Yeah those cars won’t pass a safety test. One of the reasons why cars have gotten more expensive is because of safety regulations and lower fuel consumption demands. Even if you take out all the gadgets it won’t be as cheap as cars in the past.
It is the law in the US as well. Reverse cameras became mandatory in model year 2018.
Hang around any Trader Joe’s parking lot and watch for a while and you will realize that this has of course made driving less safe yet again, because moronic vehicle operators now unanimously behave as if any object not displayed on their camera’s screen does not exist.
Yeah, but visibility out of contemporary cars is complete shit nowadays, so it makes sense supplementary tech needs to cover the myriad blindspots. You can put a kindergarten in front of one of today’s high-bonnet trucks and not know anyone’s there. And that’s in front of the vehicle.
There’s a new electric truck coming from a new company called Slate later this year with that concept. Removing everything they can, even has hand crank windows.
Slate is also a Jeff Bezos venture, with the fucker himself being the major investor in it. I like the idea, but in light of that I think I’ll give it a pass.
Tbf, I hate rear cameras (much prefer decent sightlines); have had modern cars without heat before, I have jackets, and I delivered pizza in it for a living no less; and we don’t really get much snow where I live. I’d be fine.
I’m tired of corporate greed expanding because of a corporations or governments “concern” for my safety. I want freedom and opportunity, not protection. I get what you are saying though.
Safety is one thing. Crumple zones, seat belt designs… ALL of this is laudable, but it sure as heck isn’t where the costs are inflating so much.
It’s linear increase in size with exponential increase in cost, always-on telemetry, and thousands of little “value-ads” that have absolutely NOTHING to do with getting you from point A to point B.
No, you don’t want a car like those old ones. Changing/filing points and distributor cap every 6 months, spark plugs and wires every year. All for a car that was scrap at 100,000 miles no matter what you did.
I think a lot of people don’t realize how much more work owning and maintaining a car used to be, or how they’ve gone up in price much slower than inflation.
Part of it is model creep where a budget/economy model of 1990 retains its name in future generations until it’s a larger luxury flagship: the Camry, Corolla, Accord, Civic, F-150, Altima, etc., are all much larger, more powerful, and just loaded with features, and no longer occupy the same spot in their companies’ lineups.
And the simple comparison of objective performance and efficiency metrics also shows that cars have much higher 0-60 times, tighter cornering characteristics, better fuel efficiency, plus significantly improved crash/safety performance. And the cars routinely last beyond 100,000 miles, when older cars weren’t (to the point where the 6-digit odometer didn’t become standard until the early 90’s).
Meanwhile, the actual sticker prices of cars today are generally below what would be expected from just applying the inflation rate to car prices from the 90’s.
Cars today are just so much better than they were when I first started driving.
That’s exactly why I would want a car like that. I can maintain/repair going forward. Why pay over sixty grand for a vehicle that will still be crap at a hundred thousand miles at the end of the day. All so I can parallel park a bit easier? Parallel parking is easy, just takes a bit of practice.
I don’t think you’re being very sincere. That was one example. I’m not writing a treatise, I’m quipping on the internet. Not all technology should be automatically incorporated just because it exists. Good edgy, comment though. Helpful. If only I could be so sarcastically dismissive I could maybe start a blog or get more followers on my old “MySpace” page. /s
God no. I had a 1967 mustang. Had to fix it every time I drove it, it drank gas like a gasoholic, everything was manual but in terms of life and cost, it was the most expense for the fewest miles and not reliable. Like even if it had been newly manufactured to the same specs it would not be reliable or safe or even fun to drive.
My brother, meanwhile, had a Corolla he kept for 300k miles without much maintenance.
I am still in my 2014 Honda, and expect to be able to use it for 10 more years. Now do I think the 2024 better than the 2014? Not really, most of what I want was already in this one, but modern cars are so much better built than vintage cars were.
Cars work far better now then they used to. Don’t be daft. Do we also want to go back to paying auto workers 2.90 an hour? That’s one big thing that would drop the cost of a vehicle down. How about paying all the workers that extract and make the steel and other materials 1 to 2 an hour. That would certainly help.
Car reliability is incredible now vs older cars. It’s kind of amazing what they’ve done. But the plastic exteriors suck. Saturn’s concept of dyed plastic instead of painted makes more sense, but I don’t think they do that anymore.
