Awesome or Atrocious? 4 Bizarre Car Accessories that Used to Be Cool
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Automakers have always strived to put the latest and greatest gadgets in the cars they make. If you’re old enough to remember a tape deck or an eight-track player in your car’s dash, you know that cutting-edge technology doesn’t always stand the test of time. These innovative features may have wowed the public when they were new, but just like the acid-washed jeans in the back of your closet, you see fewer of them on the street today.
Pop-up Headlights
The first car that could wink its lights at you was the Cord 810, which was introduced in 1936. Each of the Cord’s headlights had a hand crank on the dash, which had to be turned to pop the lights out of the front fenders.
In the 1960s, pop-up headlights became increasingly popular on sports cars because they provided unique styling cues, but they also allowed automakers to get around headlight height regulations. The last mass-produced cars with pop-up lights were the 2004 Chevrolet Corvette and 2004 Lotus Esprit, and while retractable headlights could come back into style, the introduction of LED headlamps, which are brighter and smaller in size, means that concealed headlights are no longer necessary to maintain a car’s exterior style.
Record Player
Most of us don’t spend much time listening to vinyl anymore, but just like that DJ spinning records in a trendy nightclub, there was a time when you could cue up some 45s in your Chrysler. In 1956, you could get an optional record player in Chrysler, DeSoto, Dodge and Plymouth vehicles.
The system featured a slide-out turntable under the dash, which could be turned on with the flip of a switch. However, as drivers hit potholes or cruised down an imperfect stretch of road, it was likely that the records would skip. In-car record players were a long way from the USB/iPod connections we see in cars today, but they did pave the way for new in-dash entertainment options.
Third Headlight
The 1948 Tucker Sedan pushed the boundaries of car tech in its day. And although only 51 cars were ever made, the Tucker’s third headlight pioneered some of the features found on today’s high-end cars. Known as the “Cyclops Eye,” the Tucker Sedan’s third, middle headlight would swivel with the steering wheel to improve visibility around corners.
While an extra light seems like it would improve safety, at the time it was introduced 17 states had laws against vehicles having more than two headlights. As a result, Tucker made a cover to conceal the center light to keep the sedan legal in those states.
Hidden Gas Caps
Years ago, automakers used to hide gas caps in stealthy locations. Cars like the ’56 Chevy Bel Air had the gas cap hidden behind a taillight, which would swivel out of the way, while numerous cars from the 60’s and 70’s had their fuel fillers located behind the license plate.
Hiding the gas cap in a trick location streamlined the exterior style of these cars, but eventually, it was decided that fuel fillers that pointed to the rear could be dangerous. The problem was that if you got rear-ended, just a small bump could create a gas leak by breaking the pipe or ramming it into the gas tank. As a result, today’s gas caps are generally located behind a fuel filler door on your car’s side.
Automakers have to think outside the box in order to develop new features. While the novelties on these cars may not have stood the test of time, the creative force behind them ultimately helped hone the cars that we park in our driveways today.
Whether your gas cap is hidden or obvious, you don’t want to pay more for gas than you have to. To find out the gas prices in your area, visit Allstate.com’s Gas Price Locator.
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The 1956 Bel-Air gas cap was hidden behind the tail light. The 1957 was hidden behind the chrome trim on the tail fin.
The way we “opened” the taillight on that 56 Chevrolet was pretty cute too. One had to push the little round red reflector just below the bullet taillight. It was a pushbutton latch mechanism.
No, you didn’t open the taillight by pushing on the reflector. The latch is at the top, you turn the piece of trim just above the lens. The latch mechanism is clearly visible in the photo where it is open.
One item has been left off this list. The Turn Signal! It is very seldom used and if and when it is used, it is while the driver is half way thru their turn or already finished it.
I never use turn signals. dont follow to close and you will be fine
@mark. The turn signal is more for other driver’s than yours. Of course, for you since you think u drive a safe distance you could care less about them. But you don’t have the same thinking/mind as another driver who may want to overtake at say 100 miles per hour.
Also, they need to add the orange turn signal to the list. Turn signals the same color as break lights are not as “cool” as they make them. A good number of times, one can’t tell whether the driver is pumping on their brakes and that the only has one working break lights or what. Red turning signals should be banned for a mandatory return to the orange. Soon, we’d have red reverse lights too.
How right you are.
The turn signals are often still used in New England (I’m assuming parts of Fla as well) while driving down a road with no intention of turning. This is a tradition carried-on mostly by the generation before me…so I guess my turn is coming soon.
Most of the drivers who use their signals when already making the turn are also the ones who believe you must come to a stop before starting the turn. Drives me crazy! Now I realize they are stopping to turn on their signals!
if you see a light blinking on a car, you can be sure of only one thing, the filiment in that light bulb is working.
I always love the vehicle on the freeway that drive for miles and miles on the right lane with the turn signal on the right blinking like christmas light ……I still have a very clear memory of my father’s car it was equiped with an arrow that would pop up via an electro magnet ,
By the way yes better use these turn signal Got pulled over a few weeks ago for not turning it on while making a right hand turn.
I believe the earlier VWs had a mechanical turn “arrow”, located in front of each door, that popped out to signal a turn – The Germans called it “Mach Nicthts” (“matters not”, as no-one paid any attention to it)
What is this “turn signal” thing you are talking about and what does it do? And how do you operate it? Many of us out here do not know of this “option”
I was behind a person the other day that put on their right signal then turned left. unbelievable!
Don’t get me started on this one. I use my turn signal all the time ever since I got my license . Now at 67 I still use them. Some other people think it’s a hat rack ( like the people in Florida). To busy on the phone or texting. [text edited by Admin]
what on earth are you people talking about ‘very seldom used’? It’s ‘the law’ to use one’s turn signals! – like it or not, use it or not, believe it or not–I suspect most of those who refuse to use their turn signals either don’t have licenses or are driving on suspended ones. Try driving without signalling a turn in NY or major interstate highways, even changing lanes and you’ll get a moving violation ticket (those are costly). Using mine is as natural as wearing a seatbelt (likely Mark doesn’t do that either). What part of ‘it saves lives’ and you have to use them aren’t you all getting or do you think it’s just cool to cut in front of a tractor-trailer without signalling?
Other people don’t need to know where I’m going half as much as I do.
Mark of sc, you are too cool. No road rules for you, you are your won man and answer to yourself. Can I be your friend?
Anyone who does not use their turn signal is an ignorant, negligent, foolish, self-centered imbecile. What is so hard about moving your hand a few inches to alert others in advance as to what your next move is? Is avoiding accidents/injury/death not worth it to some? For these humans apparently it is too “inconvenient” for them to utilize this function. It is much more important to have cell conversations, text, eat a meal, drink coffee or smoke a cigarette…preferably all at the same time. This attitude of self-entitlement (ME, ME ME!) crap has got to go! It extends to society in general. Lets start showing some common decency and respect for others. The life you save may just be yours…..or at the very least a traffic citation
A lot of states – Florida springs to mind – seem to have strict laws against IWD, or indicating while driving.
The turn signal is a semi-automated device that mysteriously determines your age and location, then turns itself on for hundreds of miles if you’re over the age of 60 AND living in Florida. It can be turned off by the driver under such conditions, but ONLY when the driver is about to turn in front of a city bus. The bus driver, in this case, must exit his bus and scream at the driver of the wrecked car about not signaling the turn. The driver of the wrecked car must then adamantly and angrily swear the signal was functioning and aver heatedly that the bus driver is both blind and a bum.
If you want to really warp some minds, zip down the window of your BMW or Lexus and use hand signals. I like to flick my fingers in and out like a blinking signal for extra giggles. The looks on the faces of the wool-knit-caps-in-summer-and-narrow-glasses with-thick-black-frames hipsters when you do that: PRICELESS!
It seemes to me that turn signals are an “Option” in high end luxury cars. And many times, the purchaser of those types of cars elect not to get the turn signal option. It make the car “Special”, just like the owner.
the hood or fender mounted turn signal indicators are the real deal, I have them on my 93 coupe deville, you can barely see them out on the fenders and they were there to show you that the lights were actually working, turn signals, running light indicator and high beam indicator used a fiber optic that would pick up the light and tell you if the were working or not.
I have always used turn signals, and I am only in my late 40s. So I am not exactly ancient. However on my 1st trip to Los Angeles a few months ago the one thing I did learn real fast was that turn signals in LA are an excuse to speed up and cut you off. After this happened on the fourth of fifth time in moderate speed heavy traffic I learned my lesson. Point of interest the laws regarding Turn Signals vary from State to state, so assume nothing. I know of drivers here in Northern Virginia pulled over for improper lane changing. Yet just over the bridges in Maryland, it is a suggested courtesy but not the law. As for not using them on an open highway, all it takes is one smaller car in your blind spot and things can go horrible wrong. In this regard the less traffic, the more dangerous it becomes because of driver inattention.
I am over 60 and live in Florida. I took my Mercedes and my BMW back to the dealerships to have the turn signal thing removed. They did not have the required equipment to code the car to be able to operate without them. They have the On Board Computer controlled by a button on the turn signal lever. By the way, what are you doing on MY ROADS in the first place. Why should I have to tell you what my intentions are?
My younger brother spent about a year in Suriname in South America where they have driving on the left like in England. For months afterward, he would turn on the wipers instead of his turn signal. Funny to ride with him!
Also, those who don’t use their turn signals deserve a ticket. Especially those who are going to make a right turn and prevent someone from making a left at the same intersection. Really annoying. Of course, here in Temecula California, the tailgaters are simply amazing. “I want to speed, and I want to do so while driving RIGHT behind you!” And those who run red lights. Of course the “put the blinker on, and then cut in front of you” drivers are clueless tools. They really need to stop doing that!
mark of SC, it is inconsiderate dangerous and stupid not to use turn signals.
My favorite is some duffus already in the left turn lane, sitting at a red light, then turning on the left turn signal after the light turns green. Here in California, we have the worst drivers in the world, probably illegal drivers. Turn signals are used only after that accident before the police arrive. What the heck, I even use my turn signals in a parking lot, it makes me feel better, but then I am a bit anal.
I thought that only happened here in Indiana
Thank You, Thank You, my exact thoughts, have wondered if this isn’t an “option” on new cars….
Al Hoove, you are smack on! LOL! Your wool-knit-cap-in-summer and narrow-black-framed-glasses hipsters comment really had me rolling. But it’s so true! Don’t know where you live, but here in SoCal, I am awed by the number of administrative drones, PA’s, directors, etc. in the movie industry who wear these glasses. They’re everywhere! I often think I should have a pair made with ridiculously thick lenses, and wear them when I go to auditions just for laughs.
Steve, you are correct.
In Indiana when you turn on a signal indicating you wish to change lanes it really tells the person in that lane to speed up so they can keep you from entering their lane. And after they prevent you from changing lanes you drive next to you to prevent anyone from going around either you or themselves. Rudest people on the road in my opinion.
There is good reason to use the right signal for a left turn. It fools the oncoming traffic so they don’t speed up to try and stop you from turning.
I think RiverRat was thinking about the ’56 Cadillac with its push button-lift-the-taillight gas filler.
Cadillacs of the early fifties had the gas filler hidden under the tail light which was part of the tail fin in Caddies of that era. The tail light was raised by pushing on the reflector. I always thought the Caddie and Chevies hidden fillers were very clever.
My ’68 Olds Delta 88 had the filler behind the rear plate. Could fill up with out losing gas when accelerating.
On the 1963 Ford Galaxie the hood pull handle was cleverly as the FORD insignia in the middle of the grill. More than a few filling station attendants (remember those? They more often than not were high school boys with no experience) crawled around on hands and knees fishing beneath the bumper, behind the grill, and under the hood lip looking for the pull before giving up in disgust and telling the owner that, uh, this particular model requires no oil, water, or brake fluid to operate properly. I believe a trade journal that year voted the Galaxie as the most vexing model to have pull up to the pump.
True. My dad had a 55 Chevy, a 56 Chevy, a 58 Chevy, and more Chevy’s than I can remember after I left home. On another note, does anyone remember when the switch used to change your headlights from bright to dim was on the floor, just where you could easily reach it with your left foot? That’s something they should bring back. It was a lot easier than levers on one side of the steering wheel column, which you either push or pull, thus taking your hand off the wheel.
Add to that little detail the dash mounted pull choke and the dash mounted push starter. I “enjoyed” the use of both (and the floor dimmer switch) on my 1951 Chevy.
What a car…… raise the hood and there was the engine block and the battery…… nothing else but a clear view of the pavement below. Don’t those memories just bring tears to your eyes ?
Ray, the NHTSA is about to issue a ruling mandating that manufacturers move the high beam switch back to the floor where it belongs from the column where it is found currently. It seems that Texas A&M Aggies are causing too many accidents from getting their left foot hung up in the steering wheel at night.
Albert, don’t forget the push button starter switch beneath the FOOTFEED (an antique term–now obsolete–from the model T and A days) of the early Buick models equipped with automatic choke. The button was put there so that the newbie owner, used to pumping the accelerator while pulling the manual choke in his/her previous car, would quit pumping the accelerator and flooding out the Buick engine. Turned out the driver would pump the accelerator pedal anyway and the Bendix of the starter motor would hang up on the ringgear and require expensive repairs. Go figure. Buick engineers were always great at devising clever foolproof features that determined birdbrained drivers could foil in a heartbeat.
Ray – you cannot be serious! The floor mounted high beams large button is not the way to go. A good driver should be able to remove his hand from the steering wheel for a second or two to dim his bright lights. The lever is about 2-3 inches behind the steering wheel. Also, the floor can have a clutch, parking brake, brake pedal and gas. Frequently, there is not sufficient space for a high beam dim floor mounted button.
(Note also that many many cars have the high beam lever close to the steering wheel so you CAN keep a thumb on the wheel while moving the level with your fingers, so it’s safer as well).
No, please don’t bring back the dimmer switch on the floor! I cheered the day when American automakers put the bright / dimmer switch on the the stalk (I believe that European cars had them before we did, but won’t swear to it: maybe Japanese). I didn’t have to try to be a contortionist to 1) dim the lights while 2) disengaging the clutch & shifting gears, & 3) hitting the brake pedal. It’s much easier now to just flick the lever on the column to flash your lights at an oncoming car on-coming car to ask them to dim their lights.
