noise with speed and something could fly into the car. Some cars aerodynamics doesn't have good pass through of air either. Having a side vent or a filtered/screened vent would be nice if your blower or AC was not working to keep air flowing well.
yeah, mine just activates when I place the car in "Park". Mine has a "hold" button e.g. at traffic lights, I can activate that, take foot off brake pedal, the car holds with brakelights still active, until I press the accelerator pedal. Parking brake can still be activated but it is a small button you press/pull, instead of the physical lever type.
My mom had a license plate gas port also on 1974 Chevy Vega hatchback 2 doors 4 cylinders automatic engine front wheels drive with a burning in the summer time heat vinyl seats and benches back seat folded down.
That went away because they really don't make "cars" anymore, just ridiculous SUVs and stupid pickup trucks. I will surrender my driver's license and ride to work on a bicycle in 10 degree weather before I will ever buy a fucking pickup truck.
Very interesting, and I remember most of the innovations you presented. I was kind of expecting you to also include push-button gear shift featured in some automobiles 1957 - 1963 era. What about certain kinds of spoilers which were known to create a lift on the rear end, making the car unsafe?
I don't see many cars with aftermarket mud flaps these days. Someone else mentioned curb feelers. They were to assist with parallel parking. As for record players, I wonder if they were meant to be played more when parked rather than when driving, like maybe when you were at a park or parking at night and "making out."
You mostly see mud flaps on trucks and suvs. Mud flaps do keep gravel and smaller rocks from hitting the lower panel of a vehicle preventing dents and paint chipping that can cause rust over time. I had that happen on one truck I owned and after that I have installed front and back mudflaps on every truck I have owned. Mudflaps are more important if you drive on dirt and gravel roads. Most of the mudflaps available today are specifically designed for that vehicle contoured to fit that vehicle and do not hang down as low as many of the mudflaps in the past. I ordered specific mudflaps front and back from Ford for my 2022 Ford Maverick which are designed for the Maverick.
Big trucks have to have mudflaps because the tire's tread is just the size to pick up gravel and throw it at cars with some velocity. Many good shops trim the mudflaps on trailers to about six inches off the ground because if they are lower they rip the flap, and maybe the bracket, off the truck if you back up to a curb.(it pinches the flap between the curb and tire) @@JeffSproul
The players had special, weighted tone arms and could only play “robust”records specially-issued for them, so the playing was meant to be done while underway. The system was called Hiway Hi-Fi.
Vent windows were not phased out because of better access to AC units. They were a small, easily replaced window that a thief could break to gain entry to the vehicle, and thence to steal it. Insurance companies jacked the rates on cars and trucks fitted with them, so they went away.
Some notes the narrator didn't touch on: Wing windows also made vehicles easier to break into The term "3 on the tree" refers to a manually shifted transmission. If you didn't know, there were manual transmissions on the column. Hood ornaments stayed popular in middle east counties.
Thank you! The vid presents three on the tree as an automatic transmission column shifter, but it's actually referring to a manual transmission feature.
I had vent windows on my 1994 Bronco in high school - they were great! Also, many minivans have the gear shifter up by the steering wheel still - I don’t think that one is totally phased out. It’s just phased out for manual transmissions.
Still miss vent windows! And the little button on the floor to the left of the brake pedal that you used to change from high to low beams. My first couple of cars had ashtrays, they were a great spare change holder. Bench seats; I had a classic 1966 Impala that I sold some time ago, it had a bench seat that was like a sofa! Had several cars in the 80's with pop-up headlights...they would freeze shut in winter and sometimes would just get stuck.
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
If you had to bring one of these features back, which one would it be and why?
Vent wings… totally useful
Bench seats, at least as an option but it will never happen because today everyone needed what used to be called, a central console between the bucket seats. .
Quarter light windows, or as you call them vent wings.
Vent windows were billed as "no-draft" ventilation when introduced in the 1930s--an irony when they began disappearing in the 1960s. And the column shifter was billed as more convenient than one company called "the wobble stick" on the floorboards!
Pop-up headlights. Just because they look cool. 🚘
Lots of us miss the vent windows. They offered just the right amount of breeze when the weather was right. Bring em back.
The vents were great for smokers. Just hold the cigarette near the vent. And easy to throw the cigarette butt out.
Absolutely! I loved the vents. On long rides air conditioning caused overheating, and in the rain they were great for ventilation as well as anti-fogging.
Loved vent windows. The best for defogging windshields.
Quarter lights in the UK
...and vents in the floor side panels were awesome too.
Those triangular vent windows were excellent for ventilating the car. I wish cars still had them.
You could let air in without letting in rain depending on how you angled it.
@@karenrussell2091 Reminds me of an episode of Top Gear where they were driving across a dusty area. Two of the three guys were wearing face covering to deal with the dust, but the one with the wing windows said he just adjusted it so it pulled the dust right back out of his car.
And for crooks to break into your car .
@@georgesheffield1580 Honestly, those old cars were pretty damned easy to break into, anyway. All you needed was a coat hanger. And the ignition was easy to “hot wire,” too.
@@censusgaryToday dozens of cars are broken into in a single night in my town and surrounding towns.
The actual reason for the column mount shifter and bench seat was that for many years a family had only one car, no matter how many kids you had, you shoved them all into that one car. Bench seats allowed more occupants per seat, but a floor mount shifter got pretty intimate for the middle front seat passenger so the column shifter was introduced.
We were a family of 4 kids. Bench sits allowed 3 in the front and 3 in the back. It would have been crowded traveling with 4 kids in the back if we had bucket seats. Of course seat belts would not have been an issue in the 50s and 60s because our cars then did not have them.
I have a bench seat in my impala wish they would go back
Bench seats with a floor shifter was the best thing for dates back in the day. No seat belt laws, so your date sat right next to you. Lots of shifts into 2nd and 4th. Those girls were minors, too, but they didn't seem to mind. (lol)
Ford, GM, and Chrysler still put column-mounted shifters in certain vehicles, particularly vehicles made for law enforcement. They free up space on the center console for radios and controls for lights and sirens.
“Those girls were minors too” well done, you are officially the creepy old man with bad breath and erectile dysfunction. You outed yourself. @@DesertRat332
Bench seats. I would bring them back simply to give kids today the thrill I used to get when I was a boy of sitting in between mum & dad up front. Great memories.
No more losing your phone between the seat and center console.
Flying through the windshield is a downside
@@majid7925 I don'5 care. Leave me be with my precious childhood memories.
@@stephenguppy7882 you are right though it must be cool regardless
@@stephenguppy7882 import a 25 year old Toyota dyna route van. they have front bench seats
One thing lost to us with bench seats is the ability to easily access the drivers side from the passenger side. Like when you get back to your car and someone parked too close to the drivers side.
Bench seats were a lot easier to get laid in.
@@swms1021lmao indeed they were
@floridaman5125 the point is you can't get in the door because of someone parked too close.