Yeah I remember in the '80s how few 1960s cars were left around. Now we’re in 2026 and we have parking lots full of early 2000s cars with no reliability issues.
Saturns were painted, even on the plastic components, not dyed. I owned one, an SL2. The plastic panels were black underneath the paint, which is the same formula GM was already using on plastic bumpers, etc.
On the true Saturns, i.e. the S and L series cars before they got reabsorbed back into GM and became more rebadged Chevys, the vertical surfaces were plastic but the horizontal ones were steel. So the hood, roof, and trunk lid were traditional sheet metal fabrications but the bumpers, doors, front fenders, and rear wings were plastic. These were overlaid on a “space frame” underneath made of pressed sheet steel parts, so despite all the plasticwork these things weren’t much lighter than a traditionally built car of roughly the same displacement. They were dent resistant in the same way a plastic bumper is, but if you hit them hard in cold temperatures you could get the panels to crack or even shatter.
There was also one poor bastard on the forums back in the day who posted a picture of his SL that he parked too close to a wildfire and all of the plastic panels melted and glued his card to the pavement. To be fair, the interior of that car was also a congealed puddle by that point so it would have been a writeoff even if it were a metal car.
On the bright side, my SL2 got a consistent 40 MPG and it wasn’t full of nannyware shit like the cars of today. The S series cars were also significantly easier to work on than many of their contemporaries, and basically anything made today. I sold mine to some kid who wrecked it like a week later, and the only reason I sold it was because I had too many cars at the time. In retrospect I should have kept the fucker and sold something else to make room in the driveway.
You can do this with some older cars but you have to put them together yourself. Kit Cars are replicas that after you make yourself, I’m pretty sure you can get road legal.
Great idea! Do cars next. They should be a helluva lot cheaper than they are (and work better).
Yeah those cars won’t pass a safety test. One of the reasons why cars have gotten more expensive is because of safety regulations and lower fuel consumption demands. Even if you take out all the gadgets it won’t be as cheap as cars in the past.
In fact, IIRC, the gadget of “reverse camera”, and therefore a screen, is mandatory for all new cars in the EU.
Even if that’s not the legislation in the US, it’s the fact of the matter here as well. No new car comes without a stupid screen in the dash
It is the law in the US as well. Reverse cameras became mandatory in model year 2018.
Hang around any Trader Joe’s parking lot and watch for a while and you will realize that this has of course made driving less safe yet again, because moronic vehicle operators now unanimously behave as if any object not displayed on their camera’s screen does not exist.
Yeah, but visibility out of contemporary cars is complete shit nowadays, so it makes sense supplementary tech needs to cover the myriad blindspots. You can put a kindergarten in front of one of today’s high-bonnet trucks and not know anyone’s there. And that’s in front of the vehicle.
You know what? I’m willing to take that risk.
TAKE OUT ALL THE GADGETS.
There’s a new electric truck coming from a new company called Slate later this year with that concept. Removing everything they can, even has hand crank windows.
Slate is also a Jeff Bezos venture, with the fucker himself being the major investor in it. I like the idea, but in light of that I think I’ll give it a pass.
Including antispin, rear view camera and heating? A friend of mine once got into veteran cars, and she needed a different one to drive during winter.
I’ve never had a car with a rearview camera and I haven’t liked them when I’ve driven them. I’ll take mirrors any day.
If it was in a car when they were still affordable in the late 90s, I’ll take it. Anything after that? Take it out.
Tbf, I hate rear cameras (much prefer decent sightlines); have had modern cars without heat before, I have jackets, and I delivered pizza in it for a living no less; and we don’t really get much snow where I live. I’d be fine.
I’m tired of corporate greed expanding because of a corporations or governments “concern” for my safety. I want freedom and opportunity, not protection. I get what you are saying though.
Safety is one thing. Crumple zones, seat belt designs… ALL of this is laudable, but it sure as heck isn’t where the costs are inflating so much.
It’s linear increase in size with exponential increase in cost, always-on telemetry, and thousands of little “value-ads” that have absolutely NOTHING to do with getting you from point A to point B.
No, you don’t want a car like those old ones. Changing/filing points and distributor cap every 6 months, spark plugs and wires every year. All for a car that was scrap at 100,000 miles no matter what you did.
I think a lot of people don’t realize how much more work owning and maintaining a car used to be, or how they’ve gone up in price much slower than inflation.