You are absolutely correct!
You got it Steve, That is right. That roughly two inch long piece of vertical chrome trim rotated to the right to open the hinged tail light lens ass’y. I remember working at a few gas stations, pumping gas during High School, I just dated myself with that, 61 years old, but it was sometimes a challenge knowing where all the fill necks were located back in the day there! In fact most folks who were buying regular usually got two dollars worth and those buying hi-test bought three dollars worth. That usually bought you about eight gallons or so at the prices back then. That wouldn’t even buy one now!
The ’56 Chevy was pretty cool though. They made the basis of a lot of hot rods too, along with the ’55′s and and ’57′s as well.
Rich in New Mexico.
WRONG/// The latch is above the lens [small chrome latch turn clockwise] and it was not only the Bel Air but also the 150 & 210 series. I have my sons education tied up in this car.
In other words the taillight housing came down on ALL 56 chevy cars. I had a 57 Chevy for 25 years and loved it. I got terrible mileage with the 427 it had in it but back then, until I totaled it in 1993, gas prices were reasonable considering todays greedy prices. [text edited by Admin]
Actually, that’s wrong. To open it you twisted the vertical trim piece above the bullet lens pulled down. Note the hole at the top on the “opened” pic. I know because I owned one.
actually thats wrong.to open you hit the trim with heavy tool, hammer, wrench or any thing with weight above the bullet lens. to close just reverse instructions. it did require a special touch. i know because i owned one.
One of the questions on the entrance exam to being a real car guy “Where do you put gas in a 56 and 57 Chevy?” C’mon. Really? This is even a question here, much less a discussion? If you do not know this, it is likely because you never operated one, which is likely because you have never really been “hands-on” exposed to “REAL” cars, which is likely because you are either too young or got handed a car from your rich parents instead of having to afford what you could by working for minimum wage, or were in some other country or part of the US that doesn’t have REAL cars. Car-guy? FAIL.
Steve is right; RiverRat is wrong.
wrong, no pushbutton. the vertical chrome latch above the taillight was turned to the left then the hinged light assembly would drop down
No, no, no…..that is the emergency passenger eject button..
I bought a 1957 Bel air when I moved to California in 1975. We drove it around for a couple of hours, ran it out of gas, and pushed it to a gas station. We then stood there for about an hour trying to find the gas cap.
I loved that feature on our 57 Belair. Along with the swept back radio atenna. And don’t forget the fender skirts.
I disagree with the title of this article. These are not accessories, they were features on cars. An accessory is something that is either optional or aftermarket. You can’t add pop-up headlights without a great deal of effort. You can’t add a hidden gas filler. This is how the cars came, it was not an accessory. The one item that is an accessory is the record player, it was an option. The rest were designed into the car.
Steve, apparently you never owned a 1967 Mercury Cougar with the vacuum operated headlamp doors. I can assure you that right after the warranty ended, having those things go up and stay up at night was purely optional as far as the car was concerned. Clearly they were an accessory as you define it. You could accessorize your nighttime driving experience with the right headlight, the left headlight, both headlights, neither headlight, or my personal favorite, left and right doors going up and down at random and independently of each other. I never could find the actual control that managed that accessory, so I just let the car choose.
How about automatic transmission cars with the shifter buttons on the dashboard. We had a 1963 Dodge Dart with these, you would throw up a lever that would take it out of “park” and then push the button next to it you needed, Drive, Reverse, first, second. remember when the side view mirror’s were located on the front fenders and not the doors? Also the high and low beam foot switch on the left side of the floor for the headlights. Boy I am getting old…….
Edsels had the pushbuttons in the center of the steering wheel.
Also, Buicks had the starter button under the accelerator as late as 59 or 60. The dimmer switch on any car belongs back on the floor. Even with a manual transmission, the left foot has less to do than the right foot or either arm. All those multifunction sticks around the steering wheel are confusing and annoying at best.
…and cosd a lo more to fix.
I believe you meant 30s and 40s. It was true in my 39 Special but not by 53 Super
I had a ’57 Buick Special convertible in the 90′s and it had the starter button under the gas pedal. You just turned the key to the on position and then pressed down on the gas to fire it up. I thought it was great, but always worried that if I let someone else start the car, they would break the key off in the switch.
Completely disagree on the high beam switch. Getting it off the floor was the only way to go.
I meant to add that some Ramblers also had the pushbuttons on the dash. And some Chrysler products of the early sixties had a driver’s seat that swiveled left to facilitate getting in and out. A friend of mine had a Dodge so equipped.
Only the 1958s had that feature. The 59s and 60s went to a regular shifter on the right side of the steering column.
Had a late 56 Mercury with lots of cool features. 1) push button transmission controls on the left side of the dash, 2) a rear opening hood that would come through the windshield in a crash, 3) a power operated tailgate window that leaked like a sieve when up because they forgot to install a waterseal in the tailgate, 4) a hood ornament that would precipitate moisture in a fog and spray the condensate on the windshield 5) hooded headlights that could inflict great damage in an accident, 6) ignition key switch on the dash that could do a number on your knee cap on a hard stop. But, boy did it look sharp.
Yeah, my Dad had a 1964 Dodge I believe and the shift buttons, vacuum actuated if I remember right, were to the left of the steering column, again if my memory doesn’t fail me. I was just a little too young to drive in ’64 so not having driven that car I don’t remember for sure.
My son is now an automotive tech at an Albuquerque dealership and we were discussing shifters the other day, I was telling him about the Hurst Competition Plus I put on my Muncie T-22 I stuck in my old ’61 Vette.
Can anyone else remember in the mid to late ’60′s when Corvettes were just ten year old Chevys? I bought my first ’61 from my brother for $300.00, no motor or trans and then when I got home from the Service in 1971 my cousin, oddly enough, sold me my second ’61 ‘vette for $320.00. This one had a 327/300hp instead of the original 283 motor. Completely rebuilt that car, took 3 years and mucho cash/time and then, one fateful and horrible day, I had a case of Schlitz for breakfast/lunch one day right after completing the job and totaled it! Fiberglass moving at 65mph will lose to a 6′ pine tree every time. I still cry at night when no one is looking, but anyhow, that is all the old ‘vettes cost then.
Too bad it is not that way now as my son and I are looking for one to build into a road racer. Oh yeah, If you are looking for a cure to drinking and driving, just read the above tale of youthful woe!!! One other note: If I had not installed a harness type seat belt in lieu of the lap belt that my cousin put in I would not be writing this. If I remember the car came sans seat belts of any kind or they were at least an option.
Rich in New Mexico.
When I was a kid I used to wash my father’s 1949 Caddilac. The gas cap was located in the tail light assembley. To access the gas cap you pressed the small, round red reflector on the tail light
Hidden gas caps are still cool! You spoke of the 57 Chevy but actually pictured a 56 Chevy.
Thanks for the clarification. We have changed the item about the gas cap hidden behind the headlight to be attributed to the ’56 Chevy, not ’57.
Taillight, not headlight.
Behind what head light? No 56 chevy ever had a gas cap hidden behind the head light. The Beetle bug had a gas cap sort of behind the the head light under the trunk lid.
The center headlight which “steered” with the front wheels was a feature on the Czech Tatra before World War II–also a rear-engine car, and actually made in production quantities. As a side note, the original VW bug was inspired (some say copied) from a Tatra design, and after the war VW ended up having to pay Tatra damages.
Yep,Ferdinand Porsche’s people’s car was actually a ripoff of the Tatra,which actually was quite innovative.
The Tatra in the Lemony Snickets movie had an in-dash reel-to-reel. I wonder if that was an option or if they put that in just for the movie.
The VW bug body style was actually designed after the nazi german soldiers “helmet”. this is a true fact.
Can you give me an example of an “untrue fact?”
I think Joseph just gave you one.
Untrue fact, obama is NOT a Marxist
Sorry mark of SC: If it walks like a Marxist, talks like a Marxist and is trashing America, IT’S (HE’S) A MARXIST!!!!! And you can take that to the bank!
ya right and pigs fly
I’m pretty sure a large portion of our country has no idea what “Marxist” means.
He is A socialist communist
+1! Mark.
My dictionary presents this as a possible definition of “fact”: a piece of information presented as having objective reality.
This allows for a “fact” that eventually can be found to be untrue.
i.e.; the moon is made of cheese.
It is not enough to use Marxist as a label. It is important to define who is being followed, i.e., what person’s name is attached to the particular type. I am for example a Zeppoist- a follower of Zeppo. Others might be Gummoists, Chicoists, Harpoists or Grouchoists.
Mia, what about those of us that hew closer to the Moeist line than the Maoist one? And of course, there’s the Larryists and the Curlyists. It’s a big world with all manner of adherents of various causes. Basically, we’re all Little Rascals in our own special way. Peace, out!
Those jeans do not make your girlfriend’s butt look big…
Yes, I know one: Obama is a great president!
No it wasn’t. It was designed to cover the mechanisms beneath, and be as aerodynamic as Ferdinand could envision given it’s short length.
And before “Both” of them Cord did it in 1928. As well as pioneering pop-up headlights AND hidden wipers. Oh yeah, and supercharging also front wheel drive. All in the same car!
Oh, yeah? Well, good old BUICK, which is STILL IN BUSINESS invented the cleverest hood of them all at about the same time that Cord was doing it’s piddly thing. The Buick hood could raise on the left side OR raise on the right side depending on which of two hood levers was pulled inside the car! Better yet, if you pulled them both, you could take the hood completely OFF THE CAR! Take THAT, Mr. Cord Braggart! Admittedly, for some mysterious reason Buick hoods tended to end up bent and twisted in the ditches of highways miles from town, but still. It was a great idea if only American drivers weren’t so clueless!
Don’t believe is was a Buick invention as my 1910 Stevens Duryea hood opened and removed the same way.
I forgot to mention, so did my 1926 Franklin.
RE: “…original VW bug was inspired (some say copied) from a Tatra design…”
Others say “stolen”
When the British and French gave up Chechoslavakia to the Germans: the Germans got all the Checkh technology which included a modern car and worse the most modern tank in existence and in large numbers. Without Chech tanks the Polish invasion would have been delayed …maybe an entire year.
do not forget the bren gun
Miatas had pop-up headlights through the 1998 model year.
The 1997 Miata was the last year of the first generation car–it was sold during 1998 as there was no 1998 model year. The 1999 car did not have pop up headlights.
my 57 ford and karman gia had pop out head lights 1-2 years of road salt and hit a bump and ”pop out” they hung on wires looking down ..
Roy, If you ever had a Karmann Ghia, you would have learned to spell it!
Not necessarily. I still see Camaro drivers writing about their buckets as “Cameros” and “Camerios”.
Ah, the Camero crowd. Their mouth breathing buddies own Galaxys, Impallas, El Camrinos, Ranchereros, and LTD Limiteds (rather redundant… but count on American marketing wizards to invent the Ford Limited Limited, which Chevy owners loved to make fun of back in the day). But, come on. The hands down winner of the mal-named car contest has to be the GREMLIN. Can’t accuse AMC of false advertising there!
Car spelling is purely optional in America, Dave. I saw a freshly repainted and reassembled “V-O-L-O-V” leaving a Kansas City body shop back in the 70′s before most Americans had any clue what a Volvo was or how it was spelled. This is America! It’s a damn CAR for crying out loud, not a hard to spell “Automobile”.
I had a buddy that intentionally rearranged the FORD letters to read DORF, to funny.
i have a 1994 miata i love the pop up head lights . they are so cute
I will continue to like the pop up headlights on my ’90 Miata as long as they continue to pop up as needed. They do have a mechanical override. And, the car beats the mileage that I got with a ’59 Cadillac years ago by a factor of 3.
I know the 1996 Saturn SC2 had pop-up headlights. We sold a bunch of them!
How could you leave out curb feelers???
Curb feelers were an after-market item, not a maker’s accessory. Some odd accessories are tissue dispensors (Chevy), umbrella (Rolls-Royce), luggage (Dodge), automatic headlight dimmers (GM). Several things we now take for granted were once optional, like padded dashboards, radios, heaters, rear seats, armrests. Things that were once standard with every car are now optional, or not available at all, like full sized spare tires.
My ’56 chevy had a glass jar in the engine compartment against the firewall that would vacuum the cigarette ashes from the ashtray inside the car…a factory option.
Believe it or not!
Remember aftermarket electric cigarette lighters? You loaded several loose cigarettes into a pull-out tray, then closed it. When you needed a smoke, you pushed a button. About 15 seconds later, a lighted cigarette dropped out, ready to be picked up and smoked. Probably sold as a safety device.
The “automatic” cigarette lighter was a Pres-a-Lite, a Bakelite box holding the cigarettes and you pressed on a lever and a lit cigarette rolled down to you. It clamped onto the steering column. (I have a NOS one.)
The 56 Cad had the gas filler tube inside the taillight and that’s the one where you pushed the button to open the taillight to get access.
I had a 53 Cadillac series 62 convertable that had the gas filler under the left tail light that you popped open by pushing the reflector, ( as I recall), and the light swung upward.
The hands down winner of the Cadillac accessories has to be the sandbox in the trunk that the driver operated to deliver extra traction on ice and snow in winter. There’s a ’49 Caddy here in town that still has one. It was modified when new by a moonshiner in legally and adamantly dry west Texas to carry, yep, moonshine. One twist of the wrist and Johnny Revenooer had no evidence, if you don’t count the happy rear tires.
Good point. My 1976 Chevette didn’t have a back seat–it was an option. And my Miata did have pop-up headlights which I thought (think) were/are cool.
Rob, no slur intended, but the Chevette was not a car. Not in a strict moral sense, anyway. It was a lunchbox some engineers at GM were fooling around tricking out with an engine and wheels and stuff. Yours was the one they plunked down in a dealership somewhere as an April Fool’s gag to prove that the American car buying public in the ’70′s was as gullible as eskimos wearing flipflops. So you’re the guy who fell for it? There’s one in every crowd!
That stupid Chevette–the steering wheel didn’t line up with the driver. Always annoyed the heck out of me.
A heater was optional equipment on my 1960 TR3.