Also you did not have to open a door into traffic. You could slide across and exit safely onto the sidewalk.
They also made making-out a lot easier.
Young people don’t know how great bench seats were at the Drive In movies…luv them
Do young people know what a drive in is?
what do teens do in bucket seats??
My first car was a 1977 Ford Granada. Just parked the car, slid right over, and had my girlfriend’s shirt over her head.
Bench seats were great for 16 year-old me.
Many young people might never have existed without bench seats and drive in movies.
@@leifharmsen at 16 I knew that you couldn’t get a girl pregnant just playing with boobies, so I stuck with that for awhile. :-)
Some other features not mentioned: Oversized tail fins on many cars in the late 50's and early 60's; Push-button automatic transmissions; Vent doors located under the dash that you could open or close; floor-button high beam selectors; and of course, the full-sized spare tire.
Yes, we had a couple of Chrysler cars with push button automatics, and I was always surprised they went away as I see them to be much safer than a column shift automatic, especially before the wearing of seatbelts became common as I always pictured the front seat passenger being thrown over and the shifter piercing one's eye.
@@scrambler69-xk3kv I remember reading years ago about the push-button automatic, and I remember two reasons they gave for its demise. The first was mechanical; it was simply difficult to implement and thus more prone to failure than traditional shifters. With modern electronics that problem has no doubt been obviated, but the other reason was safety. People were more likely to forget to push a button than they were to move a shift lever at the necessary time, which led to more accidents.
Not to quibble ... the vent was actually in front of the windshield where a lever inside the car was applied, allowing ram-air effect to force outside air into the passenger compartment. It didn't really "cool" it just moved air.
@@scrambler69-xk3kv You are correct. The button panel (flat) was much safer but the advent of the floor shifter for auto/manual negated the benefit. Funny ... there were virtually "no" seat belts through 1957 and they became a paid option after that. My 1965 AC Cobra MKIII has conventional lap belts and remain legal. Not So Funny ... There is no legislative act requiring seat belts on a school bus.
Omg the floor vent door... Dad had a little 2 door Plymouth Valiant. We had a family of 5 at the time. 3on the tree. Open the vent floor door, get a faceful of dirt/sand. He did love that car.
Ashtrays were always a useful option, even if you didn’t smoke.
They could hold things like spare fuses, keys, or loose change.
My ash tray was always the drive-thru change receptacle.
I guess my 2010 car is considered 'old'. Both ashtray, lighter and extra lighter style outlet for charging/power plus an apple Iphone/walkman plug for playing music over the sound system.
I packed one with shit when I was 3.
I use my cupholder to hold change. A nice feature-when it gets full, I empty it and cash it in. Since I don't budget it, it's like having a $100-$150 bonus when I do this!
I didn’t know a single smoker who used their ashtray for actual ashes. They would spend most of the time driving around with the cigarette out the window, then toss it out when done, completely oblivious to the fact that 1) it could start a wild fire, or 2) land in another car, burning holes in their interior (which happened to me often, since I owned a convertible). I would ask the owners why they didn’t ever use their ashtrays, and they would always say it was because they didn’t want their car smelling like smoke.
It always seemed odd to me that they never realized that their car always smelled like smoke, because they smoked in it, and that when I left, even I would smell like cigarettes. When my brother was a minor, his car smelled like cigarettes. He always claimed he never smoked, but then I’d take a towel, wipe down his dash, and there would be an orangey red substance on it. A dusty dash of a non smoker is grey, not orange.
I grew up in the 60's and never heard of record players in cars. You said they were replaced by cassettes and then CDs, but before cassettes, we had 8-track players for many years in our cars and at home.
record players was a BAD idea bc they skip n damage records on every bump in the road
I never heard of them either. And I’m surprised he didn’t mention 8-tracks
They were mostly in the big Cadillacs and Lincolns. They didn't last long, maybe a couple of years. .
The record player just "evolved". 😂
He forgot to mention 8- track tapes and C- B radios were very popular in 1970s through 1990s during 6 thousands miles driving across America STATES and winter time driving . Before cellphone vehicle were invented in 1980s ‼️🇺🇸
Definitley the Vent Window! Great way to vent inside air out or a good
blast of breeze inside, depending upon the direction they were pointed.
The open vent window prevented the windscreen from fogging up. I miss them.
We call them quarter vents in Australia. I like them.
I remember them as providing mostly SUCTION, because the the angle they were at when partially open. If you were going fast and you opened one, you could sometimes hear your ears "pop" as though you were suddenly brought to a higher altitude. When used that way, it would cause the air in any other window slightly open (or "cracked" open) to get pulled into the car with more force for a better cooling effect.
@@catkeys6911 that's aerodynamics. The vent window increases airspeed thus lowering air pressure. Bernoulli's principle.
Pointed to pull air out, they also doubled as the ash tray. My aunt would flick her cigarette towards the vent window and the ash would get sucked out. It also sucked the smoke out.
The ones that should have never left, or should come back are vent windows, bench seats and column shifters. In 2002, Toyota offered you a choice on Avalon, buckets/floor shift or bench/column. We argued in the family about this option and so we bought one of each. Earlier, when bench seats phased out, everyone noticed to their unhappiness that suddenly your girl couldnt sit next to you so many people hung onto their bench cars longer or found ways to fill the gaps. A/C....I wont believe vent windows stopped because of A/C, it was to save cost and complexity on the production line. Im willing to pay a custom shop to re-convert windows to have the vents again, or even consider having an old car permanently, thats how important it is.
My 02 Avalon has console shift but also an ashtray!
If you have 68 Camaro or Firebird, or a number of other cars from that period, you can often use a one-year-older door that DOES have vent panes.
I love my Avalon but it doesn’t have those features
XLS has a Great JBL stereo. Depends on model I guess.
@@haroldwilkes6608 The XL model had it too. The only difference I see is different wheels and more instrument displays.
My first auto was a 1956 Ford Pickup that came with a bench seat. The bench seat allowed my girlfriend to slide over right next to me while driving. A cool feature back then.
Bench seats were a boon to population increase. I had a friend who was stopped for suspicion of drunk driving. When the trooper found out the problem was the driver's girlfriend sitting next to him and getting handsie. The trooper let them off with a warning to the girl, "let him drive!"
I remember those days … and the girls getting a tad handy!
Yessir!
@@frosty3693 ah those were innocent days....
And slide right back from a hard left turn.
Loved the vent windows! I believe they would stand the test of time, if they were allowed to exist!
Liked the land-o-bars (sp?) back in the day, too. But, not as much as the vent windows.
Really miss them. Wish they would bring them back!
Landau bars
My 2009 minivan had something similar to vent windows at the back row. My nephews loved it since I couldn’t close them from the front, and I didn’t mind them since they weren’t as noisy as rolling a window down. They were a small but really appreciated design touch.
A major reason for bench seats originally came from the fact people were not advised to enter the vehicle from the "street side", so they entered through the passenger side and slid across the seat. Not very easy with buckets!