Part of it is model creep where a budget/economy model of 1990 retains its name in future generations until it’s a larger luxury flagship: the Camry, Corolla, Accord, Civic, F-150, Altima, etc., are all much larger, more powerful, and just loaded with features, and no longer occupy the same spot in their companies’ lineups.
And the simple comparison of objective performance and efficiency metrics also shows that cars have much higher 0-60 times, tighter cornering characteristics, better fuel efficiency, plus significantly improved crash/safety performance. And the cars routinely last beyond 100,000 miles, when older cars weren’t (to the point where the 6-digit odometer didn’t become standard until the early 90’s).
Meanwhile, the actual sticker prices of cars today are generally below what would be expected from just applying the inflation rate to car prices from the 90’s.
Cars today are just so much better than they were when I first started driving.
That’s exactly why I would want a car like that. I can maintain/repair going forward. Why pay over sixty grand for a vehicle that will still be crap at a hundred thousand miles at the end of the day. All so I can parallel park a bit easier? Parallel parking is easy, just takes a bit of practice.
Yes, the only difference between old cars and new ones is parallel parking automation. Literally the only reason anyone would want one.
I don’t think you’re being very sincere. That was one example. I’m not writing a treatise, I’m quipping on the internet. Not all technology should be automatically incorporated just because it exists. Good edgy, comment though. Helpful. If only I could be so sarcastically dismissive I could maybe start a blog or get more followers on my old “MySpace” page. /s
Whining about insincerety and being sarcastically dismissive after making a stupid sarcastically dismissive comment?
Ooohh…good one! You got me good with that you acid tongued little devil. I learned my lesson. You should write for the news!
Allrighty then
God no. I had a 1967 mustang. Had to fix it every time I drove it, it drank gas like a gasoholic, everything was manual but in terms of life and cost, it was the most expense for the fewest miles and not reliable. Like even if it had been newly manufactured to the same specs it would not be reliable or safe or even fun to drive.
My brother, meanwhile, had a Corolla he kept for 300k miles without much maintenance.
I am still in my 2014 Honda, and expect to be able to use it for 10 more years. Now do I think the 2024 better than the 2014? Not really, most of what I want was already in this one, but modern cars are so much better built than vintage cars were.
Cars work far better now then they used to. Don’t be daft. Do we also want to go back to paying auto workers 2.90 an hour? That’s one big thing that would drop the cost of a vehicle down. How about paying all the workers that extract and make the steel and other materials 1 to 2 an hour. That would certainly help.
Car reliability is incredible now vs older cars. It’s kind of amazing what they’ve done. But the plastic exteriors suck. Saturn’s concept of dyed plastic instead of painted makes more sense, but I don’t think they do that anymore.
Yeah I remember in the '80s how few 1960s cars were left around. Now we’re in 2026 and we have parking lots full of early 2000s cars with no reliability issues.
Saturns were painted, even on the plastic components, not dyed. I owned one, an SL2. The plastic panels were black underneath the paint, which is the same formula GM was already using on plastic bumpers, etc.
On the true Saturns, i.e. the S and L series cars before they got reabsorbed back into GM and became more rebadged Chevys, the vertical surfaces were plastic but the horizontal ones were steel. So the hood, roof, and trunk lid were traditional sheet metal fabrications but the bumpers, doors, front fenders, and rear wings were plastic. These were overlaid on a “space frame” underneath made of pressed sheet steel parts, so despite all the plasticwork these things weren’t much lighter than a traditionally built car of roughly the same displacement. They were dent resistant in the same way a plastic bumper is, but if you hit them hard in cold temperatures you could get the panels to crack or even shatter.
There was also one poor bastard on the forums back in the day who posted a picture of his SL that he parked too close to a wildfire and all of the plastic panels melted and glued his card to the pavement. To be fair, the interior of that car was also a congealed puddle by that point so it would have been a writeoff even if it were a metal car.
On the bright side, my SL2 got a consistent 40 MPG and it wasn’t full of nannyware shit like the cars of today. The S series cars were also significantly easier to work on than many of their contemporaries, and basically anything made today. I sold mine to some kid who wrecked it like a week later, and the only reason I sold it was because I had too many cars at the time. In retrospect I should have kept the fucker and sold something else to make room in the driveway.
You can do this with some older cars but you have to put them together yourself. Kit Cars are replicas that after you make yourself, I’m pretty sure you can get road legal.
Here is a list of manufacturers