The Volkswagen Karmann Ghia had a heater but it was totally non-functional. The engine was in the rear and they tried to force air forward without a cooling system core which just plain didn’t work. Forget defogging your windows.
My Toyota Supra had pop-up headlights too. It let the car look far better because of the lines. It looked good with the headlights up too.
My favorite car feature remains the ability to drive on land or water. The Amphicar 700 Amphibious was a fairly common sight on US roadways in the 1960′s and you might catch one riding around on a lake too. Now that was an innovation. There have been other amphibious cars but the Amphicar is a true icon. I’ve never seen another land/water car on the roads of America that I know about although I did see a 50 foot boat driving down the streets of Indianapolis once. The driver was up on top and was about 30 feet off the ground. It took up two lanes and I actually saw it make a turn. If my wife hadn’t been with me I would have sworn I dreamed the whole thing but I didn’t.
I saw a street legal, 15 foot tall shopping cart with an engine too. A big honking V-8 Chevy engine that would make the thing do wheelies all day. The driver sat where little kids sit in shopping carts only facing forward of course. I saw that at Breaks Interstate Park in Virginia.
I remember the Amphicar! We had one when I was a kid, and we used to take it to Keystone Lake and drive it down the boat ramp and into the lake. Ours was the only one I knew of, and everybody would be trying to flag us down and warn us that we were about to drive into the lake.
My ’56 VW bug had the same inefficient heater. I brought it back from Germany to Minnesota after a couple years there in the Army.
I had a Porsche that had an auxillary gasolene heater in the passenger compartment. It was a 60 something I owned for a short time in 1972 or so. It was a European gray model import.
30 ft off the ground? I have escorted oversize loads in Indianapolis and it isn’t easy to get from one side to the other at 15 ft without hitting something. You must have one of those DOT tape measures with small inches on them.
My Dad had a Corvair with the same “heater” system.
So was an electrical system that worked in the rain
I miss wing windows – especially when the AC isn’t working. Anybody know why these went away? Probably some frivilous lawsuit determined they were a “safety hazard”.
It was a weight issue. They were trying to make cars lighter and use less steel.
Yes, I loved wing windows too. However, the reason they went away is that while it was very handy to cheat them to get into the car for drivers who’d locked their keys in, it was a boon to car theives too!
Ah, yes, the wing window. I had a buddy who was always drinking and then discovering that he’d locked his keys in the car at the bar. He’d take a hammer or rock and bash in his wing window reasoning that it was cheaper to replace than the actual side window due to the small size. Being the helpful sort, I finally drilled out the hinge pin of the wing for him and replaced it with a nail that he could slip out and crack the wing open enough to reach in and unlock his car. This was back when driving while drunk was considered entertainment rather than the moral failing it is now.
I miss them, too. I don’t like driving in the car with all the windows closed up, and the wind wings were great in bad weather. You could get fresh air into the car without being rained or snowed on.
Getting rid of the wings saved the manufacturers a TON of money.
Lest we forget … the T-Birds with the swing-away steering and swivel driver’s seat (’67/’68), along with the sequential turn signals (also found in the cougar xr-7 & some mustangs).
Personally, I’ve always wondered why the manufacturers don’t simply increase the brightness of the brake lights according to the suddenness or hard pressure on the brake pedal – not such a different concept than the behind-the-pedal on/off switch, eh? This concept would be SUCH a life saver!
A man spent a lot of time, effort, and money developing a system whereby the brake lights would flash, and the flash rate would increase according to braking effort (or perhaps it was deceleration rate). It was found that simple flashing worked as well. You can buy aftermarket modules that flash the third brakelight.
They made an aftermarket version for motorcycles, but they were much too expensive for my budget. I ended up designing my own for my motorcycle, and made a few more for friends. To get a bright flash, I used 6-volt bulbs in a 12-volt circuit. My best deceleration sensor consisted of several mercury switches mounted at different angles. A few people would come along at traffic lights to inform me that “there is something wrong with your stop light”. Sigh!
Roger, you’d have made a great engineer at Buick back in the day. They were always coming up with clever ideas that ultimately failed due to clueless folks just not getting how to use them.
“don’t simply increase the brightness of the brake lights according to the suddenness or hard pressure on the brake pedal”
Reasonable idea, but I can think of a couple of reasons. First, there’s no relative scale by which to judge the relationship of brightness to pressure. How would you know what the maximum brightness was, as compared to the brightness you were seeing? Instead of using brightness, the lights would have to be a bar graph with the ends clearly marked, where one end was barely a tap and the other end was total wheel lockup.
Second, even if you had all that information, there’s most likely no time to process it in an emergency situation.
and besides, what would that do for the people who drive with both feet. I love watching a car accelerate away from me with the break lights burning brightly.
Oscar (is that your real name?), that is such an Oscar statement. Look, the pressure problem can be easily solved by linking the brake light brightness to a module that the driver inserts, um, where the pucker factor is expressed. More pucker, more pressure on the sensor placed therein, transponded to the brake light controller. When the driver behind him/her sees bright lights, he’d know the driver in front is clenching up but good. That’s a freebie, Oscar. The patent is all yours if you want to make your first million before you’re 30.
my 2102 mustang gt has them sequential turn signals.pretty cool.
Thunderbirds had swing away steering columns starting with the 1961 models and last installed in ’69. They orperated manually from ’61-’66 and automatically via engine vacuum from ’67-’69. Ford never installed swivel seats in the Tbirds, they were in Chevy products of the mid ’70s. The sequentil turn signals in the Tbirds started in the ’64 model and were used through ’71. The tailights on the ’68 Shelby Mustang and the Cougar XR7 were leftover Tbird parts.
58 olds ??? radio could be removed as a portable with battrys
Ford also had a set of luggage specifically designed for the Skyliner (retractable hardtop) With the roof retracted, there was a very small space for anything in the trunk and Ford had luggage specifically commisioned to fit that space.
I saw an ad for Mini Coopers in which luggage (leather!) was offered as an option. I don’t remember if it was only for one special package, or a limited time incentive, or just a regular option. Either way, it’s a great idea for that car.
I still say one of the coolest, if sort of weird looking, options was the reverse roofline available on some Lincolns and Mercuries of the 1950′s and ’60′s. It let a rear window angled the same as the back seat roll down behind the back seat thereby letting in fresh air EVEN WHEN IT WAS RAINING! Sure, the roof looked goofy, but when the kids were fooling around sticking their heads out that window and the other kids rolled it up suddenly making the nearly guillotined kids shriek in agony, Dad got to stop the car and beat the whole bunch. A truly talented dad could pound the kids in the back seat without even turning his head or stopping the car. Any kids with their heads stuck in that window were at an obvious disadvantage in such a situation, of course.
that was a great lol – thanks.
Ford also made tissue dispensers for the earliest Mustangs. Don’t know anyone who ever had one, though.
I had a 54 Chevy that had a vertically ribbed steel dash. You hit something with that beast and they’d hose you off the dash off and resell the car to someone still alive.
And skirts (over rear wheels).
Loved my 65 Riveria with the hidden lights, and my ’72 Riv with the dolphin nose rear.
Car & Driver gave that ’72 Riviera two awards: Boldest Design. Ugliest Design.
I loved those!!
Steven, most women drivers of the era believed that the real curb feelers were the wide white walls on the tires themselves. The springy metal curb feelers on the fenders just let them know they were getting close but not quite there yet. Sorry, ladies of today. That was how it was then.
How about steering wheel knobs? My dad had one on his ’59 VW bus. You could just crank the wheel around one-handed, like a grinder on an America’s Cup crew. Eventually they were outlawed because you could also break your wrist on them.
Actually the steering ball was an after-market accessory, just like the curb feelers. Fender skirts were an accessory from the manufacturers.
Some cars had a steering ball build in to the steering wheel. I had a 1940 Chev.
no my 49 hudson came with it, had a lever that folded it down to the inside when not needed … the cheap aftermarket were clamped to the steering wheel..also called a necking knob… as one hand to steer and one to put around your date to keep her close or not slide away on the bench seat. going around a turn
I’ve been told that those steering balls are illegal in most states, because they’re not safe. But who drives around with their hands at “10 and 2 o’clock”, anyway?
Also known as a “necking knob”…….so you’d have a free right arm.
you can still buy them and clamp them on. truck drivers use them all the time
They are also pretty much standard equipment on forklifts.
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awesome
The main reason that they were outlawed was they could break off when you were in the middle of a sharp turn.
These also were called’ “Suicide Knobs” for that same reason.
or brake your wrist if the wheel spun free
You can still get them if you’re disabled and have to drive one-handed.
Higher quality suicide knobs had mechanisms to flip (literally, a touch) into on position or vice versa back into interior spaces of the wheel, and (pardon, Allstate censor) they had a spot to display a photo of your favorite babe, or the topless cutie whose photo was in there when you bought it.
They were called “suiside” knobs.
Not to get overly technical here, but the steering ball ban was sort of like the switchblade ban promulgated after Rebel Without a Cause made switchblades a mandatory accessory for teenage toughs in the ’50′s. Mostly resulting from hysteria of panicked Readers Digest subscribers with little to no measureable blood pressure. The steering ball ban came about when car manufacturers came under fire from Congress after Ralph Nader published “Unsafe at Any Speed”. GM, Ford, Chrysler used them as an example of a customer add-on that defeated the inherent safety they’d designed in with the dished steering wheel. The steering ball acted as a ball-peen hammer on the upper rib cage in head on collisions in the days before mandatory seat belt wear. The Big Three scapegoated the steering ball in order to dodge culpability for their own cornercutting in other areas. NHSTA fell for it and issued an “advisory” on steering balls, which led to restrictions on some uses in some states.
Speaking of banning balls, there is a similar move afoot to ban “Trucknuts” (if you don’t know, don’t ask… but you could google it!). They’re being lambasted as the first sexist accessory. SSSSHHHHH! Don’t tell those hyperventilating PC Puritans about nudie girl mudflaps!
Actually the gas cap behind the place was really convenient, you could fill up from any pump.
I agree. My 73 Dodge filler is located under the license plate and I can pull up on either side to get gas. How convenient!!
you can STILL fill up from either pump/side
Of course you can, but many gas stations clearly imply an IN and OUT direction that makes pumping from the “wrong” side inconvenient.
I miss my “behind the plate” gas tank so much. I loved that car… Especially the look on the attendant’s face when he tried to find the gas door! But, I guess if it is safer…
(For the record, I was rear-ended at low speed MANY times in that car. The opposing, plastic-fendered sedan ALWAYS lost that war!)
I remember when gas pump hoses were about twice as long as they are now and pumping from the wrong side was easy as pie. Of course you could do some damage dragging a heavy hose across a nice new car too.
Ain’t that the truth, AND had a swivel, now our hoses get twisted.
Not always. Some pumps have very short hoses, and will only reach the near side of the car. If you pull up on the wrong side, you either have to turn around or back out and come in on the other side.
There’s a gas station in Plano TX that has arrows indicating which way traffic should go to pull up to the pumps. On the south side of the pump, the arrows point east. On the north side of the pump, the arrows point west. So where does someone with a gas cap on the right side go? :-}
To the conservative station down the street, this one is obviously a lefty and proud.
The wrong way. What are they going to do? Give you a ticket?
That’s not what I’m worried about, Jim… What I’m worried about is where is CarGirl going to drive with that gas filler neck in the middle under her license plate? Frankly, I’m downright frightened!
I just pull up on the wrong side of the pump and a little farther. Then I back up at an angle towards the pump to get as close as I can. I find the flames shooting skyward from the sheered-off pump are a handy way to tell when I’ve backed up quite enough, thank you.
But you better get that on tight or your gas would be spilling out on the road every time you accelerate. I was on a motorcycle one time when a car in front of me accelerated and suddenly I was slipping and sliding in a puddle of gasoline. Worse yet, it was always dirty down there. You had to wash your hands off every time you filled up. I kept towels and GOOP in the car.
I’ve always prayed that the person who invented the behind the plate gasoline fill died a slow painful lingering death. Only God knows how many times I cut my hand `on the rough metal behind the fold down door.
“slow painful lingering death” … “cut my hand”
Der Fail.
It wasn’t unusual to see those hinged plates dangling helplessly towards the ground, either. You just knew the driver got pissed off from having cut his hand on the darned thing and stomped down on it hard with his foot. Some stories are plainly obvious in an instant. You could even be certain that the driver had taken the offending plate’s mother’s name in vain during the stomping he gave it.
I think I will always miss the sofa type front seats that was in my parents’ Ford Granada (i remember correctly, I was only 5, and doesnt granada translate to “big nothing”). Current front seats only FN hold one at a time unless you stack so otherwise now you have to FN sit alone.
Yes! My father and then my husband had Grand Torino’s. The Torino was wonderful in the 80′s to curl up close and listen to “The Cars” playing on the radio. Ah, the memories.
Lots of pickup trucks still have flat, bench style front seats. But the coolest design of all was the Rambler American where the front seats would fold down and be flat with the back seats with the front seat, the back of the front seat and the back seat all forming a bed. You can imagine those were popular with the “parking” crowd. My brother got plenty of use from his. Too bad it didn’t have brakes most of the time.
Those lay down Ramblers, as they were called, may be the coolest feature ever on any car. But I still pick the land / water car.
Not only the Rambler, the Nash 600 & the Ambassador also had lay-down seats.
My 1960 Corvair had lay-down front seats. My girlfriend’s mother wasn’t happy about that feature when I first picked her up in that Corvair!
You picked up your girlfriend’s mother?
My best friends parents sold their Rambler with the fold down seats, right after the first time he asked to borrow the car for a date at 16. lol
As did my ’64 Rambler Classic
I also had a ’64 Rambler Classic 770 back in the 1990s, but I don’t remember the seats being able to recline all the way to the base of the back seat. I do remember it having reclining seats long before the Big 3 offered them, though!
I had a 62′ Rambler American 440 station wagon. One of the best cars ever. Heavy gauge metal outside, pure plastic inside. Push button automatic with neutral start, damn near impossible to steal
Always started, my Mom’s Buick LeSabre would refuse to start in the upstate NY winters but that damn Rambler always started. The flip flat seats were the best. Great for Drive In movies. Only problem was that I couln’t seem to keep a muffler on the thing.