Also security belts were non existent... I guess the security belts were the final nail in the coffiin for the bench seats!
ESPECIALLY IF DRIVER HAS A BIG BUCKET
Ward Cleaver and Andy Taylor often entered and exited their car this way, even though they were driving.
I miss the bench seat- with fold down center arm rest! They were supremely comfortable- especially in Cadillacs.. and offered room to move around in. (not like being pinned in the current bucket seats with fat center consoles) I also like the column shifter. easter to shift instead of looking down to do so.
Like a comedian once said, "The problem with bucket seats is that not everyone has the same size bucket." 🤔😄
Who looks to shift gears? I operate my 5spd automatically. They don't break like the automatics do, especially these days.
@@rdmineer1it is true I don't look down to shift, but the H pattern on the column was likely safer as your hands are closer to return to the wheel. I had 3 on the tree in the 70s which looked just like the lever for a column mounted automatic selector.... they both complimented the bench seat for maximizing space.
By 1978 in an attempt to look more European sport-touring, bucket seats, a center (space eating) console and shifters on the tunnel came into vogue in the US. US sport cars had had them since the 50s Corvette, 60s Mustang, Camaro, Firebird, Cuda...copying the British and German cars.
Originally all cars had tunnel floor shifters as that made the mechanism cheaper and less complex...directly connected to the transmission.
The 1940 Ford Coupe column shifter had complex linkages.
When you were young, a bench seat with your girlfriend were much cozier!
I agree, I had a number of them, and they were so nice on long trips.
You are missing a few: 1) Vinyl roof tops, which you are showing in the Landau Bars segment. 2) Headlight switch in the floor. 3) Lap only seatbelts. 4) Cupholders in the door of the glovebox.
Ahh the wee Dents on the Glove box door , What a cup of coffee use to imply ,,,,
Built in a era, more Polite than now, you can actually see folks inside of the Car, non locking gas cap as standard,, even when I check my Blind Spot, folks next to me in traffic, react to the body language, I always wave for letting me over,, this is sometimes funny due to the reaction I get from the driver.. this awkward wave back hahaha.. daily driver 68 Dart.. in Fierce Orange County California traffic everyday
Headlight switch on the floor… miss that! Handy and actually safer as you can flip brights on and off without taking hands off the wheel
@@AtZero138 I hear you, I waved a driver a few month ago and he showed me his gun (he probably didn't understand what politeness is) Suburban Detroit here.
@@wysiwyg2489 Yikes hahaha... WTF... Dang brother..
@@AtZero138 Hahahaha life in Detroit is rough
I'm very surprised they didn't include the foot petal bright light. My first car was a 1973 Buick Regal. It had a small button on the floor board to put on the bright lights.
It was actually called a dimmer switch.
At one point, engineers were considering bringing back the dimmer switch on the floor, as too many blondes were getting their foot hung in the steering wheel trying to operate the column mounted switch.
👏😂@@wwhinson
My first car was a ‘73 Buick Regal too…it was a great car, especially for dates. I just had to ignore the teasing about it being a dad car…😅
I don't think they ever should have changed. Why would they think that a person with two hands on the wheel, (with a turn signal) needed to have something more to do with their hands, when there was a left foot doing nothing?
Ash trays were like a mini glove box for small spare items.
Cup holders are very handy and used all the time.
Vent windows were always handy.
My ashtray in my Silverado holds high value coins. Gold and silver only.
Ash trays, the biggest crok ever! When I bought a car it just had a hole, the ashtray was taken out! Not by the car maker but by the yutz selling the car! When they got the cars in new OR used the ashtrays were then out! That's exactly what I was told by the guy selling me the car. They refused to put it back! Because of this smokers tossed their cigarettes out the windows! Pathetic or what?
I'm old enough to remember all of these features except record players. I never heard of such a thing and i'm shocked anyone would even think that was a good idea!
The vent windows were great, especially if you were in the car with a smoker. You could control the amount of airflow that you got, and it wasn't anywhere near as noisy as opening the bigger window.
In car record players were great when you were out for a picnic, or at the beach. Just not while you’re driving, unless you want your vinyls scratched.
I'm surprised they didn't mention the 8 track tape player that preceded cassettes.
Wing windows definitely very useful when the air conditioning didn’t work also floor vents that used to be on the kick panels back in 60s and 70s was useful
the bench seat was a great 'accessory', turned the family car into a DateMobile.
Especially at drive-ins and inspiration points watching the submarine races.😉
Lost my virginity in the back seat of a 1965 Pontiac Bonneville Brougham.
The Rambler reclining seats, shamed the bench, on dates! Pull the levers up, and the whole interior becomes a playroom! 😂
Good for sleeping on when making a multi-day drive (eg across the Nullarbor)
I really wish manufactures would bring back the wing windows. They were so very handy and functional. I miss them! I also miss the high beam switch button on the floor. That too was more functional than being on the column.
The problem with the switch on the floor was that they would get cruddy with dirt and during winter snow and salt. Eventually they would start sticking or stopped working.
I'm 5 ft tall; I never was able to use high beams until they moved the switch to the column.
@@Telcomvic My mom is 4 ft 8 in and she used to put a pillow behind her so she could even reach the pedals.
@@Earthneedsado-over177 On high, always.
High beam switches are becoming obsolete altogether, with even entry level cars in most markets now having auto high beam switching at the least, if not matrix pixels that deactivate the light pattern where they need to
As a 90's kid, I absolutely loved the popup headlights. Those cars looked SO cool to me. Our neighbor had a red Mazda with lovely popup headlights. I think I'd still want one today. :D
Remember cars without the "B" pillar between the front and rear doors? You could roll down both the front and back seat windows and have a great expanse of wide open space. Not quite the same as a convertible, but for kids on a hot day, it was great fun when your parents would permit it.
I remember those, they called them hardtops. My parents had a 72 Pontiac Catalina "coupe." I think coupe is a funny word for that car. The thing must have been 20 feet long and each door seemed to weigh 500 lbs.
HARD TOP'S
Born in 1958 and not once in my life did I see a record player in a car.
I'm a little younger than you and I've only seen one that didn't work. I also remember seeing them in the J.C. Whitney catalog
They existed, but they never really caught on. I don’t think anybody really figured out how to keep the needle from skipping in a moving, jiggling car.
I was also born in ‘58. As a teen 8 tracks were popular but I was one of the ground breakers to install a cassette deck in my ‘68 Cougar. Never saw a record player in a car.
I saw one in a car at an antique car show in the 90s. I thought it was installed as a joke, but now I know.
Me neither! Guess we weren't rich!
Two examples of functional landau bars are shown. Hood ornaments began as radiator cap handle/decorations. Some were thermometers.
Another feature of hood ornaments was it allowed you to align your car on the road. You could line up the ornament with the line on the side of the road or the dashed line if you were in the left lane and you knew you were in the center of the lane. I used to do this with my 1st car a 1972 Ford LTD. That car was a huge land yacht...lol.
