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Absent friends
3 months ago
Who remembers the fun you could have with an old-fashioned handbrake?
In no particular order:
1. I love a bit of tyre sidewall. I have friends who are car designers who won’t be happy until all cars have wheels the size of the London Eye and a single digit tyre profile, but I respectfully demur. Go and look at some of the most beautiful cars ever created – early 1970s Ferraris are a good starting point, and tell me a Daytona, Dino or Boxer would look better or worse without their proud 70 per cent profiles. There’s probably also nothing that’s been done more consistently over a longer period of time to completely shag ride quality than the low profile tyre.
2. Engine design. I don’t mean engineering, I mean what you see when you open the bonnet. You didn’t need to own a Testarossa, all red cylinder heads, snaking pipework and gorgeous plenum chambers to benefit from this. A Vauxhall Astra, when fitted with the famed ‘red top’ 2-litre was still a sight to see. Beautiful engines have existed for as long as beautiful cars, but are essentially no more. Porsche won’t even let you look at the engine of a 911, Cayman or Boxster, and what do those that do provide access to the under-bonnet area offer? A lump of shitty moulded plastic that looks like it cost nothing because it did.
3. Gas bonnet struts. While I’m in this area, these can still be found but they’re on the way out because manufacturers will always be able to say a simple rod for propping up the bonnet saves you weight. And them money.
"Who needs active cruise anyway, and why don’t we all just learn how to park?"
4. Sensor-free bumpers and windscreens. Remember when a simple supermarket bumper crunch didn’t require the remortgaging of your house to repair? Or when the stone thrown up by that tractor didn’t break both your windscreen and bank balance? Who needs active cruise anyway, and why don’t we all just learn how to park?
5. Ignition barrels. Imagine there was somewhere in your car you could store your key where it could never get lost. Where it could never fall down the side of the seat, get lost in your shopping or send you ferreting through all 12 pockets of that winter raincoat your other half so kindly found in the Mountain Warehouse sale. A place that obviated the chance entirely of a driver change resulting in a car being driven off without the key. Once such places existed but now have sunk, Atlantis-like, beneath the waves.
6. Handbooks. Yes they still exist, but tend only to tell you the basics because their real purpose is to direct you to an electronic version which sounds terrific until you try to use it and realise that it’s hopeless to use and, like so many things, exists because the fact it doesn’t need printing and can be updated whenever required saves the manufacturer money.
7. Gloveboxes. Besides if your handbook were fit for purpose, where on earth would you put it? Many cars simply don’t have gloveboxes any more and those that do can’t accommodate a tin of travel sweets without splitting at the seams when you try to close the lid. Airbags? Schmairbags.
“The Audi S5 Avant has two rev-counters providing exactly the same readings, both vertically stacked, tiny and impossible to read at a glance. And they call this progress?”
8. Clutch pedals. Too obvious and therefore interesting for this list. Ditto naturally aspirated engines, V10s and hydraulic steering pumps.
9. Chokes and carbs. Remember them? The ritual required to start the car on a cold winter’s morning whose formula was known only to you? The smug pleasure of being able to tell your significant other to step aside after an age of fruitless churning and through some diabolical sorcery and deft movement of hand and foot persuade said motor to bow to your will at the first twist of the key? The sound of an engine breathing through a pair of twin 40 DCOEs ain’t bad either.
10. Circular instruments. This entire article shows my age, but perhaps no more so than here. But what is wrong with a dial and a needle indicating where on its circumference you should be looking. The Audi S5 Avant parked outside has two rev-counters providing exactly the same readings (because, sadly, it doesn’t have another engine in the boot), both vertically stacked, tiny and impossible to read at a glance. And they call this progress?
Fuel tanks have got smaller and the gauges are harder to read
11. Spare tyres. I literally cannot remember the last time I drove a new car with a full-sized spare, despite plenty of them having wheel wells more than large enough to accommodate them. Why? Because there was a time when you were likely only to have a puncture every 100,000 miles or so. Not any more: I’ve had two in the last year, both caused by enormous water-filled potholes whose depth and severity could not be seen. Both times, instead of it being 20 minutes before I was on my way again as if nothing had happened, the car was immobilised as, therefore, was I and it was several hours and much money before I was mobile again. Why have they gone? Partly to save space, partly to reduce emissions, mainly to save money.