“Granada” is a Spanish word..it means “Grenade”…I think you are confused with the word “Grande” which means “big”..I’m a grateful Cuban born American naturalized citizen so I know..I also owned a Granada..not exactly the most reliable or good looking car I ever owned..that title goes to my 77(?) “Smokey and the Bandit” Trans-Am..I wish I hadn’t sold it!
I had a Granada with a 4-speed stick and a straight six. I left the doors unlocked and the key in the ignition all the time. Never got stolen. The cars on each side of it were stolen once, but mine was untouched.
That tranny was symptomatic of how the Big Three were going off the rails in the ’70′s. It was derived from the uber-famous and super legendary Ford Toploader 4 speed that handled muscle car power back in the ’60′s. BUT… Ford cheapened the design, narrowed the gears, put the overdrive gear where the 3rd speed gear had been, turned that lever upside down and called it the “3 speed with Overdrive”. Heartbreakingly, it was sent off to be built in Mexico with substandard parts by indifferent and poorly paid workers. That transmission was what was being described by the name of the car it was in… the Grenade. A sad end to one of the most famous and well-regarded transmission models of all time. *sob*
I had an AM Matador in LA. It looked just like an unmarked police car and nobody ever bothered it. But then, maybe it was because it was an AM Matador.
Well, that settles it. AMC with their “Gremiln” and Ford with their “Grenade” were at an unusually truthful stage in their advertising. We should admire such honor and rectumtude. Along those lines, does anybody remember the LIncoln Versailles, the gussied up Grenade with the falsie trunk bump pretending to be the spare tire location? Again, truth in advertising considering that the most famous resident of the real Versailles trod on the toes of the operator of the French Razor. Arcane trivia: the Versailles rear axle is highly prized by hotrodders because it is the only iteration of the bulletproof Nine-Inch Ford axle factory equipped with disc brakes. Yeah, I thought you’d be wowed.
Wow, not mention of the Cougars hidden headlights (not really pop-up) and synchronized taillights.
The Cougar was the epitome of cool in the 60′s and the synchronized taillights are making a return on the next generation of Mustang. It takes me back every time I see one of those cars – those were such good days
The lights that seemed to move from center to the direction of turning were an awesome feature. A friend had one. He opened the trunk one time and there was a lot of noise going on back there with the turn signal working. LOVE IT.
You don’t see cougars much anymore—very cool care
Cool car? Ya think? I had one. Let me help you understand what it’s like to change the spark plugs on 390 FE motor jammed into the engine bay of a ’67 Cougar. First, as a grown man, crawl back into your mother’s womb. Now take off your shoes and socks and trim your toenails. How you doin’ in there, Bob? Comfortable?
We had a ’56 Ford Parklane with the big v-8 engine. To change the last spark plug on the passenger side you had to disconnect a motor mount or remove the exhaust manifold. It didn’t get too much attention.
How about the Chevy Monza with a V-8 shoehorned in it. You had to lift the whole bloody engine up to change the plugs. That sure was the highlight of a week-end!
1964 & ’65 T-birds had the sequential turn signals also. Very cool.
In my first circuits class we had to program sequential lights. The lab excercise was titled “T-Bird Tail Lights”.
Brian, I think you mean “sequential” taillights. I had a ’67 Cougar and believe me, the turn lights were not synchronized with the turn signal stalk in any way that I could discern. I was in the habit of hand signaling after I got pulled over by a grouchy cop about my turn signals not operating. I quarreled mildly with him and he finally decided that they were working just enough to merit a mere equipment warning rather than a full blown “failure to signal” violation. Another part that the Mercury dealers obsoleted as quickly as possible. By 1984 there were none available. I think they’re being reproduced now, though. I pity anybody who owns one of those cars. :/
Mazda RX-7 had pop up headlights. Also, a lot of older cars had the gas fillers behind the license plates.
My 1989 Supercharged MR2 had retractable headlights. That car was so awesome! Once one of the headlights got stuck and didn’t retract. I was so sad ’cause nothing looks worse. And we had just gotten it back from some kind of service, too. My hubby poked around in the headlight assembly and found a screwdriver that was holding it up. He pulled it out and the headlight worked perfectly for the rest of the time we had the car. I only wish I had the money or a car freak hubby ’cause I’d still have that car!
Most electric cars still use less net ergney than a conventional auto. Many electric cars have mile-per-gallon equivalent ratings to enable comparisons between ergney use. The Nissan Leaf has a 99 mpg equivalent. The lower-speed Zap Xebra has a 150 mpg equivalent rating. So the electrics use quite a bit less net ergney than gasoline cars.Electric cars also have the advantage of great renewable ergney potential. If you were to have a solar or wind electric charging station for your electric car, you would be using nearly free and limitless ergney and producing effectively no emissions.
Environmental types won’t allow new power plants or transmission line construction. Where are we supposed to get power for our wonderfully efficient electric cars? Wind? Solar? Butterfly farts? Perhaps you were serious about everyone having their own solar or wind electric charging station (!). California enviromentalists have stopped several desert solar projects already. Until someone comes up with some realistic alternatives, of which electric is not currently a viable one, we are stuck with hydrocarbon fuels, the most readily available, energy-dense fuel sources, that are economically sound.
Right on, Roger. Have you noticed that the anti-oil environmentalists don’t give a second thought to going to the grocery store in the dead of winter and buying fresh fruits and vegetables? Needless to say, all that produce wasn’t transported by magic pixie dust. It came in via a reefer rolling along the interstate highway system.
I’m not sure that I qualify as an anti-oil environmentalist but I do think we should take sensible, risk-based decisions when deciding where to drill and how to transport oil. There is nothing black and white in this world. We should not decided to build pipelines just because it creates jobs if it also poses significant environmental risks without carefully considering the risks first and also the alternatives. We also need more oil, and we should not ban drilling in sensitive areas if we can convince ourselves that it can be done without damage.Trouble is, that’s a pretty high hurdle to pass. Also, oil companies have considerable resources and do a good job of publicizing their point of view.
Moving large quantities of food across country certainly has benefits. Surpluses in one area can be sold off in another instead of leaving them to rot in the fields. But concentrating all our farming in certain areas has downsides. Farmers tend to concentrate on specific varieties which are then more susceptible to disease and infestation. Chemicals are used on the produce to keep it fresh during its trip to its final destination. And the economies of scale allow farmers to sell at prices that make small local farms uncompetitive, I personally would prefer to pay a little more to buy from a local producer who only harvested the produce a couple of days ago, I would prefer to buy produce that tastes of something. I would prefer not to subsidize the vast quantity of fuel used to bring produce from elsewhere. I am prepared to put up with having produce only available when in season – I might even go back to preserving food. So, Owen, I don’t think the world is divided into anti-oil environmentalists and the rest. I think we live in a highly complex world in which we all have preferences, and some of them are practical and can be fulfilled and some of them are not. Issues sometimes have to be simplified in order to take decisions, but that doesn’t mean the issues have become simple.
Thanks, Ponte. You just cured my insomnia. I’ve been seeing doctors for MONTHS and they couldn’t help me. You’re the best, man!
Odd, because when you read what experts in the field say, instead of listening to Rush Limbaugh, you find that they are comfortable with the growth of electrical generation capacity in our country.[website removed by admin]
If you listened to reason you might realize that while eco-friendly power plants are PC, power lines are NOT. People fight them tooth and nail because they create a free access zone to people’s land among other things. Farmers don’t likeh having to chase their cattle because some techie forgot to close a gate. Not to mention the fact that lines sometimes discharge and kill livestock during storms. I lived next door to a 90KW transformer station. I had the best light show in the state when the storms came and lightning ran in on the power lines. I’ve seen my yard look like Dr. Frankenstein’s lab with bolts of electricity shooting out 50 feet from the power lines above my house. I moved away from that show as soon as my kids were old enough to want to go outside. Power lines are no fun and people know it.
We live on a hill and during the Northridge earthquake we could look across the valley to Saddleback Peaks and see all of the electrical wires arcing. It was pretty wild!
Was a time when my daddy ran a line up the pole and wrapped around the power line in some manner that I don’t know much about since I was only 5 or 6 years old at the time. His lines didn’t touch theirs, but we got power from them for the barn and the milking machines etc..
There are studies that show a link between living too close to power lines and childhood brain tumors.
TonyC, it is odd that you said someone was listening to Rush Limbaugh. I don’t think anybody but you mentioned him. You must have been listening to Al Gore.
Unicorn farts, Roger. The global warming crowd is convinced that capturing the product of unicorn farts is the future of America’s energy needs. Just hush up and pay your taxes like a good little boy while the Harvard and Yale Poetry Departments conduct their highly scientific federally funded research into maximizing unicorn fartiness.
Ah, but once everyone has moved to electric cars, we will all be choking on massive amounts of ozone. Electric motors produce ozone, which is toxic. Never hear the “environmentalists” mention that.
Actually, after some research it appears that brushless motors (as used in electric cars) do not produce ozone. However, the charging process does. That can be reduced by charging at night. I won’t go to electric until local electricity is produced by solar or wind, otherwise I’m just burning coal or natural gas to run my car. I’d rather just burn gasoling.
Wondered about that. If we all move to electric cars, will the amount of extra pollution produced by the utilities be less than the amount that was previously produced by gasoline-powered cars ?
Maybe we’ll get our R-12 freon back and be encouraged to dump it into the atmosphere frequently to create holes in the ozone layer. I mean, these environmentalists are superb at fixing problems that don’t even exist. Surely they can do a bang up job on a double problem that double doesn’t exist, right?
check out the tesla while the wheels are turning it recharges all the batteries no need to recharge it does it for u endless miles to a charge !
BS. It may recover some energy during braking, but not during powered driving.
So there’s a perpetual motion machine is there? And I bet the power companies have paid the patent holders to keep it all quiet so we can’t all have free power. I met that salesman from Mars that sold out government that system. He got paid with water. Mars has plenty of iron but they used up all their water 1000 years ago. They didn’t learn how to make that conservation of matter thing work until it was too late. They kept using all that free electricity to separate hydrogen and oxygen so they can get their Mars reefer to burn. Can’t get high if you don’t have oxygen to make your joint burn. We worked on a trade agreement but Captain Kangaroo was worried about having water to float the Good Ship Lollypop so we only bought a prototype of that perpetual motion machine and we kept it under wraps so the on percent crowd could steal the money from the 99 percenters.
Why wouldn’t this work? And if it does why not just do that to all the cars? Are the combined weight of both generators and engine the problem? In other words, what’s the catch?
The catch is that the amount of energy captured in braking is very small small compared to the amount used in accelerating and cruising.
On a related note, in its guidelines for patent applications, the USPTO says that drawings are required, NOT working models, EXCEPT for perpetual motion machines.
So Jon, it develops kinetic energy now? WOW. They finally solved the problem of never having to recharge or refuel. That is the greatest invention of all time, ever. WHAT kind of BS are you believing here, Jon. Endless miles, never needing to be recharged? Think about what you said here. What you said is IMPOSSIBLE. Atleast to this date.
Sorry I meant to say perpetual energy or motion instead of kinetic. my bad………
Jon: A perpetual motion machine? Funded by the Obama administration? I’m totally buying one of them thangs! Where’s the guy in the plaid jacket and white shoes to take my cash? I gotta have one! Can I join Amway today and play bingo at an Indian tribe casino, too? Could I be this lucky all on one day!?
Ergney?
Yes, Bert?
ill stick to my f650 and hummer, thank you
Nikee
You’re obviously a good writer, including your consistent identical misspelling of “energy” as “ergney”. Also, I have no knowledge of the Zap Xebra vehicle, and because of the other error it makes me wonder if it’s supposed to be a Xap Zebra, which makes a little more sense (longer recognizable word). I’d suggest rereading carefully what you write. I always do.
I hope you don’t mind being corrected. No insult intended.
Richard
Retired English Teacher and Lawyer
Richard,
I believe the “ZAP / XAP” are 3 wheeled vehicles manufactured in China or India and classified as motorcycles in the United States, which gets them around most safety / environmental laws.
Sorry in advance for any spelling / grammar errors. The last English class I took was on 1979.
The last English course I took was in 1955. I think I still hold up fairly well. Actually (in theory) one’s English should improve with age.
Richard…. I had this debate with my teen daughter tonight. Which of us is correct? “I have a cat who likes to be pet.” or “I have a cat who likes to be petted.” ?
“I have a cat that enjoys petting.”
Well, I AM offended! I’ve got half a mind to sue those half-glasses with a granny strap right off the end of your stuck up nose!
No.Driving an electric car cmsunoes less overall energy than the equivalent gas car because of the efficiencies involved in each of the two types of cars. Gas cars especially use more when you calculate the complete cycle, from ground to refinery to gas station and through your car. Most people just calculate from the gas pump through the car and even then the electric car uses less calculating right back to the source of coal.
Shouldn’t we also consider the cost of manufacturing the battery, plus (a few years down the line) disposing of it?
In short, what’s the payback?
And just to be even-handed, the “complete cycle” you cite for gas (“ground to refinery to gas station and through your car”) doesn’t include the cost of the military presence we maintain in the Persian Gulf.
Electric cars for the masses are in the distant future. Time would be better spent utilizing natural gas as an alternative fuel to gasoline. The technology is already there..the only thing lacking is enough natural gas dispensing centers to make it a truly viable energy source.
time would be better spent drilling for more oil
I don’t know if I agree with that assesment. I equate energy to money, and vice-versa, and the energy to produce/purchase the batteries probably negates the energy saved.
steam is the way to go
However, there is a tremendous loss in the electrical grid to deliver what was created at the utility to the point where you charge the car. I wonder how the metrics are if all that loss is factored in?
The internal combustion engine is very inefficient. Only 15-20% of the energy in gasoline is converted in movement of the car. In comparison electricity generation, transmission and consumption losses are also huge but still net out better than that. And natural gas is increasingly used for power plants and produces far less CO2 for each unit of energy then other fossil fuels. Natural gas fracking has impacts but so does every other energy production method. Natural gas is just a huge win currently for CO2 reduction. Not as good as clean energy sources, but way better then oil and coal.
Fossil fuels generate (very roughly) twice their mass in CO2. It will be more likely that CO2 scrubbing technology can be deployed at static power plants then carried around in cars (you going to dump 300 pounds of scrubbed CO2 every time you fill up the gas?).