I always felt that the Millenium Falcon should have had Landau bars, to honor Mr. Calrissian.
I loved bench seats. I had one in an '89 F150. It was SO comfortable!
Thanks for mentioning that in the first pictures, those landau bars folded the top back!
My brother in law has a 1930 Cadillac limo. He has a radiator cap that is a leaded crystal hawk that is about a foot high. Last appraisal for the radiator cap was $16000. Needless to say, it isnt on the radiator when going down the road.
Bucket seats were NOT introduced because of comfort or safety! They were a marketing feature to make cars seem more sporty. Safety and comfort came along MUCH later- an afterthought for marketing and selling more cars.
History is so different when one lives it compared to reading about it.
Yeah I remember one car where the bucket seats were fused to the floor. They didn't even used to be removable.
You're right. Bucket seats and four-on-the-floor were highly sought after by younger drivers. Bench seats were for squares man.
Now it's definitely a safety issue.
Those old front bench seats without belts were an accident away from you going through the windshield.
The lack on a headrest meant whiplash, broken neck if someone rear ended you.
The expense and difficulty in adding an airbag for a front center passenger also killed it.
Second row 3 person bench seats still common option, only because each person has a headrest and 3 point belt available
@@alexxbaudwhyn7572 Modern bench seats DO have seat belts. It is NOT about safety, as bench seats are still legal, even if not offered.
In my honest opinion, bench seats were automatically the PERFECT angle/height for my leg room as well as comfort for my back. I absolutely CANNOT get a bucket seat adjusted for comfort for very long. Yes bring back vent windows too.
You forgot about the high beam button! That's the one I miss the most. I began driving in 1980, and to this day, I still wish I could mash a button on the floor to turn my high beams on and off instead of trying to remember on which steering wheel stem the high beams are and on which is the windshield wipers. I noticed that some of the cars featured in the video had high beam buttons, but you didn't even note it!
Of the ones you mention, I miss the front seat bench seat. Those were comfortable. I don't like the bucket seats in new cars, I just put up with them.
Yeah, trying to find a 3/4 inch wide button on the floor, with your foot, in the dark, while an oncoming driver is flashing their brights at you to dim your lights. Fun. I began driving in 1973 and I don't miss those floor mounted headlight dimmer switches at all.
Let us not forget the VINYL ROOF! Also on my list of car features long gone include chrome window trim and rain gutters. And while hubcaps are still a thing, wheel center caps (small hubcaps for the center part of the wheel only) and wire spoke wheels have all but vanished.
Back in the 70’s while driving through Lion Country Safari we watched the vinyl roof get ripped off the car in front of us by a group of monkeys. The guy had been warned and even had to sign a waiver before entering the park. I think it was something to do with the smell of the glue used to attach the roof.
This was a rust collector offen leading to premature sale or junk yard addition.
I miss vent windows but I also miss "ring" horns. Now if i need to blow the horn i have to find just the right spot, often too late to blow anyway 😊
Amen!! Don't use the horn anymore as I can't find it!
I just try to hit the middle of my steering wheel - works most times but I rarely use it! Just wish my Hinds CR-V had a loud semi air horn!! Scare the crap out of idiots!!!!!
The bad thing with the bench seat was if the driver had short legs the passenger knees were in their chest. It was great when they came out with the 60/40 bench seat. Couple of other items they didn't mention that faded away, T- Tops, Crotch Coolers, Cornering Lamps, Some cars had a light under the hood to see the engine at night to work on, Few cars had a vent by the back window. There were a lot of great features that cars companies had on their cars. Wish they would bring back some of the features they had on cars
What's a Crotch Cooler?
@@keysersoze7291 An air vent mounted under the dash that literately blew air crotch level.
My 2001 Buick LeSabre has a light under the hood but it doesn't have a Mercury switch like some of the old ones where it would come on when you lifted the hood.
Early-60s Chryslers had front bucket seats that swiveled outward to make entry and exit easier; to exit you opened the car door, then pushed a button to unlock and swivel your seat, then stood up, and the seat returned to its straight-ahead position.
Light under the hood went away when manufacturers decided to make cars hard to work on.
I’ve always liked column shifters better. The newer cars with dials or push buttons are at least an improvement over floor/console shifters. They take up too much space in my opinion.
I remember seeing an ad on tv fin the 1950's for a self emptying ashtray feature. While driving you push a button and it opens a pathway to the slipstream which sucks out the contents of the ashtray. Could have been a littering problem and fire safety problem if the butts were not completely extinguished.
The 1931 Rolls Royce has an interesting vent window alterative. Instead of a wing window the window could be rolled all the way up and if you keep turning the crank the glass started to move back into the pillar leaving a vent gap. It also had a horn volume control and dimmer knob for the headlights.
As someone who lived through the era of "car phones," I must say that they did not quickly give way to mobile phone. Due to work, my dad had a car phone with hands-free integrated sound for two decades prior to the common use of cell phones.
Yes - car phones were available even in the 60's. Not sure of the technology, but the hand piece / receiver looked like the standard.
@@electrolyticmaster8396The Early car phones weren't on an integrated national system. They were only used within range of a local call center, possibly with remote receivers and repeaters to help extend range.
Car phones disappeared when engineers realized that with evolving designs outside antennas weren't necessary. The compactness of phones was also being realized with improved circuits and better batteries.
@@joewoodchuck3824 I was just wondering if they used dual band, single side band, duplex or whatever. I'm gonna read up of them.
@@joewoodchuck3824 Here ya go. www.wb6nvh.com/MTSfiles/Carphone1.htm
@@joewoodchuck3824 Yes. Frome early on & well into the 80's they were mobile radios. Basically a 2 way radio to contact the mobile operator who could then patch you into a landline. Heavy equipment installed in the vehicle & the service was expensive & available only to a limited number of users.
Many of the things mentioned did not "flop". The main one that was a bad idea from the start was the car record player. It was good only when parked, and useless while driving.
Car phones were much older than stated. Car phones were first used in 1946. They did not quickly become obsolete.
Agree on the record player. They were called picnic players, because they were for when the car was at rest, like at picnics at the park.
There were lots of errors. Like column shifters lasting into the 90s. Maybe elsewhere, but not in the US. Column shifters were only in pickups by the late 60s.
@@farmalmta a 33 record only played afew minutes. not much of a picnic
@@TeaParty1776it wasn’t a big deal that albums only lasted a few minutes. You simply got up and flipped it to play the other side or put on a different one to play. Getting off your arse to do things like that wasn’t a big deal back then. It was part of life and simply not viewed as an inconvenience.
Had a "Tree shifter" in my 79 Dodge P.U !@@aircooledhead
Here's one that nobody talks about, map lights. My first Dodge had a little bitty light bulb in the dash, right above the radio that shone downward. You could turn that on while you were driving at night to look for something, but it didn't wash out your windshield like the overhead dome light does
BMWs have a map light, as does my RAM truck.