12. Large fuel tanks. How big, would you guess, was the fuel tank of an original 1980 Audi quattro, a 200bhp car with a 2.1-litre engine? The answer is 90 litres, or a few thimblefuls short of 20 gallons. The closest thing Audi has to a modern equivalent is the similarly five-cylinder, turbocharged two and bit litre RS3 Sportback. Its tank? A trifling 55 litres. And yes, I know it’ll use less fuel, but not 40 per cent less fuel. Truth is real world ranges have been coming down for years, and not just because of the arrival of EVs. So why have manufacturers decimated the size of their tanks? Space is one factor, but emissions is another: cars have to be tested with their tanks filled to a certain level. The less fuel that involves, the lighter the car will be, the lower its emissions will be.
13. Properly designed steering wheels. I’m not even talking about getting rid of all the haptics, just a wheel of the correct (largish) diameter, with a rim of the correct circumference for an average person’s fingers, a pleasant-feeling material (this is after all the only part of the car in constant contact with your skin) not faux-leather and just the right amount of ductility, allowing it to feel absolutely firm, but never brittle.
14. Buttons. There is nothing simpler than a button: you press it, it commands the car to execute whatever action you’ve requested. That’s it. And simple actions make complex cars safer places to be. A button is better than a rotary dial or a slider which require more fine motor skills to be manipulated, and don’t get me started on hateful haptics. All you need to do with a button is stab at it. But they too have been sacrificed on the altar of cost, because homologating a new button is ruinously expensive, while you can instruct a haptic pad to do anything you like.
15. Parts bin components. There used to be a great game among sad motoring journo types like me when a new low volume car came in for testing where we’d try to guess where all the bits came from. Morris Marina doorhandles on the Lotus Esprit, a McLaren F1’s rear lights from a Bova Future coach, Jaguar XJ220 wing mirrors from a Citroën CX and so on and on. All over now.
16. Independent rear suspension. Among hatchbacks the trend was started by the original Ford Focus whose ‘control blade’ multi-link rear end helped confer a blend of ride and handling nothing else could get near with their cheap and simple beam axles. But now the trend is reversing with even Ford reverting to the beam for the Puma. The differences can be stark: just drive two Golfs of the same generation, one low spec with a beam and one with a multi-link and you’ll not be out of the car park before spotting the difference.
"Maps. I know we could use them but never do. All the romance of navigation in foreign countries has gone"
17. Basic maintenance. There was a time when even someone as mechanically incompetent as me could perform a basic service on a basic car. Today even if you could, your on-board diagnostics would probably dob you into your dealer and invalidate your warranty in a heartbeat.
18. Maps. I know we could use them but never do. All the romance of navigation in foreign countries has gone.
19. Just being able to get in and go. No menus to dive into, no ADAS systems to turn off, no wondering what on earth it’s bonging at you for now.
20. The police. Odd, I know, but time was if you got nabbed for speeding, you could argue your case. They had some element of discretion. Now you can go all the way from a clean sheet to a driving ban without ever even talking to a human being.
An element of discretion seems to have disappeared from modern policing
I think that’s enough for now. But perhaps I should at least mention some of the things I don’t miss from days gone by. These include:
1. Not being able to see at night
2. No automatically dimming headlights
3. No automatic wipers
4. Wipers on imported cars set up for left-hand drive
5. Not knowing with 100 per cent certainty if the car will get there
6. Being driven by someone who can’t change gears smoothly
7. Sailing into the nearest tree because your tyres locked in bad weather
8. Impaling yourself on your car in an accident
9. Parking a car with unassisted steering
10. Four turns lock-to-lock on cars with unassisted steering
11. Offset pedals on right-hand drive cars
12. Japanese cars with their indicators on the right-hand stalk
13. Rust before the first MOT
14. Cars with no steering wheel adjustment
15. Interior mirrors that had to dipped by hand
16. Plug knuckle. A painful condition caused when that spark plug that just won’t budge suddenly does
17. Cars without cup holders
18. Apparently there was a time when CarPlay didn’t exist
19. Radios that needed to be frequently and manually retuned
20. Getting your cassette tapes mangled in the machine
So that’s my top 20 things I miss most and least about cars from times gone by. How many did I miss? Answers in a comment below…