And electricity can be generated with very clean sources. Massive solar arrays are coming someday to western US deserts.
Internal combustion efficiency is improving, but so is electric generation and transmission. The economy of scale of electricity generation and transmission will stay ahead for sure.
The energy cost of building batteries and generators for cars is a red herring. Casting engine blocks and building an internal combustion engine doesn’t come free either.
And when the government realizes they aren’t getting that fuel tax money on the gasoline you purchased are your taxes on the electric vehicle going to skyrocket?
Q-dawg, your name sounds like some sort of cancer chemo drug with particularly vicious side effects.
Let’s say I’m, ohhh, a community organizer in Chicago. All I need a hoopty for is to go to my no-show job teaching Law at the University of Chicago, hit up Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn for vegan suppers once in a while, pick up my harridan wife from her amazingly lucrative job doing nothing discernable for over 300G’s per year, and maybe go calling on my old buddy Tony Rezko in jail on visiting days. Okay, a 30 mile per charge Volt makes sense. Make the government buy the manufacturer and give me one of them. Wait. I think I’d rather roll in style in bulletproof Cadillac Escalades like the one stolen from Jesse Jackson when he drove it to Detroit to promote Green Energy at an Ecopalooza.
Now consider that I’m a pig farmer hauling feed and pigs and all kinds of goop in all kinds of weather for hundreds of miles every week. How much energy would I use pushing that same Volt for all of those hundreds of miles but for 30 of them?
The day you give me your workaround to that little problem is the day the internal combustion engine is finito.
I’m with you there, Al, as a tile and stone contractor. The next time one of those greenies wants to save a forest (hardwood floors), leave the juice in the ground (linoleum), or any of those other “save the Earth” ideas, go pick up a container or two of stone in your Volt or any one of their cousins and get it to your house. By the time you do, I’ll probably be dead and stinking. You’ll love my Ford dually with the big gas hog 460.
LINOLEUM!!!! Awesome product,Phillip, and still in production. Honest to gosh linoleum comes as close as can be to perfection in industrial revolution. The kitchen in our house still has its ORIGINAL linoleum floor (grey with black/white/red splotches installed in (better sit down for this) 1947. If you just care for it properly, it’ll last a couple of lifetimes. Beats vinyl sheet goods all to heck for beauty and longevity. But it’s a trick to install just right, yeah?
None of these are Accessories. They were all Standard Equipment (from the factory).
I had several cars with hidden or pop up headlights. The 82 Supra and 94 Firebird had electrically operated pop-ups. Many cars had shields or doors that had to move to expose the headlights. They can get frozen into their rest position if left out in the snow. Some systems relied on a vaccume pump and reservoir to hold the headlights in the conceiled position. This was a safety feature because that way a system failure would cause the doors to open.
Hmmm.. Gas filler tube next to ELECTRIC tail light. There’s a PINTO of an idea !
Many cars today have an electric fuel pump inside the tank and use the fuel to cool the pump. that is why you should not drive around with low fuel in the tank.
There is no reason not to drive around with low fuel levels (other thatn the risk of running out). Your car’s engineers tested it to determine that the pump will live even with low fuel levels….assuming you didn’t built the car yourself.
not completely accurate. City stop and go driving will cause the gas to slosh back and forth, sometimes leaving the pump intake dry. With the pump intake dry, even for short periods, premature wear occurs. This is due to the fact the gasoline is the lubricant for the pump. I don’t let an internal pump gas tank go below half a tank unless I’m on the highway.
Indeed, just due to condensation/rust issues, it’s best to keep any gas tank topped off.
Another reason you should not drive around with low fuel in the tank is that you’ll find yourself thumb out with a gas can in your hand 100 miles from Kingman Arizona on July 30 with buzzards escorting you. or 200 miles from Anchorage on February 3rd with hungry wolves circling and licking their chops in your direction. But yeah. What he said.
“Is that original?” the lady asks about the built in record player.
No! It’s a 2012 model!!!
I just miss having the headlight dimmer switch on the floor. That was perfect.
Exactly! The dimmer switch on the floor and the third headlight that swiveled with the steering wheel should never have been moved or removed. Both were great safety features.
Slight problem: over the long term, those floor-mounted dimmer switches developed problems because of rust & corrosion.
How long? I had one in a 1955 Packard that was still working when I sold it last year.
I also had a 1977 Caprice with the dimmer on the tree and it snapped off twice, before 1979.
That sort of argument is like saying power windows are just a problem waiting to happen
When they moved the dimmer switch from the floor to the directional signal lever, there were several accidents caused by Texas Aggies trying to lift their foot up to the steering wheel level to press on the dimmer switch lever!
And if the carpet shifted, the floor button was covered. I hate them.
And they took all of ten minutes to replace at a couple of bucks +/- per switch.
Did you ever find yourself at a stop sign at the top of a hill in San Francisco with one foot on the brake, one foot on the clutch and your brights in the eyes of the Cop across the way? I prefer the dimmer where it is now.
I never found it a problem to use the clutch, dimmer, brake, and accelerator all at once when need be. Feet turn sideways and can cover two functions easily.
I always dimmed my lights before coming to a stop, so I wouldn’t have to worry about that. Problem solved.
Yes !!
Guess you never owned a car with a clutch pedal.
Hey TonyC, here’s a little clutch trivia. I had a ’41 Packard
“160″ and with a flip of a switch, the clutch would fall to
the floor and you could shift gears without it.Other feature
was overdrive,center armrest in back seat,and cigarette
lighters in rear ashtrays. The AM radio when on had a light
that would turn red,orange and green as you traverse L.to R.
I drove a stick car in the 70s that could shift gears if the engine was rev. to the correct RPM..I can’t remember the make even if my life depended on it..
They don’t make ‘em like they used to. THANK GOD!
Eddie Rickenbacker built a car based on his racing experience.
It had 4 wheel brakes. Ford had his engineers prove that brakes on the front of the car were dangerous. The Model T only had a transmission brake, with cast iron emergency brakes on the back.
The gas tank location. Model T, under the front seat. You sat on it. Model A, the dash was the gas tank, it was in your lap. Until late in the 1950s, General Motors and Ford pick ups had the gas tank in the cab with you, behind the front seat.
But the gas tank in the passenger compartment didn’t really matter in a front end collision. The solid steel steering shaft pushed the steering wheel through your heart and lungs.
You were dead by the time you burned.
Safety glass, by law. Mean old gummint. You had the right to go through the windshield. Ditto on hydraulic brakes, (1940), sealed beam headlights (1940).
Brakes again. Chrysler had hydraulic brakes in 1930. Ford was still using brakes applied with steel rods from the pedal to the wheels. By the middle ’30s Ford was using cables from the pedal to the wheels. A big improvement, sometimes you actually stopped, by the way the first VWs had cable brakes.
The Dymaxion was built to be a safe car, as was the Tucker.
The Dymaxion died when it wrecked at high speed because of a blowout. Tucker went by the wayside because of tons of bad publicity, can anyone say BIG THREE?
A man named Selden patented all the known components of cars sometime in the early 1900s. He never built a car, but sued auto makers if they used any of his patents. At that time Ford issued a certificate with their cars, stating that the Ford Motor Company would defend the customer in case of a lawsuit by Selden.
Ford’s working conditions in the factory were so bad that he had to hire help worldwide, India for instance. Yes, he paid $5 a day, one that was the only way he could keep employees and two, in an attempt to stifle union activity. Ford guards regularly beat employees. At one time Ford had more armed guards than the state of Michigan had National Guardsmen.
My 1972 Ford F100 PU had the fuel tank in the cab … behind the seat. The fuel filler was exposed to other vehicles, trees, etc. Connected to the tank via a rubber hose …
Went to an in-bed 40-galloner … gave me storage space behind the seats …
Most of your ramblings about Ford Motor Company are at best uninformed. By 1920 Ford working conditions and pay were considered best in the industry beating out such long-time vehicle manufacturers as Studebaker. True, Old Henry was eccentric but as a machinist and manual worker himself he never forgot where he came from – Henry Ford valued his employees very highly and felt personally responsible for their well-being. My grandfather began with Ford just when they were changing from the Model T to the Model A and he stayed through retirement shortly after introduction of the Mustang. Because he worked his way up in the company he was able to retain all his pre-UAW company-plan benefits. Because of this he was better-off in retirement than those who switched to the UAW plans. Henry made sure loyalty was rewarded.
Hank’s “highly” paid employees could also afford to buy the cars they manufractured.
My grandfather ran the elevator in the Ford building. He was crippled, but he was always able to work. Mr Ford paid for surgery to help him get around. It wasnt a handout, nor was there health insurance. He worked there 20 years
Yeah, we need more deregulation! Bring back glass that slices your throat when you go thru it (because you don’t have safety belts). What gives Washington the right to tell us we can’t pump heaps of pollution out of our cars? We paid for them!
correct-o
One of the most altorcious and dangerous innovations of the mid-50 Chrysler products was the straight-line gear shifter on the dashboard to the right of the steering wheel. It didn’t matter whether reverse was at the top of the tree or bottom. One good sneeze and a knee jerk caused all kinds of trouble. I remember crowding six teenagers into a Plymouth with thies system on an automatic transmission. The fellow in the middle of the front seatsneezed , jerked his knee up slamming the car into reverse, just as the driver was gunning the engine to pull out a drive-in car hop when there was a break in traffic. Trying to put the car into reverse under these circumstances was too much for the transmission and drive train. In the car, when it came to a sudden stop in the car we smelled something burning, and heard a loud clang and a thud. WHen we tried to move the car and it wwouldn’t move in any gear, we all got our the car to find the drive shart had rolled out from under the car and smaoke was coming from the tranmission.
Things smelling of burning and drive shafts falling out, what has changed on Chrysler? I liked the radio tuning floor button on the IMPERIALS. And electric vent windows!
Actually ,the Chrysler LaBaron was one of the nicest look-
ing, smoothest driving cars my wife and I ever owned.
I remember CEDUP! My dad had an Imperial and for the longest time he had us convinced he could change the radio station by pointing his finger at the dial.
Nice story, but it’s mechanically impossible to shift a transmission into reverse (automatic or manual) while a car is in motion.
I can assure you that in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, it was quite possible to shift a moving car into reverse. Ah, rental cars…
It was indeed. Chrysler products with the push-button transmission control couldn’t accidentally be shifted into reverse while you were buzzing down the road, but some other trannys certainly could be.
I would love to see the push-buttons make a come-back.
You are correct. Many cars had stripped gears because of going into reverse while moving forward. In the 40s it was even recommended in an emergency to stop when brakes have failed!!.
Wrong!! I did it in a Chevy Nomad station wagon. I thought I had slowed down enough to put the car in reverse and broke the drive shaft. This was in 1968.
I had a 70′s Accord that went into reverse accidentally at 70 mph on the NJ Turnpike. Fortunately it didn’t immediately die because it just “brushed” the gear, but it couldn’t get out of first after that and completely failed 15 miles later (after I got off the turnpike
Never driven an old car, have you. The older transmissions – especially those old 3 speeds – typically didn’t have synchros in first or reverse. You got used to double-clutching to get into those gears, even when you weren’t moving. I snapped a U bolt and had my driveshaft roll down the road once when I overrevved into first after reversing. No smoking transmission, just a loud bang and a lot of embarassment.
No, it isn’t. The brake pedal interlock is a recent innovation.
Taggart: Actually Not – my brother and I shifted a Plymouth Satellite with 318 cu in into reverse going 70 on I-94 the car forward motion practically slowed and the wheels were spinning in reverse. And snatched it back in Drive before we stopped. And it peels some more until friction point was overcome.
You are correct!..I drove a Plymouth while in the police force and did it numerous times..I also read an article that showed Italian police driving Lamborghinis..Imagine that!..PS don’t buy used police cars at auction..we wore the heck out of them!
Had a 56 Buick Super with the dynaflow transmission. Buick for some reason or other put reverse down below low rather than above neutral so it could…. be possible to shift from low to reverse. Happened to me when I was a young buck shifted from Drive to Low to accelerate down the on ramp. Unfortunately I went beyond low into reverse. Horrible screech. Car stalled and I had visions of explaining to my pop what I had done. Fortunately, car started up again and transmission still worked. The transmission acceleration/shifting still worked however it was more like a hydroslush for the remainder of the time I had the car.
With computer shift control it’s impossible, but back in the old days it was VERY possible, even with some auto transmissions. In the case cited above, it’s likely that it just broke a u-joint or flange and tht led to the trouble-easy to do pre-1980.
Wrong!!! I had a ’55 Dodge wagon with the dashboard lever. Climbing up a pass in New Mexico the road was slick and the wheels were spinning. I told my wife to drive, and I got out to push. The car (wagon) began to fishtail, my wife panicked, and she gave that lever an uppercut that drove it into reverse. When she finally stopped, I was on top of the wagon, and the back end was over a shear drop-off. Needless-to-say, after that, I drove.
Roger, those kinds of things are prone to happening if you double your life insurance naming your wife as beneficiary with double indemnity in case of accident. Just before going for a little drive in a remote area with no witnesses besides bears and squirrels and they ain’t talking.
sorry taggart but you are wrong on this onee. why do you think nhra demands reverse lock out on automatic trans. because you can physically shift into r or d anytime. and i can put my 4 speed saginaw in reverse while im slowing down from 4th to reverse.do it all the time
Taggart, I had a 57 Chevy with a 427 and an auto trans with a very cheap floor shifter years ago. While trying to teach my wife how to drive she was going down the road about 50 mph and by accident pushed the shifter forward too far into reverse and it went into reverse which made the rear tires rotate in reverse which when it finally got traction threw both of us up towards the dash and caused black and blue marks on both of us. So yes, a transmission can be placed in to reverse while traveling down the road in drive, atleast if the shifter will allow it to go in that position. Mechanically it is NOT impossible for it to happen. It happened to me. A manual transmission is different in that the gears will grind horribly but will go into reverse after you grind the gears down to nubs first, but after they are nubs there wont be any reverse.
I did it on a ’70 Mercury Montego when I first started driving.