@@georgeselby3376 I'll have to take your word for it. I've never been in a BMW, and I know Rams didn't for several years. My '90 had one. My '99 didn't. My '05 didn't. But I'm poor and buy exclusively base models, and only when they're 10+ years old.
Maybe because nobody uses maps anymore?
Vent windows made it so easy to break into for the novice . Bend a coat hanger. Feed it through the gasket . Flip the lever. Push vent open. Reach hand through vent. Unlock door. 4 seconds😮
Gotta say, there were things you could do in a car with bench seats that you just can't do in a car with bucket seats. Especially at the drive-in or parked in a dark, secluded spot. It was possible for the driver to get in or out on the opposite side of the car as well if something was blocking the driver's side door. Or the same for the passenger.
not to mention, as I have done numerous times over the years, moving long distances and "reclining bucket seats" can NOT rerplace the comfort of sleeping on a bench seat...
My wife had a car with bench seats before we were married. Oh, the quiet, dark, secluded places we had “fun” in. 😛
Yikes!
You know, you can actually just move to the back seat. Just saying...
@@anthonyalles1833 not even, back seats are less wide, and have less room :)
I love the way you just skipped over one of the first big breakthroughs in automotive entertainment innovations. How can we forget the 8 track tape era. Ok I get it, they had their share of issues but they were the best option to the often unreliable and occasionally undesirable factory radios of the time.
I had an 8-track player in my '73 Chevy Nova 2-door. It had 3 on the tree, fold down front seats, under dash vents, and, of course an ashtray. It also had the easiest engine to work on - a straight-6. I could do my own oil changes without the need to crawl under because I had room under the hood to reach underneath and the car from the top-side. It was my first car and I learned to do all the maintenance jobs on my own. I loved that cool old car.
@@logicthought24 my first car was a 68 Chevy Biscayne and I know exactly what you mean. I was stoked when I got a set of speaker guards.
@@DeepSkyStories my first car was a 68 Biscayne but I always favored my 71 Plymouth Satellite. That was the car that set me on track to become a mechanic. Now, 40 years later I don't like working on cars anymore, I'm a mechanic not a computer technician.
I knew people that kept a big box in the back seat filled with 8 track cassettes. They'd always ask the passenger to reach back and get a certain one. People liked them because the tapes were big, then suddenly they were replaced by small cassettes.
@@parrsnipps4495 and then CD's. They are ok until someone forgets to put them back in the case. Never, not even one time have I ever scratched an 8 track or a cassette but I have had to replace CD's that were scratched beyond repair.
I love the old cars. I own three Studebakers, a 1941, a 1950 and a 1955. They all have bench seats, vent windows, column shifters, ashtrays and cigarette lighters. It's an experience to drive them.
Very cool.
I have a bench seat and collumn shifter in my '03 car, it is SOOO nice to be able to get in on either side if someone parks too close or one side is under water.
I loved vent windows. Too easy to break in I guess. They should bring them back. You could open the window and the vent window at the same time with minimal wind entering the car.
Loved the split bench seat, but it is more comfortable with only two in the front seat. In the 40's 50's girls always sat next to their guy. Vent windows were great ! You could direct it where you wanted it, especially when it rained ! Still love the hood ornament I still have one on my MB S-CLASS.
60s and 70s gals too
@@that_thing_I_do I had a 1974 Charger with a bench seat. My gf used to always sit next to me in it until some cop pulled me over and had her move to the passenger's side because "she was obviously distracting me". She wasn't and I think the cop just was sore about my car.
@@jlaakso1706 Probably sore because his wife/girl didn't WANT to sit next to him.
The era of landau bars also featured opera lights - vertical bars with a bulb inside that provided very little illumination to the side of the car
I grew up with all this stuff. Except for the in-dash record player.
Dates were different with bench seats: you either remember or 'figure it out'! Also, look up VW's built-in coffee maker from the '50s. Thirdly, early '90s Honda Preludes had rear wheel steering that turned the rear wheels opposite the front to tighten the turning radius.
I was born in ‘86, but still remember little transom windows, crank windows, bench seats, and also that seat in the back that faced the rear of the vehicle. Good times as kid! They all need to make a comeback.
I remember the old "Column Shift"- the 1st 3 cars my parents had (all front *bench seat* cars) used those. Brings back memories - you could tell what kind of mood my dad was in by how roughly he'd wrestle that thing.
My mom's 57 T-bird was an auto with the shifter on the floor. After driving it a bit I noticed when in drive it only shifted once, meaning it started in 2nd and around 35 would hit 3rd. If you wanted 1st you needed to manually pull it all the way back - it had a lot of torque and getting rubber was easy.
@@terrylandess6072 You also could get first by flooring it starting mid 54. More than a few older ones were later fitted with that later trans for that reason.
@@michaelbenardo5695 Never thought to try that - cool!
Miss the gas cap behind the license plate, made it easier to get gas
my petrol inlet is on the side opposite of driver(right hand drive car, so petrol inelt on left hand side), so just pull in along side the petrol pump. No big deal.
yeah, those were good. Didn't matter what side gas pump you went to fill up as it's in the centre.
And watching the fuel leaking as the car accelerates.
Not mentioned is the vynil and half-vynil roofs. The vynil degraded over time, looking bad and letting moisture underneath, to rot out the steel roof. When I stripped the peeling half-vynil roof off my '75 Firebird, there were a couple rust holes I could actually put my fist through. Took a lot of fiberglass and bondo to fix it.
I miss vent windows, especially in the hot Florida summers. My earlier cars had no AC. My '68 AMC Javelin and AMX cars had no vent windows, but did have sliding vents in the kick panel beneath the dash, to let in fresh air. Another good idea that died.🎉
vinyl vs vynil
Curb Feelers is another feature worth mentioning.
Bench seating is wonderful, a kid can sit in center, it is still present in japanese cars like Nissan Moco. I like bench seating and driving control on dashboard 😊😊
Yeah a driver and 3 kids on the bench seat and three more in the back headed to the roller rink or swimming pool or for burgers with no seat belts and the driver smoking while cussing at traffic ah thats my childhood.😂
Bench seats are still somewhat of a thing and can commonly be found in pick up trucks (specifically fleet models as they are useful for construction crews moving guys around on sites). The difference being in most cases the middles section can be folded down to act as a center console and there are reliefs in the back like buckets seats for better comfort. The cup holders are just so convenient that no one ever uses the third seat unless you have that 5th passenger. And the luggage racks were more or less just moved to the roof (the now common place "roof racks" present on most all SUV's) and use bolt on containers that can lock most the time instead of strapping the luggage directly to the car.
Yes, and I've owned a couple of modern Japanese cars with bench seats ...and column changes!
I had a 45 RPM record player in my old 55 Chevy BelAir. I could load as many as 10 records on it in a stack. We would often ride down bumpy dirt roads trying to get it to skip, but it seldom did. The biggest problem was that the records warped whenever left in the car on a hot summer day.
