Disappearing Automotive Features

I've been a bit of a car guy for some years now. I've noticed for some time that the trend in equipping cars has been to introduce new features all the time - keeps everybody up to date. Yet amongst all the new features that would make a luxury car from the 70's green with envy yet are so common place there has been some equipment in cars that has had to disappear.

This caught Yahoo! Autos attention and wrote an article about it. Read about it here and don't forget to read on about my take.

My take on the list...

• Non-power windows - you know, the kind you have to crank by hand. This is the reason for the phrase "roll up (or down) the window". Still common in the smallest cars. My last 3 cars have (had) power windows though.
• Cassette tape decks - Once common in the post-8-track era, now you're lucky to have one in your car. I was surprised to get one in my '01 Malibu and really surprised and lucky to get one with my CD player in my current '07 Grand Caravan.
• Keys, locks, etc. - I'm committed to my Grand Caravan for the next 4 years and 11 months so, for me, the key won't go away yet. However, my key thingie has remote control for opening the two sliding doors and unlocking all doors.
• Center seat lap only seatbelts - I don't notice this as much as I'm usually the only person in the car.
• Cars costing less than $13,000 - Gee, my 2 year old Grand Caravan only cost me $12, 650. Oh yeah, they're talking new right.
• 85 mph speedometers - Like I'm going to be taking my Grand Caravan up to 120 mph.
• Power antennas - Despite what the article says, they really don't extend rather they just come up from the fender. It did help with reception from next to nothing to something. The last car I had with one was my '76 Ninety-Eight.
• 3-Speed Automatic Transmission - How about 3 speed any transmission? The last car I had with less than 4 speeds was my '87 Skyhawk with a 3 speed automatic.
• True compace pick-ups - anyone remember the Luv?
• Six-passenger, rear-wheel-drive, body-on-frame cars - I agree. Just seems so impractical now. In pizza delivery, rear wheel drive is so impractical anyway in rough weather.
• Honorable mentions include:Trunk releases in the glove box (hey, my Malibu had one), Full-size spare tires (which are still much better than the donut crap out there now), Floor-mounted headlight dimmer switches (I haven't seen one in many, many years), and Completely manual mirrors (better yet, how about just one outside mirror - on the driver side only).

Haha! Hope you enjoyed the list as much as I. Remember, all these cool features on cars now will one day be obsolete too. One day our children will be reading articles like this about obsolete CD players and 6 speed transmissions too. :)