Also, the federal government put in a safety law in 1968 that required a neutral position between reverse and drive, so you couldn’t try to shift into low and hit reverse by mistake. From 1991-1998, I owned a ’59 Olds 98 Holiday SportSedan (think of the wrap-around front & back windows and the flattop roof) that had the shifter arranged PNDSLR.
The law was passed at the behest of service writers who enjoyed the puzzled look on customers faces when they’d crisply say, “your perndal was defective and we had to replace it to the tune of $300.” If the car was Reverse down, they had to say “pindslur” which just doesn’t trip off the tongue, rendering the speaker nerd instead of hip.
I remember the push button transmission!..but I think they were on the left side of the steering wheel
Mario, they were in my Rambler.
Back in the 1970′s, my first car was a 1969 Pontiac LeMans convertible. What a great ride. The 350 cubic inch, 4-barrel carburetor engine was a beast. This car was 100% factory and quite heavy due to the convertible top, which required a beefy frame back then. It would run the 1/4 mile in 15.9 seconds. It also had the gas cap hidden behind the rear license plate. I get a chuckle out of what passes for a “muscle” car these days. I rented a 5 liter Mustang in Dallas and this car delivered a throaty roar when you punched the throttle, but alas the speedometer did not keep up with the noise.
I bet the Mustang would do the 1/4 mile in less than 15.9 seconds.
It might, depends on the model and engine. I’d still put an older mustang up against the new ones. The older cars have more “soul” than the new plastic cookie cutter cars.
A 68(?) Mustang with a 289 engine was the fastest car I ever drove..I THINK the A/C Cobra had the same engine
Current 5.0 Mustangs run the quarter mile in the high 12s and give 25 mpg on the highway, 60K miles between tuneups, and 200K mile reliability. There’s nothing but nostalgia that compares current muscle to 60s muscle. The 60s cars are not remotely in the same galaxie (;)) as current performance cars.
Here’s an even more harsh reality check – the current base-model V6 Mustang will run the quarter mile in the upper 13s and get 30 mpg on the highway. It took a big block to match that level of performance in the 60s.
And at 10 m.p.g. if you were way lucky. More likley about 7-8 but they were fun and loud. I ran a 1970 Chevelle SS 454 in the late 70′s and early 80′s that could pass anything on the road except the gas stations. It could lite the rear tires at will in 1st or 2nd gear make em bawl in 3rd and squall into 4th. Gas was in transition from sub $1.00 a gallon to over $2.00 and you could still look and find 100 octane, oh the days of 103 ethyl of the 60′s, I degress, But todays computer controlled cars making 600 H.P. and still getting 25 mpg, it is a whole other world. The old muscle cars of the 60′s-70′s were fun & loud but in todays world they are dinosaurs like the fuel they consumed in mass quanties.
OTOH, the cars I drove in the sixties and seventies easily got 30 +mpg on the highway; now automakers brag about their current offerings getting in the high twenties–and the government has had to drag them kicking and screaming to do that well. I don’t see much progress there.
I actually got a little hot reading this comment. ’69 LeMans… *Swoon*
(PS- I’m about to be 35. I’m not an old lady daydreaming about younger days.)
Hate to break it to you, but a 15.9 is considered rather slow by today’s standards. Heck, a bunch of four cylinders are running below that time, never mind 6s and 8s.
Part of the reason it doesn’t seem that way is that today’s cars are so much more refined, the sensation of acceleration is muted.
And the weight is less in the newer cars. Some of the old cars were built like tanks and nearly as heavy.
That’s not entirely true, most newer cars are much heavier in comparison due to extra weight from things like side impact braces. That’s why a 70 challenger weighs around 3100 lbs depending on engine/transmission as opposed to a 2012 challenger that weighs around 4000
My first car was a ’73 Chevy Laguna. My dad traded a washer a d dryer for it in 1980. That thing was a tank, the heaviest car I’ve driven. And I’ve had two Suburbans.
Plus, once got 10 people into that car ( including me).
New, base-model, V6 Mustangs will do a 1/4 mile in under 15 seconds. The five liters will get there with an ET in the mid twelve second range. The Shelby–with the same displacement as your Pontiac, runs in the elevens.
Your LeMans was fun, no doubt, but it was a pig compared to muscle cars of today. Maybe the rental car had some sort of governing device?
What about those hidden windshield wipers and antenna on mid-70s GM vehicles? Lots of fun digging the accumulated and packed-in snow that was pushed down by the wipers and soon turned into ice from the engine/windshield heat, washer fluid, and road salt, making it so you had to chop it out with the scraper end of a snow brush, and often damaging the wiper blades in the process,. since they lacked hinges and couldn’t be lifted up and moved out of the way..so dumb!!
Another good reason to live in Florida.
Anyone remember the Saab coupe of the 1970′s with the manually retracting flip-up headlamps? There was a rod on the left of the steering column that looked like an additional parking brake release lever conveniently located just ahead of your left knee-cap. It wasn’t uncommon to accidentally push the lamp doors closed with your knee while double clutching during a sideways drift- at night in the rain with 6 foot deep ditches on either side of the road- from what I’ve heard anyway…
That would have been the Saab Sonett III with it’s Ford V4 engine and fiberglass body. I wanted one of those so bad.
you dont double clutch a car. only in a 18 wheeler. you been watching to much fast and furious
You can double clutch any vehicle with a manual transmission.
A clutch is just a convenience. You can shift any manual transmission by putting it into neutral and matching the drive and output gear speeds. The car must be in gear when you start the engine to drive. The clutch is a nice convenience.
With synchronizers in the transmission, it is not necessary to double clutch. I learned to drive a 47 ford pickup with square cut gears and no synchros.
I always dsouble clutch on my 1929 ford which was my first car.
sounds just like the script from Robert Mitchum’s movie, Thunder Road, Jeff. But in the movie, the ’57 Ford drives into a electric power substation instead of into a ditch during the epic moonshine run. That Ford was specially equipped with CAST IRON front fenders, hood, grill, and bumpers to withstand that crash. You say you did all that in a Saab, huh? Smuggling what, a whole quart of whiskey all at once? Sha-ZAM! That’s sure some kind of impressive, there, Goober!
I learned to drive in a 58 ford fairlane with 3 on the tree and overdrive that operated off a cable on the dash. I remember the ignition key on the far left edge of the dash and the hood opened from the windshield forward,also remember chevy’s ignition key had a lock position where you could start the car without the key,nobody locked them in the 60′s.Most pickups in the 60′s didn’t even come with a radio and dashes were all steel without a lick of padding.
The early 50′s Cadillacs had pop up tail lights for the gas filler as well- the red lens was the fin, and, similar to the Chevy, you pushed the little reflector. It’s loads of fun taking my ’56 to a gas station. And it has an “Autronic Eye”- A little pod on the dash automatically dims the headlights when its sees an oncoming car- all run by a black box full of vacuum tubes.
Anyone remember the best heating and ventilating system in the industry? No, not Nash/AMC’s “WeatherEye” (good as it was), but Studebaker’s “Climatizer”. The under-dash levers popped open scoop-like vents in the front fenders just ahead of the doors to bring fresh air directly into the front footwells. In winter the air was directed into the heater core which sat under the front passenger seat and fans blew the heated fresh air front and rear. I never knew a Climatizer-equipped Studebaker to want for fresh air or heat!
Remember push button automatic transnmissions? Dodge and DeSoto come to mind? Hey – remember DeSoto? I guess paddle shifters take the place now. Popup headlights are still cool – except for all the ‘Vettes that go around with the “doors” open and the lights not on. Tells you one thing – the “doors” don’t work. Lot of vacuum tubing there.
Have’nt heard the mention of the ford Edsel at all on here—-A car ahead of it’s time
Who could forget the early Corvairs with a heater fueled by gasoline from the fuel tank. In later years, the design was changed to use hot air from across the engine heads, sometimes laced with engine fumes.
VW had both those features, before GM even put the Corvair into production. They also used the pressure in the spare tire to pump the windshield washer fluid. Great idea, unless you used it too much.
The spare tire that pumped the ww fluid was a VW beetle. I was working in gas station in the 50′s and 60′s, we had full service and it was fun to figure out how to get at the gas cap often.
My then girlfriend, later wife, now ex did not believe the spare tire air pressure was used to work the windshield washer fluid on the VW. I had to stop the car to show her. Then she was a sitting duck when I remarked about how well the radio translator worked to make it play in English not German. I did mention she is my ex-wife now lol.
Not the best place for this reply but before I forget…I had an ’86 Maxima with 3 gimmicks I loved. 1.) The radio had automatic volume icrease – if road noise increased so did hte volume of the radio. 2.) Ms. Maxiam spoke to you admonishing you that “fuel level was low, door is ajar”, etc. 3.) The suspension had 3 setting that were changeable (and noticeable) on the fly i.e. soft, medium and firm. Checking with friends just a few years later with newerMaximas showed Nissan had dropped those “gimmicks” – I loved ‘em!
There’s speed sensitive volume control (SVC) on my wife’s 2010 Honda CRV. I believe GM, Benz, and several others also have had this feature for a while now.
I had a 68 charger with the headlamp doors that stayed closed when lights were off. It created good styling lines and kept headlights a bit cleaner than the exposed variety. They were activated by an electric motor that also had a large knob one could use to open the headlights if the system failed. I thought it was a better idea then the pop up headlights. That car also had a locking gas cap on the rear fender well that looked a bit like the one on race cars and it had a swept wing shape around the rear window which added a lot to the side view lines of the body. A cassette player was optional in some cars. Mine didn’t have it but the idea was great one back then. You could condense all your favorite songs onto one or two cassettes and not need a bunch of them cluttering up the car.
I remember chopping ice off them at sub zero temps in the night before I could go to work in the meat plant. Thank the Lord for the GTO
It’s a forgotten little thing, but I still love the headlight dimmer switch on my 75 Buick LeSabre convertible. It’s on the left floorboard. I never have to move my hands to hit it for oncoming traffic. Using the turn signal lever on my other cars is still a pain in the butt.
My 74 LeSabre was responsible for starting my love affair with POWER! I loved that car! Seats inside that would rival some home furniture. At the time it was the nicest riding car I had ever owned! And that love carried on to my ’71 LeSabre and my ’77 (which I still have.)
Was a shame that it started overheating, and one time it overheated as I was getting off the freeway and someone pulled up mext to me and told me my car was on fire! I yelled back, no, its just overheating. They yelled back “No, its ON FIRE!!” I was able to pull it around the corner and get myself and my 6 month daughter out (who was in a carseat, this was 1991.) The fire department came and did nothing, except push away the Mercedes that I had come to rest behind. It was a sad, sad day.
There was an auto “gimmick” that became mandatory. Until the 50s most cars did not have electric turn signals. You had to open the driver window and signal with your arm. My first drivers test in 1953 required hand signals. My 47 Ford did not have an electric turn signal, but my 54 Ford did. As late as 1953 or so it was illegal in Florida to use an electric turn signal even if your car was equipped.. You had to use the hand signals.
Didn’t the Firebird have hide away headlights right up until its very end?
The idea behind the turn signal-mounted dimmer is that your left hand is supposed to be right next to it. You simply flick your fingers in or out to change the headlight setting.
Also, tugging on the lever allows you to do a quick headlight flash, which has meaning in Europe, and pisses off most Americans.
Don’t know about Europe, but in the US, a headlight flash either indicates the oncoming traffic needs to dim its brights, or it’s ok to change lanes, or Smokey is over the hill.
My ’57 Austin Healey 100-6 had a heater! Wasn’t very effective. Sliding plexiglas windows that leaked but WHAT A CAR!
British heaters of the era were less effective than “a half-dead squirrel breathing through a straw” according to a fellow LBC’er friend of mine.
My stripped ’65 Valiant that cost about $1,642 arrived with no fee based options. It had a heater.
At least some GM cars kept the gas cap behind the license plate into the early 80s.
My father has a 1959 Chrysler Saratoga – think land yacht with enormous fins. It had a few ‘cool’ features that have long since disappeared. They included swing out front seats, pushbutton automatic transmission and the electric eye that dimmed the high beams when it detected an oncoming vehicle.
I have a ’57 Belair (original body and interior) and he factory option that is on it most people are surprised to see, and they are……rain guards on the doors when you open the door they flip up and get rain from coming in the car (which are useless to me since the car never sees rain) but they are very cool and yes the wings in the windows are huge for air flow onto the driver and passenger. Also this car had a 283 with fuel injection which were test motors forthe corvette.
You’ve forgotten two wonderful ideas that are no longer with us:
Headlight washers as in the ’57 Plymouth Fury and swivel front seats in the 59 (?) De Soto. Won’t even bother to bemoan actual spare tires – the fifth wheel that came with the car!
My 88 and 92 MBZ had little wipers on the headlights. A cool but worthless device unless you were driving through mud.
How about the push-button transmission on the 1957 Mercury?
The third headlight may have been against the law in many states, but the main reason for its use (to veer toward the direction of a turn) was a valid safety concern.
Nowadays, there is a technology called “adaptive headlights” which turn the two headlights into the direction of the cars movement when the steering wheel is sharply turned. The details are at this link: http://auto.howstuffworks.com/adaptive-headlight.htm
So the third headlight indeed lead to another development, albeit several decades later when the technology improved.
All this talk about electric cars here, and I’m a fan of the technology- I worked for the Public Utility Industry for many years, as well as in the Automotive industry, and am VERY familiar with electric cars… firsthand. Hate to break the news to you electric car proponents, but they are nothing more than a political tool & football. Furthermore- they are not only as inefficient as a gasoline vehicle, they are FOUR TIMES more inefficient. WHY? Because when you factor in the electric generation and infrastructure needed to get electricity to your car to recharge it, it takes FOUR TIMES the energy & cost than it does for the same for a gasoline vehicle. That is the elephant in the room that many don’t want to acknowledge.
If that doesn’t speak to you, perhaps the fact that electric cars face the same hurdle that technicians did 100 years ago- the issue of storage. The battery is still the problem and nothing has changed dramatically enough to make a positive, viable difference for the general public. The whole issue/hurdle of electricity storage ultimately, hasn’t changed. Better? arguably yes. We want to store electricity the same way we do gasoline, and this is a problem. Gasoline is a whole different form of energy medium than electricity.