Ford vans started with the "doghouse" design. The engine was between the driver and the front passenger. It had a metal cover called a"doghouse". I sat on it in my grandfather's van.
4:24 Our 80s' Mitsubishi Delica had one of those shifters and I was confused in what pattern did my dad change gears cuz I didn't see such a gear pattern diagram on it (probably it had worn out)
Bench seats were great. There is nothing comfortable about bucket seats in most every car. No leg room, no way to stretch your legs, and if you need to get out of the car on the passenger side it is almost impossible to get across. I hope and pray I can find a car with bench seats, or modify one to have them. Cars that had split bench seats were the best.
Split benches were usually on Two door coupes, they'd flip forward to let passengers in the rear seats
They were also great for taking naps while the wife ran into the store for just a minute
You got that right.
Ur just old.
I loved bench seats. So much more useful and comfortable. Also, Try carrying your Doberman around with you in a bucket seat.
The most comfortable seating I've ever experienced was the bench back seat of my mom's old Cadillac. My younger brother and I enjoyed many comfortable naps, sleeping away the miles. I wish bench seats were still an option.
You had to be unbuckled to do that and that's unsafe and unlawful.
@TucsonDude
It wasn't unlawful in the 70s. As a matter of fact, the vehicle I'm speaking of had no seat belts in the back bench seat.
Front bench seats were a great idea (as long as there is a drop-down right side armrest). I also want wings, since my air conditioner doesn't always work.
We had a late 50's Mercedes diesel that had a front bench seat. The back of it flipped down entirely to make a large flat surface with the back seat. Great for sleeping or otherwise (😉).
I've never sat in a bucket seat and thought "my, my, my, how much more comfortable this is than a bench seat 🙄
The popup headlights were for smaller and sleeker cars because there was a regulation that the center of the bulb had to be 24" above the roadway. As cars got larger, it was no longer an issue.
I had several cars with them when all I drove were sports cars.
One time, one of them started going up and down constantly. You'd have to disconnect them and crank them up manually. I still loved them.
Which I'd why the "bug eyed" sprite came about..stick the lights up since the design didn't allow placement of pop up lights.
What I liked about the pop up lights is ghey stayed relatively clean. A combination of brighter lights and better aerodynamics tend it make it less important now..but cleaning headlights used to be as necessary as cleaning windshields on back dark roads
This was also back when there were only a handfull (for a while just one round and one square) of sealed-bulb headlights allowed by gov't regulation. All cars had to use one of the approved bulbs and their size and shape limited the design of the front end. The flip-up was a clever way to achieve a sharp, sporty looking front end while still using a bulb the size of a cantaloupe.
@@Leightr there were 4 different lights for sealed beams..the start were the round, one that was low/highbeam, the other were separate lights for low and highbeam. When the rectangular lights came out (70's?), they followed the same convention
Apart from that, nowadays pretty much every car model has its own custom plastic lenses for headlights, and having LEDs instead of lamp, designers are able to integrate headlights into car’s body of any shape
Being employed with the auto manufacturers for over 50 years, I recall a few more that survived as component systems but had to be re-engineered for practically. For continuity let's stay with one area ... Air Conditioning:
The 1st attempt at true air conditioning was a tube suspended from the passenger side rolled up window. The tube was filled with dry ice where directional vents drew air into the tube then exited into the car. Because the aggregate window volume exceeded the air volume coming into the car, the temperature differential was minimal. These units were sold in volume until it was established (a) they really didn't work and (b) securing dry ice was a pain.
The 2nd attempt was to introduce "refrigerated air conditioning" similar to what we have today but with the cooling components located in the trunk and the air outlets directed through curved plastic tubes located in the "hat shelf" (no longer exists) in the rear of the passenger compartment. The refrigerated air blew directly on the back of the head of the rear seat passengers (not good), the clear plastic tubes quickly yellowed from the sun (not good), and the front seat passengers continued to suffer from the heat (not good). Today, everything is "front oriented" along with rear outlets in many cases.
I've never seen an air conditioner filled with dry ice suspended from a rolled up window. Before air conditioning, there were evaporation air coolers that were suitable for the southwest part of the US, where the humidity was low enough for evaporation cooling to be effective. These coolers were about 10 inches in diameter, open in the front for air to be forced in while driving. These coolers were suspended from a nearly closed door window. There was a water reservoir in the bottom, an opening that directed cooled air into the car, and a pump handle to pump water onto the excelsior that the air was forced through. For crossing the desert in the early 1950s (and many years prior to that) canvas water bags were hung from the front bumper to take advantage of evaporation cooling for cool drinking water.
I never knew it was called a hat shelf. Makes sense.
@@JohnnyAngel8 Hat shelf is what people referred to it as, and they commonly used it for that purpose. Its technical name is the Parcel Shelf in automotive documentation.
One innnovative Japanese mini van maker even put a cooled storage area in the console that was just the size to keep your six-pack cool. (non-alcoholic of course)
Those were "swamp coolers" good only in dry climates. Not dry ice.
The vent windows were a great idea
If you watch older films and TV shows, you will notice that drivers will often enter the vehicle from the passenger side, then sliding across the bench to the driver's position. This allowed the driver to avoid exposing himself to road traffic and a less awkward method of getting himself under the steering wheel, which tended to be larger in the days before power steering. I can remember it being common practice to move the seats to the rear after parking in order to make it easier to step up into the car while almost simultaneously sliding under the steering wheel upon reentry from the driver's side.
The record player was not a product found on/in only luxury cars. As I recall it was Chrysler that pioneered the accessory (about 1957) and it was available at extra cost in the inexpensive Plymouth up to the expensive Imperial.
I went to the dealer to buy a new car just about the time ashtrays were disappearing. Although I did not smoke I noticed this. The salesman noted the car was a little cheaper and smokers could order "THE SMOKERS GROUP" that included a lighter and an ashtray for $28.00 dollars. As a 18 wheeler (retired now) I said to him, I know a way to save a buyer a few more dollars. Why not make the lane change/turn signals optional too, most drivers in front of me never uses them anyway. We had a good laugh at my observance at the time.😝😝😝 A friend had some old (1930's/1940's) magazine car ads. I remember a few bragging/boasting that the gear shift was moved from the floor to the steering post at "no extra charge".🤣🤣🤣
I had a Rambler Classic 400 with front and rear vent windows. Opening all four along with the floor vents provided excellent air circulation with little road noise.
The early car phones were actually VHF radios with a telephone handset.
You could either dial a number or just ask the operator to dial for you.
This only worked in large cities as the VHF radios and repeaters were expensive.
No different today. Cell phones are actually radios.
On my classic car, I really loved the vent windows. They were amazing when the weather was nice!
Foot operated windshield washer. 64 ford custom had these. Headlamp washers were option on 69 corvette Camaro and caprice. These were just nozzles placed at the side of each low beam lamp. Chrysler had an actual moving brush that swept across the headlamps. Hidden headlamps were a required option to get washers. Only high end vehicles have them now.