While vehicle batteries WORK, they hardly have the capability to be perfectly equitable to a gas tank. We need to change our thinking, and we need to move onto other energy resources and focus on developing those technologies for transit. By the way, the “oil shortage” is a hoax. Believe what you will. Now back to that wonderful ’56 Chevy…
Energy can be stored in a number of different ways. We don’t need to limit our imagination to storage of energy by chemical reactions, as in the accumulators loosely known as “batteries.” Or combustion, as of gasoline, or of carbon monoxide and methane produced by portable charcoal-burners mounted on the car.
When the British nationalized their railways, around 1950, they went all-electric. When designing freight trains today, they plan on magnetic braking systems. Every rolling object can be braked by activating a dynamo to generate power. What you can recover will never match what you put in, but it’s far better than dissipation of heat by friction pads, wasting it and causing pollution.
This system works only because the entire railroad system is connected into one nationwide grid. At any one time a large freight train somewhere in Britain is being braked on a downward slop by its magnetic brake, and feeding energy back into the grid. Somewhere else in the country the energy recovered from some train on a downslope is being recycled to motivate a train drawing electricity out of the grid in order to negotiate an upslope. If the downward braking train is massive it is essentially being braked by lifting some smaller trains up slopes somewhere else in the system.
Won’t work in America, through – our distances are long and most trackage sits idle and rusting for most hours of the day. You need concentrated trackage to build an efficient electrified system. England was lucky – they originated the industrial revolution and got an early start on the most difficult pert of the process, acquisition of land access rights.
naturally the “experts” here forgot the Subaru I owned in the 80s which had a third headlight hidden behind the badge in the middle of the grill and the “experts” also omitted to explain that we never get hit on the side.
Are you kidding me? That third headlight is still awesome!
Caddy convertible (year??) that had a sensor between the front seats that put the top up for you if it detected rain – great for those unexpected Florida showers when you’ve left the top down in a parking lot. One would hope it was disabled when the car was in motion!
I also remember the gas burning heater in VW – ours was on a VW Thing (not yet mentioned hear somehow!)
I knew it! The comments here really *make* the article!
Face it, most of these things we remember from our past will never come back as long as the government has it’s hand in excessive regulations of the auto industry. Maybe, just maybe the big three wouldn’t be in the mess they are if they were allowed to build the cars we really want. When was the last time you said “Honey, that Chevy Volt is one hot car, let’s go to the dealership and check it out?.
Ah the good ole days. If you didn’t pact the front wheel bearings every 10,000 miles you lost them. You oiled the generator, the starter, the distributor, the water pump and greased everything else. Even with grease, the U joints might last 40,000 miles. Ball joints and tie rod ends went out regularly. The vaccum windshield wiper motors were really great. Every time you accelerated the wipers stopped. There’s more, but I get too depressed thinking about it.
My ’64 T-bird had hydraulic windshield wipers that were run by the power steering system. You prayed that it wouldn’t rain when you were looking for new hoses.
Back in 1957 I could fix just about anything that went wrong on my car. And something generally went “wrong” frequently. Now I can’t fix anything that goes wrong with my car but it almost never does.
Vaccum winshield wiper motors, Ah Yes…Sounds just like the deuce and a half I drove in the Army, no problem there, just flip the windshield flat
Anyone remember the Monte Carlos from the late 60′s that had the driver’s seat turn to the left and the steering wheel would tilt up to the right whenever the drivers’s side door was opened?
monte carlo s first year was 1970 no swivel seat
I have a friend who had a ’75 Monte Carlo that DID have the swivel seats in the front.
Wait you missed the
thermador car window swamp cooler
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Car_Cooler_on_1950_Chevy.JPG
Let’s include the push-button, in-dash transmissions (think RAMBLER!)
Or … that weird in-dash 3-speed (?) shifter lever from the peugeot 405 (504?) …
And … those big, nice citröens with the hydraulic suspension that ‘settled down’ when you turned off the engine (and since we’re talking citröen … those really cool 3-wheel trucks!!
And … the little 3-wheel ’59 BMW with the whole front window that was also the way to get in/out ! You could also ‘fart in the gas tank and get clear across the county’ … Hmmm … much like every beetle I’ve had.
Yeah, I could go on and on about cool innovations – pity that the author chose such a limited selection of some really cool innovations that are no longer part of the automotive industry …
(Sometimes it’s fun being OLD!) ☺
Just to get out of the nostalgia … some current innovations are also really cool … like hiding a ladder in the tailgate of a truck … or adding storage in unused places (like wheel wells and under-the-seat & spare tire).
Then include slider doors on BOTH sides of a van! (Yeah, mon!)
Hard-top auto-retractable roofs! Vacuum-powered headlight louvers! The Toronado, with no floor hump (remember the sideways engine?!)
Sigh … and even MORE important … an engine you could actually WORK on!
Oh man, remote control truck bed cover. So sweet, every time I click it I grin.
That front entry BMW was DKW.
Our 1959 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88 was really basic, rubber matting on the floors instead of carpet, no power steering or brakes, no back up lights. The gas filler was under a door in the top of the bumper. As you can imagine, a car that was almost as large as the ’59 Caddy was a monster to steer into and out of a parking place. Great for building up your biceps. That car ran until my Dad donated it to a friend to use in a demolition derby. We called it the “Bomb”
I had the other end of the ’59 Olds line. My Olds was the 98 Holiday SportSedan (think of the wraparound front and back windows).
It had power windows, power steering, power brakes, 2-speed electric wipers with washers, 2-way power front seat and Safety Sentinel (you could set a dial to a certain speed, and a buzzer and neon light would activate if you exceeded that speed) and the optional backup lights. It didn’t have any seat belts, though!
The speedometer was linear, too. It read green until you were doing 35 mph, orange until 65 mph and red above that. The fastest I had the 120-mph speedometer was 115 on the PA Turnpike, but air got under the fins and the back end started doing the hula!
My parents car had a automatic cigarette lighter. You would put the cigarette into a hole in the dash and it would be brought in, lit and then pushed out all automatically.
I remember one car in my family where the gas cap was behind the rear license plate. I also remember retractable radio antennas – are they still around?
As far as getting nostalgic, I lost that when I got my first cars with power steering and air conditioning!
I do miss the old 283 V-8 engine in the 60′s, but only from the sense that a teenager could buy an old car with one for next to nothing, buy a $15 2-barrel carburetor-rebuilding kit, two new manifold gaskets for $5, new points and plugs for $10 and have a motor that might leak oil but never gave up on you! You didn’t have to worry about onboard computers going up and spending $750 to get your wipers working again just because of it, and there were no emission sensors or the “service engine soon” lights. If your alternator went up, you could take a couple screwdrivers and wrenches to a junk yard and find a replacement for $5-$10 because the auto turnover-rate was faster then and you could always find cheap stuff for that popular engine.
I had to fast forward to th end of all these rebuttles since
I don’t have all nite. Back in 1950 I worked for my uncle at
his gas station and a customer had a late ’40s Cadillac with
the gas cap hidden behind the left brake lite. Thought I’d
throw that in just to show how old I am now (77). Yes, I was
also in a one room schoolhouse, 2nd grade and outide was a
hitching post and no, I’m not Amish.Nice speeching atcha.
my frist car was a 1951 dodge with a hill holder it was neat on hills an a pop up air vent behind the hood, and a hand crank up atennta
[...] or Atrocious? 4 Bizarre Car Accessories that Used to Be Cool http://blog.allstate.com/awesome-or-…ed-to-be-cool/ Automakers have always strived to put the latest and greatest gadgets in the cars they make. If [...]
All the Pontiac Fiero’s had pop up headlights as well. And they were the first to use plastic bodies. You could actually remove all the body panels, and have a dune body looking frame to protect you. Very cool car…
I remember some cars in the 1960s or early 1970s had something on the speedometer that you could set for a certain speed. When you reached that speed it would sound an alert as a warning.
I have a 68 Buick Electra 225 convertible with that feature. I think it is called a Safety Sentinel. It also has the filler neck behind the license plate. I had a 55 Cadillac with air conditioning. The unit was in the trunk and it delivered cold air through plexiglass tubes in the rear window to vents in the roof. The dimmer switch was on the floor, and right next to that was a similar button that automatically changed the radio stations. It also had a vaccuum operated antenna and the automatic healight dimmer.
When I was a kid in the 50′s a friend’s parents had a new 59 Cadillac Fleetwood. It had the first cruise control I had ever seen on a car, plus you could make the car rise up on its air suspension with the flick of a switch. In the mid 50′s we were playing hide and seek and I decided to hide by hanging on the front bumper “dagmars” of a 55 or 56 Packard parked in a neighbor’s driveway. Packards had an automatic load leveling feature and after a minute or so my weight was enough to activate the system and it scared the hell out of me when it turned on.
Yes the 1936 Cord had the first pop up headlights & the car that should of been used to compare that too was a 66 toronado. Cord also was the first front wheel drive until the Toronado in 66 . Both had similar grille work too. Toronado was one of the finest American cars made in 1966 – 69 after that they then began to look exactly like a cadillac eldorado & that was a shame! [link removed by admin]
Some of the ancient cars(oo’s, teens) had a chain drive to one front wheel.
My 74 914 Porsche has pop up headlamps as did all of the 914′s, FYI it “averages” 38 mpg no P/S, P/B, windows just a radio. They had the ability to get that kind of mileage back then. If the engine dies I am going to put a VW TDI engine in it and it will probably average in the 60′s due to the weight of the car (2100 lbs wet)
My Dad had a 57 DeSoto that had a speedometer that changed colors the faster you went… I think purple was the fastest… i remember saying make it purple Daddy…
My 1962 Lincoln Continental had the optional reverb system. It gave the radio a echo like sound. Pretty cool. My 1964 Cadillac had a foot switch that would change the radio station when used.
Remember the quadraphonic car radios?..that didn’t last long
I have one of those Thermadores, for my ’68 Karmann Ghia, really neat. Also my ’72 Opel GT had flip-out headlights operated by a lever next to the shift lever. The floor button which I kept trying to dim the headlights with actually pumped washer fluid and activated the wipers.
I have a 69 Charger, I am 99% sure the headlight door covers are vacuum operated. Once the pressure builds up in the motor, they open right up, try to do it before that, it takes a few moments and they open very slowly.
You’re right,almost all pop-ups until fairly recently,were vacuum “powered”.Like the old power brakes.
The family truckster had a wierd location for the gascap
Strange title.
Other than the record player,none of these were,or are,accessories.That’s like including doors on the list.
Dont forget the talking Datsun vehicles of the early 80′s that would tell you if the door was was open or your lights were on……as it was in female voice, most men tired of listening to another woman nagging them on what to do
My mom had a 1987 Chrysler New Yorker. It talked, too, but had a male voice. Mom said that’s the reason she didn’t listen to the car!
Yep, my ’86 Nissan Maxima spoke to me in a feminine voice (and I do not mean Russel Simmons) announcing that th fuel leve was low or tha the door was ajar. I liked it.
Dave, what are you doing Dave? Hal 9000 rign any bells?
That hidden gas caps is so cool! But the reason why it’s now on the car side serves a great purpose, as always, safety first.
I hear the 1984 Yugo had a neat option for colder climates – a rear window defrost to keep your hands warm while you pushed it!
THE best headlight system I have ever seen was on a European model Citroen SM in 1972 (the US version was car of the year). It had SIX (6) quartz-halogen headlights mounted on a headlight bank. The bank was self-leveling separate from the car, which was also self-leveling. Two of the headlights turned IN ADVANCE OF THE TURN. They were controlled by the steering system with utilized tire slip angle to turn the headlights.
The original Citroen 2cv (two cylinder, air-cooled) had a screw knob that allowed manual headlight adjustment. It wasn’t such a bad idea either. The car had some of the softest springing I have ever experienced on any car (2 springs for the entire car). With not a lot of weight, the headlights would shine into the sky. It also came with a hand crank for the windshield wipers because they were controlled by the speedometer cable. At slow speed, the wipers were useless without the crank.
The list of weird devices on Citroens is quite long.
Some European Citroens automatically lowered close to the ground at high speeds to make it more aero dynamic
*make THEM”
My 1972 Chevy Vega had a manual pump button for the windshield washers.
Vegas had a rust problem..and in my opinion were really ugly..boy did the powers that be make ugly cars in the 70s!..the Vega,Gremlin,Pacer,etc..and don’t let your Pinto get rear ended!..the driver is toast
It also came standard with a manual push from behind feature for those frequent times it crapped out on you. That was a no-charge feature that GM thoughtfully included with each Vaguely. In other news, I hear GM had a couple of rough quarters lately. Something about a rupted bank, also. Wonder what’s up with that?
I can’t believe nobody has mentioned the fluid drive transmission. I had a 52′ Chrysler that had this type of tranny and it was the neatest thing. You could get into it and either drive it like an automatic or choose to shift it like a manual. The car had a shift handle on the column that shifted like the old 3 on the columns did and it had a clutch peddle. I don’t understand why this option didn’t stay around, it made it so much more fun to drive. It was great when you were stuck in traffic, you just drove it like an automatic, then when the traffic broke up you took off using the 3 on the column. I never had a single problem with that car. The car also had 4 doors with butterfly windows in each door, a 2 piece windshield, running boards, thick cushy cloth seats, full dash guages, chrome dash, fresh air scoop in front of the windshield, bumpers that stuck out about 8″ front and rear and a flat head six engine with an oil bath airfilter. What a cool car with cool features.
One of the great big cars of the 1950s had a convex bump on the center of the steering wheel. In a major collision, the driver would be thrown against it, resulting in death from a caved-in chest.
In the early 1960s, SAAB made a hot version of their sedan. It was publicized as a racing/rally car. The feature I liked was the outside armrests in the back seats. They had removable padded lids, which inconspicuously covered small storage compartments inside the car doors. The rear seat could also be lifted up to reveal more storage space underneath.
My dad had a Riley, a British roadster of about 1950. It had two gas caps – one on each rear fender. Both pipes led down to the same gas tank. He used to put regular gasoline in one side and high-test in the other to create the optimal octane mix for the car. He’d show the gas station attendants a “little lever” on the dashboard, and got them to believe that just by flipping it, he could pump pure high-test gasoline into the engine to enhance acceleration for passing.