The column shifter left the world in 1986 on a few ford F150s it was created to allow 3 people to sit across the front bench seat . That way you weren't reaching for "second base" instead of second gear .
Excellent observation but I think you mean “third base”
@@EB-nz1qv perhaps you're out of date 3 is oral now taaaadaaah
The 2011 Lincoln towncar had a hood ornament, and a column shifter. And seating for three in the front.
With a date you wanted to reach for third base. Whole purpose of a bench seat and a floor shifter. Lots of shifts into 2nd and 4th while driving around town. (lol) Didn't worry about sexual assault charges back then. 😜
Pop-up headlights also were plagued with failures to pop up and would give it as he showed in one picture. There a winking effect where you'd have one headlight up and one down or you would have headlights that would pop up about halfway and would only eliminate part of the road. This was a problem that would happen frequently with these especially with age. If they were motor driven, the motors would be going bad or if they were vacuum driven the vacuum system would fail. They looked wonderful. They added to the features but when they failed they failed at the worst time. You usually didn't know that they failed until you needed to use them and they were costly and expensive to fix
Vacuum systems had the advantage that if they failed, the headlight covers would open, since the vacuum pressure held them closed.
Every pop up headlight model had a way to manually open them if they failed. Not a big deal.
@@mexicanspec I've seen several cars where they failed and there was no way to have them pop up and stay up. Maybe the mechanism for that also failed but it was a thing you can see quite frequently especially around where I live. They would pop up about halfway or not at all. Look like it's weaken at you and there was no way to make them stay up tried to make them stay up on a few of them they just would not stay up. They pop up and you can get it to stay up. But as soon as you drove anywhere and hit a bump it fall down so that might be on some vehicles but it wasn't on all of them. Or at least in my experience it wasn't on all of them
Can you give me an example of a car where the mechanism failed and you couldn't get them to stay up?@@ecay
@@mexicanspec You're asking me to try to remember specific vehicles from 40 or 50 years ago. We didn't mess around with them long enough to try to fix the headlights. They wouldn't stay up. We didn't mess with them much. We just dealt with a headlight that didn't stay up but there was no mechanism in any of them that we had. A friend of mine's dad and his brother were both mechanics and if there was a mechanism they would know about it. They had years of experience with cars I do remember a fierro that headlight wouldn't stay up, but it was intermittent. That girl didn't keep that car very long because of other problems with that car. There was another car and I don't remember the model. I don't remember the make. I don't remember much about it other than the door headlight door would not stay up I don't remember which one it was. There was one of them we wired to stay open because it wouldn't stay open most of the vehicles that we dealt with that we messed around with or pickups or mustangs or I think there was a Camaro or two. I know one of the guys had a a 68 or 69 yanko SS most of these pop up or hidden headlights that we dealt with were people that we worked with or friends that came and went that had cars that had these that have problems but you're asking me to remember specifics from a long time ago
There's no such thing as pop-up headlights - it's always singular. One of them is always permanently stuck either up or down.
The headlamps on my '67 Cougar would come up and down individually and together at random. Sometimes at night I'd have both lights, sometimes one, sometimes neither. Finally the whole system crapped out and I'd manually lift the headlamp doors up at night, then lower them by hand during the day so the front would look pretty. Prettiest car I've ever owned, also the sh!ttiest car I've ever owned.
@@farmalmta If I had the money, I’d buy one
Yep
Dad finally left them up
Crused mom when she closed them
Never had any problems with mine.
😂
You don’t see the round 7 inch, glass, seal beam headlight on new cars anymore like you did all the way up into the 80’s.
You don’t see vehicles with factory chrome windshield wipers anymore.
The incandescent light bulb it’s becoming more rare with every new generation of vehicle.
I wonder when the AM FM antenna will no longer be installed on new vehicles?
0:30 You can still get a beach seat in a new single cab pick up truck I think?
1:12 Brand new freightliner trucks etc. still have “wing” windows, but definitely not in passenger vehicles anymore
3:37- showing a 1964 T-bird. Should have also said about the “swing away steering wheel. When the car was put in Park, the steering wheel would slide to the right, to make getting in and out of the car easier. (1964-66 T-birds)
I had a '63 Dodge Dart Wagon, Slant 6, that had the push button gear selector. Interestingly enough, it was on the left of the steering wheel and took a little time to get used to the placement. The car also had a power control rear window that would slide up and down which was wonderful for cooling the car--no A/C on this one. I also liked the foot operated headlight dimmer switch which was common on almost all cars, as far as I know, back then.
I have a 97 L9000 Ford and a 99 9200 International which still have the dimmer switch on the floor. Love that feature.
@@billpurves6297Liked the dimmer switch better on the floor too. However I did not know that was continued into the 90’s on some cars.
In cold weather where there's snow and ice, popup headlights were problematic. People used to have to keep them open at all times during winter or else they might not be able to drive at night. Sometimes, these cars would "wink" at you when only one light would deploy.
I wish they would bring back floor dimmer switches and wing windows along with big blocks and manual transmissions. And the indestructible inline six, the leaning tower of power in particular. I used to drive a 64 Valiant three on the tree as well as a 67 Dart both with the leaning tower of power.
Are you talking about the Slant Six? Supposed to been great engines but I NEVER have or will own any Chrysler products. Yuk.
@@jefffrayer8238 yes. Not a "fast" engine but indestructible. To each their own. Chrysler had quality problems but so did everyone else. They were highly innovative. I work for some people who were engineers for Ford. They said they would often watch Chrysler first before they tried some things. Also keep in mind that most all top fuel dragsters are still using engines based on the Chrysler 426 Hemi that was developed almost 60 years ago.
Had a few inline sixes in my AMC's and three slant sixes 1970 Dart Swinger a 1977 Plymouth Volare' and a 1980 Dodge Diplomat. Easy to work on , good on gas and all the power you needed unless you were a Gearhead. AMC's were a 1967 Rambler American, A 1975 AMC Hornet and a 1970 Rebel. Reliable cars all.
@@scrambler69-xk3kv the AMC inline wás another good runner. We also had a Bronco with the 300 and that was good too.
The slant six, like other Dodge engines, had a high-pitched starter nicknamed the Highland Park Hummingbird.
My 1972 BMW 2002's vent windows are an absolutely awesome feature. Many months of the year it means zero need for AC or heat. On my more modern car, a column shifter would be a big asset, freeing up valuable space in the center console plus not having to look down. The one thing I do like about the floor automatic shift is when I use it manually but that can be solved with paddle shifters and a column shifter.
Most people talking about the advantages of the bench seat say that it "was safer for the driver to exit on the side away from traffic". There's no "was" about that--it still is definitely safer, just much harder to do. Rear-seat passengers should always do it.
Vent windows were great and I have no idea why they're gone now. Eliminating them was another really poor and ill considered decision on the part of either car manufacturers or legislators.