The fedora-wearing president of Chrysler was heard to dismiss the groundbreaking low and sleek 1948 Hudson stepdown by saying, “here at Chrysler, we build cars to ride in, not to piss over.” Guess he had a point, there. Hudson became AMC while Chrysler copied AMC’s Rambler 25 years later calling it “the K-car”. I see way more Hudsons than I do K-cars. Go figure. :/
It doesn’t work because the energy required to charge the battery adds to the load on the engine; you don’t get more energy out than energy in, plus there are conversion losses in the process.
For those people who have sunlight sensitive eyes, some of those cars in the late 40,s and early 50,s had external visors over the front windshields. I am one of those people who would still appreciate those visors again.
The cheap aftermarket sunvisors sold by Western Auto tended to flap in the wind as the car’s speed increased. More than one split windshield was actually torn apart as the sunvisor tore lose from the A-pillars and headed back over the roof into the windshield of the car following behind. Western Auto was slso famous for marketing its window evaporative cooler in the Deep South where high humidity rendered it worse than useless. Hank Williams is said to have stomped one flat after it dumped water on him as he desperately tried to adjust it for a bit of cooling that just wouldn’t happen. The Western Auto store owner found it mangled on his doorstep a couple of days later.
My parents bought a 64 Rambler Classic when I was 15. The first time that I laid the seat down, my girlfriend was awestruck. Even though I had my own car to drive to work and school (61 Dodge Phoenix w/ pushbutton trans), I would always use moms car for dates. They kept it until I was in the Navy. I had a tape player in the Dodge that would play 4 track and 8 track tapes.
Up until fairly recently almost all automotive engineering was to increase speed and power. And dependability? Now almost all engineering is designed to increase fuel efficiency. And safety? And price? Our reward is cars that look pretty much the same. (Who can tell the difference between a Lexus and a Ford Taurus at a quick glance?) Successful bells and whistles are quickly incorporated by everyone. We’ll go back to the good old days as soon as the price of gasoline falls back to 25 cents a gallon.
How about swivel seats? I think Chrysler offered them in the late 50s and Oldsmobile brought them back 20 years later.
How about “fender skirts” Hood ornaments”, florr moutned dimmer swithces” and the most missed of all,,, The little “vent” windows on the front doors the let in air, or sucked out smoke,,, pretty soon cigarette lighters will be out,, currently they’re known as “power ports” ,,,
Our ’56 Buick Century had a hood ornament ( a combo woman/airplane?) and those swivel out vents on the front side windows and sure a cigarette lighter.
Ah the days when the hood ornament expressed the psyche of not only the car’s driver, but also of the whole damned car company if not the entire nation itself. The entire postwar era of Buicks were known then and now as “Bombsight Buicks” due to their massive hood ornaments that looked like crosshairs in a telescopic gun sight. I’d put one on a Lexus if I could find one in a junkyard!
What about the seatbelts that slid back when you got in?
Those were a choking hazard!
The floor dimmer switch was a bad idea in the rust belt. My ’72 Comet, had rust holes in the floor. Just saw a ’77 Michigan Maverick on Ebay, where the floor had rusted so badly, the dimmer switch was mounted on a piece of wood. My father had an ’50′s Plymouth with a push button transmission. The 2013 Lincoln MKZ has a push button automatic transmission (with a manual sport shift setting/paddle shifters) along the driver side of the upper center stack. My ’84 Thunderbird had both a power antenna, and mini-vent (smokers windows), digital dash gauges, and a vaccum based fuel economy “computer’. My ’86 Cougar had an LCD/digital window in the gauge cluster, where you could set a desired speed, and when surpassed a chime would sound to remind you to slow down. The cruise control effectively made that obsolete.
of course you can double clutch a car. I used to do it all the time in my brothers 57 when he would wear out the syncros. And, I do drive 18 wheelers.
I drove a tractor trailer for many years and never touched the clutch unless I was coming to a complete stop.
Can’t wait until those blinding LED headlights are made illegal and join this list of the obsolete. If they hurt your eyes they are damaging your eyes. Not safe blinding oncoming drivers. I miss the nice brushes in the window wells that cleared your windows just by rolling them up and down. Nothing modern about having to squegee your windows.
Door handles are another that have gone from handles, to hidden levers, to “switches” and now returning to handles again
I can’t believe that no one has mentioned the feature of the electric starter switch on the floorboard. Ignition was on the dash, but you had to push that button to crank it over to start.
I remember those floorboard starter cranks on the floor next to the gas pedal.
anybody recall the Terraplane “electric hand” shifter? It was a teeny tiny lever that when moved in the same H-pattern as a regular column stick, electically shifted the transmission gears. Very classy for the hat and gloves Ladies Do Lunch set! As a backup, a conventional shift lever was provided also. Consensus has it that the electric hand worked fine during the 90 day new car warranty period, but on the 91st day, smoke poured out of it and it was conventionally shifted ever after.
Speaking of which, the Terraplane was named after it’s most infamous feature, the freewheeling back wheel hubs. A lever was pulled by the driver when going downhill and all drag from the engine and drivetrain was isolated by the “freewheeling” lockout hubs. Think Georgia Overdrive on steroids. Most Terraplanes ended up as heaps of mangled burning metal in ditches or streams with their owners roasting alive while frantically trying to extricate themselves or jammed lifeless high in a tree 100 feet away. Fumeral parlours were known to give deals known as Terraplane Specials to help families burdened with the cost of multiple funerals at once.
No, I’m not making this up.
Let’s see. You hit the brake or put on the left turn signal; gas fumes have accumulated behind that clever taillight piece, a small spark on a corroded connection…and BOOM! I wonder how many Chevys were on the road with the left fin missing and a surrounding area of sharded metal.
I can’t think of a better way to pep up a dull day in the mid 1950′s.
Considering how many 55-57 chevies are still around, I’d say that wasn’t a problem.
…and also surprised that no one mentioned the Cowl Vent. Along with the vent windows and floor-mounted dimmer switch on my street-rodded ’40 Chevy Business Coupe. Yes, the ’40 Stoodies had vents, too, but they were on the front fender’s side panel, behind the wheel well, similar to the pop-out vents on the ’55 T-Bird.
None of these, with the exception of the turntable, qualify as accessories. They were standard features built into those vehicles.
This is the dumbest bunch of comments ever. Going from how you open the gas filler cap on some old rust bucket car, from discussions about using the turn signals, which more ppl DO need to learn how. Yet I notice some 67 yr old managed to get a gripe in about those gosh gern youngsters texting and talking on those foolish cell phones. I am an 80′s child I love pop up headlights, remember the lotus, thought hidden fillers wre a pain.. and can drive a stick shift twin turbo, turn a corner (w signal) be talking on the phone sent a text and take a drink of soda.. AND turn into the closest lane to me., not drift across three of them.
Oh and I forgot.. RAnks right up there with ppl who don’t signal.. those that drive slow in the fast lane(s) or HOV lanes and REFUSE to get over. LIke its their pompus right to clog it up. and dont get me started on the Priuii (plural for Prius) The gas they are saving the rest of us use up to pass their slow go carts go green you bastards and drive in the grass!
I have a 2011 Camaro 2SS equipped with HUD (Heads-Up-Display). For those not familiar with HUD, it projects a “hologram” of the speedometer, tachometer, and other info in cool blue light onto the windshield. Now I never have to look down through the steering wheel to see the gauges. After using this system awhile, you will NEVER want to be without it!! I can’t stress enough what an awesome convienient safety option it is.
The vehicle also has a host of other techy options such as Bluetooth, OnStar, HID headlamps, LED Daytime Running Lights, heated front seats, automatic headlamps, and much, much more. Not to mention a hefty 426 horses under the hood, massive Brembo brakes, and a crisp 6-speed manual transmission. The RS package adds cool blue LED interior accent lighting, leather, and extra guages for transmission temp., oil pressure, etc. What a FUN car to drive!! It just wants to go-go-go like a big, happy go-cart. As expected however, fuel mileage is not so good. (I think I get about 16-18 mpg average) I can’t go to the carwash without 2 or 3 guys “oohing” and “ahhing” over it. It is, by far, the most fun vehicle I have ever owned.
I’m with you on the high tech stuff, buddy! My ’53 Ford Mainline is loaded with manual steering, manual brakes, manual tranny with not one, not two, but THREE whole forward gears, hand signals in summer AND winter, a nifty heater with a tinge of lukewarmish water sort of circulating through it sometimes, not one but TWO bench seats one in front and one in back, a genuine rubber floormat that makes my annual interior cleanup a breeze, an exterior sunvisor that’s super handy when I forget my aviator sunglasses at home hooked to the rotary dial on my wall phone. You’d better sit down for this: an actual STOVE on the exhaust manifold of the Flathead V8, perfect for grilling hotdogs during those California trips on Route 66. Oh, and the big wow factor: a windup weekend clock in the middle of the dash that actually ticks and everything. Only one mirror, though… inside. None outside. That way from the factory. But you know the old dictum: A real man is zooming ahead not worrying about what the slowpokes behind are doing. In Ford’s 50th Anniversary Book, free to every new ’53 Ford buyer, they brag about how Police Fords have actual FOUR BARREL CARBURATORS which can’t be allowed on regular passenger cars because they’d be dangerously fast. Yeah, us techies got it going on, brah!
Whoever it was that convinced you that you’re funny,or witty,did you,and more importantly the rest of the world a great disservice.
Don’t quit your day job,standup isn’t your thing.
Curb feelers.
I remember curb feelers on my dad’s car and seen them on older peoples cars up to the 1960′s
Please bring back the hidden gas cap, and use sensors in the new electonic stearing to autmatically activate the turn signals! How about a minmum IQ in order to receive a driver’s license?
There were many good gimics over the years. 1930 cars not great. But from the 40′s up cars were getting better and better. Many good gimics. The problem with American auto makers is they were deliberately designed to go bad quickly. any car with 60,000 miles was ready for expensive repairs. Dealers were not enforcing warrantees until “lemon laws” were passed. American cars have gotten better; but it’s still buyer beware.
Todays best gimics are for safety: initated by volvo, enforced by our Federal laws; implimented by the Japanese, and copied by GM, ford and Chrysler. I still like all the older car gimics on the American cars.
These are not accessories, well the record player is. These are features on cars. An accessory is something that was optional or aftermarket. You couldn’t order one of these vehicles that came with a hidden gas filler with a non hidden one. You couldn’t order a Tucker without the center headlight. They were FEATURES. Same goes for the pop up headlights. You can’t install them without doing major surgery to a vehicle, hence it’s not really an accessory. The title is misleading. I thought it was going to be about things people ADDED to their cars, not how they came from the manufacturer. More on the dumbing down of America later.
Remember the C4 Corvettes that had the fuel filler on the deck lid? It had the door with the logo on it that opened to reveal it. That would have been a great idea if it didn’t cause water to go into the tank in the rain, or when the car was wet, and you went to fill up.
Pop-up headlights were awesome, and the Trans Am had them until 2002. I had a 96. I wish they’d bring back pop-up lights. I want them again, this time with LEDs or HIDs.
The third headlight was useless. Now we just have swiveling projectors inside the two headlights to see around corners. Have them in my CTS-V. They help a little, but not much.
My dad had a Merceds that had pedal on the left in the footwell. One pressed down the pedal and the windshield wipers would operate briefly. However if onecontinued to press down there was a rubber button
that operated the fluid forthe wiper. Kind of neat and worked for years and years.
What about chandeliers? Are those still en vogue?
In the early 50′s there was the Henry J Kaiser that was sold through the Sears catalog called the Allstate.
How about hood ornaments? Getting thrown through the windshield and getting caught on one of them could finish you off if going through the windshield didn’t.
In Florida we call those continuous blinking lights going down I-95 “an eventual left”.
Actually, that is incorrect. The taillight assembly swung down only after you twisted the vertical bar above the taillight. That is what released the locking mechanism.
My 71 Dart Swinger had the floor mounted washer fluid pump. It was right next to the headlight dimmer switch and if you weren’t paying attention it was easy to hit one when you wanted the other.
My truck still has a tape deck :-\
And i always failed to see the wisdom of placing the gas tank opening two inches directly behind an active wiring harness and a bunch of hot bulbs.
Chrysler seems to like that latter feature. It had had “Swivel ‘n’ Go” as an option for the second row seats in its minivans for several years recently. Not sure it’s still available.
Back in ’65 I had a Norelco 45rpm record player installed under the dash of my Triumph TR-4A. Surprisingly that sucker rarely skipped and the little British sports car had a pretty tight suspension.
With a perfect driving record at age 67, and a driver who has never once used the horn other than to test it, I recommend laws to reduce people blaring their horn, often in anger.
to B.
I am also 67 years old with a clean driving record. All those people blaring horns at you are because you are a terrible driver the kind who drives 50 in the fast lane and changes lane without a blinker. I honk at people on the freeway who are drifting or changing lanes without seeing me. I assume they are greatful because it can save their life. I also thank anyone who honks at me if I am sitting stupidly at a light when it changes which I assume you are not. Blinkers are the reason in my town that cops stop drunk drivers and get them off the road. It is called an illegal lane change and they stop people for this and then check them for alcohol and drugs. I have not person experience with this and read our local paper and yes their dumb people of all ages not using a blinker.
Turn signals will always be left on by everyone at some point in their driving life. Automakers need to take a tip from Honda on motorcycles in that the turn signal will automatically go off after so many feet if it doesn’t feel the bike make a turn.
Fuzzy dice are “accessories.” None of the items listed here are “accessories.”
Tucker was ahead of his time. A lot of cars today have headlights that swivel with the steering so you can see around the corner. The technology is finally such that the systems are reliable.
People who write about the lack of use of turn signals in Florida probably haven’t thought of the number of older drivers in Florida, and those turn signals are sooooo hard to push.
It takes X amount of energy to move X amount of weight at X speed. Usually measured in BTU’s. In that context the EPA “MPH” estimates for electric cars are less than accurate, they’re just silly.
My father, living in FL, only uses his signal when he THINKS there are cars around him. Drives me crazy.
Al Hoove, I don’t know who you are, but you have made me cry with laughter at your seriously entertaining banter. I wish I had seen this article and comment thread back in December when it was alive. Thanks for making my day!
My 58 Caddy you had to push the reflector.