Someone else in the comments said that the insurance industry had concerns about the wing-windows leading to easy theft opportunities. I'd like to see the statistics on that.
I remember some of the last versions could be found as electric windows - the 'vent' would drop first followed by the rest of the window - but without the 'wing' feature to direct air it almost seemed useless.
Now its the whole window that gets broken!@@dawnkindnesscountsmost5991
They originally were eliminated to encourage people to order AC - it was $500.00 - $600.00 extra, so most people didn't. With vent windows gone, more and more people did, which means higher profits for the auto makers.
The vent windows served more purposes than cooling air and would still have a lot of utility today. I trust a big part of their disappearance is cost reduction across the board.
We had a novel use for the wing widows in my well loved type 3 VW. The windshield wipers would rise but not go back down. We attached a sturdy string to each and it was the job of the passenger to pull the string rhythmically to keep the windshield clear in rain or snow.
@@virginiaoflaherty2983
See, just like that!
👍👍👍
You bet, its $$$$$$, Thing is, if you look, many cars etc have a design that has the place where the vent window would be!
@@bogusmogus9551
👍👍
Someone mentioned they liked the 2 way rear view mirror that used a lever. The last few cars I bought have the automatic daylight/night mirror, and they have all worked very well. I think Lexus may still offer a bench seat as an option on their high end cars. My old boss still had a bench seat in his Lexus because his wife preferred them.
My first car was a 1967 Triumph with those useful vent windows. But the simpler construction meant that it was easy to install your own gadgets. For example in 1982 I installed a 12v TV in the back seat to keep the kids happy. In the 1970s I really went to town with my Cortina. I installed a fibre glass box on the bonnet to make it look like a bigger engine had been installed. Then added chrome bonnet catches and spoilers front and back. Flame stickers were stuck along the sides and I made a large ! mark out of white sticky plastic and put this on the bonnet to warn other drivers. Then came wide sports wheels. I loved that car, the only downside was that it acted like a magnet to the cops, I was constantly being pulled over for documents check.
I could do with those vent windows right now with my air con not working
That's a good point modern cars are basically designed to use the AC. The ventilation is not set up for good air flow without using it and or at least the blower. You could open side windows however that could let in say rain or snow along with increasing noise with speed and something could fly into the car. Some cars aerodynamics doesn't have good pass through of air either. Having a side vent or a filtered/screened vent would be nice if your blower or AC was not working to keep air flowing well.
That's very interesting.
I remember all these features, except for the phonograph.
I never saw one of those in a car. 🙂
I really miss the under dash pull out parking brake.
yeah, mine just activates when I place the car in "Park". Mine has a "hold" button e.g. at traffic lights, I can activate that, take foot off brake pedal, the car holds with brakelights still active, until I press the accelerator pedal. Parking brake can still be activated but it is a small button you press/pull, instead of the physical lever type.
The feature I miss still is a floor mounted dimmer switch 😢
The one I miss most is the under the license plate gas port. You didn’t need to worry about which side of the car the pump was on.
My mom had a license plate gas port also on 1974 Chevy Vega hatchback 2 doors 4 cylinders automatic engine front wheels drive with a burning in the summer time heat vinyl seats and benches back seat folded down.
@@richa.s9912 haha I remember the vinyl seats that could melt you on the sun!
That went away because they really don't make "cars" anymore, just ridiculous SUVs and stupid pickup trucks. I will surrender my driver's license and ride to work on a bicycle in 10 degree weather before I will ever buy a fucking pickup truck.
@@richa.s9912 The chev vega never had a front wheel drive. They were all rear wheel drive.
@@richa.s9912 The chev vega never had a front wheel drive. They were all rear wheel drive.
Very interesting, and I remember most of the innovations you presented. I was kind of expecting you to also include push-button gear shift featured in some automobiles 1957 - 1963 era. What about certain kinds of spoilers which were known to create a lift on the rear end, making the car unsafe?
Rear Deck Spoiler, creating lift,, very interesting, since most were installed for looks alone,, that's very interesting,,
Spoilers are the rocket fins of the 90''s. Introduces aerodynamic drag. Why do they still remain? Oh yeah, "I'm a race car driver! Vroom Vroom!"
I don't see many cars with aftermarket mud flaps these days. Someone else mentioned curb feelers. They were to assist with parallel parking. As for record players, I wonder if they were meant to be played more when parked rather than when driving, like maybe when you were at a park or parking at night and "making out."
You mostly see mud flaps on trucks and suvs. Mud flaps do keep gravel and smaller rocks from hitting the lower panel of a vehicle preventing dents and paint chipping that can cause rust over time. I had that happen on one truck I owned and after that I have installed front and back mudflaps on every truck I have owned. Mudflaps are more important if you drive on dirt and gravel roads. Most of the mudflaps available today are specifically designed for that vehicle contoured to fit that vehicle and do not hang down as low as many of the mudflaps in the past. I ordered specific mudflaps front and back from Ford for my 2022 Ford Maverick which are designed for the Maverick.
Big trucks have to have mudflaps because the tire's tread is just the size to pick up gravel and throw it at cars with some velocity. Many good shops trim the mudflaps on trailers to about six inches off the ground because if they are lower they rip the flap, and maybe the bracket, off the truck if you back up to a curb.(it pinches the flap between the curb and tire) @@JeffSproul
The players had special, weighted tone arms and could only play “robust”records specially-issued for them, so the playing was meant to be done while underway. The system was called Hiway Hi-Fi.
Vent windows were also known as the 260 air conditioner, 2 windows twisted in and 60 mph
Vent windows were not phased out because of better access to AC units. They were a small, easily replaced window that a thief could break to gain entry to the vehicle, and thence to steal it. Insurance companies jacked the rates on cars and trucks fitted with them, so they went away.
Ohhhhhh, That must be why cars never get STOLEN anymore.
@@jefffrayer8238 Hah! 🤣🤣
@@hayloft3834 Man I used to love watching Rerun and Boogaloo Shrimp popping the lock!
Some notes the narrator didn't touch on:
Wing windows also made vehicles easier to break into
The term "3 on the tree" refers to a manually shifted transmission. If you didn't know, there were manual transmissions on the column.
Hood ornaments stayed popular in middle east counties.
Thank you! The vid presents three on the tree as an automatic transmission column shifter, but it's actually referring to a manual transmission feature.
I had vent windows on my 1994 Bronco in high school - they were great! Also, many minivans have the gear shifter up by the steering wheel still - I don’t think that one is totally phased out. It’s just phased out for manual transmissions.
Still miss vent windows! And the little button on the floor to the left of the brake pedal that you used to change from high to low beams. My first couple of cars had ashtrays, they were a great spare change holder. Bench seats; I had a classic 1966 Impala that I sold some time ago, it had a bench seat that was like a sofa!
Had several cars in the 80's with pop-up headlights...they would freeze shut in winter and sometimes would just get stuck.