13 UNUSUAL Old Car Features, No One Wants Anymore!
Discover the quirky side of automotive history with "13 UNUSUAL Old Car Features, No One Wants Anymore!" This video explores peculiar car features from the 1950s to the 1990s in the USA that were disliked and have since disappeared. From odd designs to impractical gadgets, these features were once part of everyday driving but are now a thing of the past. If you're a car enthusiast or curious about the evolution of automotive technology, this video is a must-watch!
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"By the mid one thounsand, nine hundred and ninety es." You can really tell that this wasn't narrated by a real person.
Yeah, that's where I oouldn't take it anymore. 😀
And who can forget the "Jag-you-are".
Sooo bar oooo . . . . 🤔
It was a real person, talking like a robot?
@@cyborgdale I JUST noticed that
The two things I miss..(1) vent windows (2) the rain gutter that prevented snow and rain from the roof landing on the seat when the door is opened
Ash trays.
@@makerspace533 10 years ago I went thru the pre buying option selection phase to buy a new truck. I selected an ashtray but didnt see it in the brochure. I contacted the manufacturer and was assured there was one. A certain style grille was also selected. The truck arrived with neither. They did eventually replace the grille but for an ashtray they sent me one of those cheesy plastic drink cups like you would get at a convenience store which I couldn't use as there was no way to butt my ciggy. So yes call it a candy dish whatever but in the interests of safety they should never have quit installing ashtrays as now folks just throw their ciggys out the window. ( I quit smoking years ago but still miss them for other holding stuff).
@@barnycanuck6234 I don't smoke either, but they were great for coins.
@@makerspace533why, so you're car can smell like ass all the time? It ain't that hard to hold a cig and drive at the same time.
@@zacharyjacobs7233 I don't smoke. It's just a handy place to throw change and stuff. Does your ass smell like a cigarette?
"In the 1990s the era of car mounted record players ended..." is the most ridiculous statement I have ever heard. FAIL.
Obviously an error. Deal with it.
😂
@@catlady8324 Yes, it IS an obvious error. Which means it never should've made it into the final cut. So the criticism is warranted.
@@Milesco Wow! You’re so smart Captain Obvious! Why do you have zero videos on your channel?
@@catlady8324 You're not very bright, are you? (Oops, sorry -- was that fact too obvious?)
Bad robovoice, bad editing, content has more errors than a Braves game. Wish I could vote it down thrice.
"so, by the mid one thousand nine hundred ninety E S..." Whaaaa?
😂😂😂
@@drgruber57 sounds like a Samsung Galaxy or iPhone model 😂
@@JoeOrber Not even my first iPhone (3G model) sounded that bad.
@@MarinCipollina lol true, that was my first smartphone hahaha 😆
I never remember the record player and I'm sure it was not there in 1990 as stated. 8-Track tapes came out in the 60's and they were replaced by cassetts in the 70's. Then there were the c-ds in the 80.s. Record players in cars were long gone.
The record players were from the late 1950's. Ungodly expensive, and they didn't work well, winding up scratching the records so they went out of interest quickly.
A friend of mine got a record player from a catalog in 1965 for his 57 Chevy. WHAT A PIECE OF JUNK !!
Yeah, they messed that up. I doubt any cars had a record player after the late 1950's. Maybe a few early 1960's but it would be dumb once tape came out. I have owned and restored cars as old as 1964 and NEVER seen one with a record player.
Definitely an error, by the beginning of the 90s nobody bought records anymore, even pre-recorded cassette tapes were being phased out 😂
@@whichgodofthousandsmeansno5306 I think they disappeared entirely by 1962 or so.
11:35 That is not a Corvair. It is a '61 Impala.. 11:55 That is not a Corvair swing axle. 11:59 That is not an independent rear suspension.
When was a Corvair an Impala? A: About the same time Kurt Cobain was a cast member in Glee. There’s just so much to be learned by social media.
Was about to post this haha
@@guyl9208 post A or post B? 😂
By the time Unsafe at any speed went to print, the lawsuit he emphasised had been reversed on appeal. Nader didn't mention that.
@@bertmeinders6758 The Corvair was a victim of inflating the tires without following model-specific instructions: the rear engine required higher rear tire pressure.
So many errors on this video If you think fiberglass is bad you should give Chevrolet a call and ask them about their Corvette it too was made of fiberglass. The Subaru 360 was just too small and too slow for the American market, but I do remember seeing the Subaru 360 at the New York Auto Show when it was first introduced and I knew that nobody would feel safe in such a tiny car. By the way you should read up on your history since you got the country of Yugoslavia WRONG it was not a Soviet Block country it was a Socialist Republic headed by Josip Broz Tito. Plus whoever is narrating your video needs an enema he sounds constipated.
Also the V-8-6-4 was only in production for 1 year not until 1984 as the video said. There were no safety issues with the Tele-Touch. It was discontinued because it failed to change the gears every time as it used a string of solenoids unlike the Chrysler push buttons which were direct.
@@mexicanspec and they didn't give up on record players until the 90's??? lol
That was such a rare option in the '50's that most people didn't know it existed. How the '90's got into this video I will never know.@@Jimmeh_B
@@mexicanspec The V-8-6-4 may have only been in production from late-1980 through the 1981 model year, the engine that it was based on, the 6L V-8, remained in production, yes, through the 1984 model year. BUT, it was only available in the Fleetwood 75 Commercial chassis. These were the factory limousines and custom aftermarket built hearses/ambulances. Reverting to a 4 Bbl. carburetor, 150 net HP was better than the 120 HP HT4100. Most of the aftermarket stretch limo's were built on a standard Fleetwood Brougham chassis. The engines didn't last too long.
The Subaru 360 was sold in the U.S. for a few years along with it's van-type companion. Subaru was introduced to the U.S. market by Malcolm Bricklin. In town, we had an AMC dealer who would give you a Subaru 360 if you bought a new Rambler. Otherwise, you could buy the Subaru outright for $600. or $700.
5 buttons. That thing had 5 fucking buttons and it was to confusing for people??? It's amazing we've made it this far. Like, we can get to the moon, but we can't figure out 5 mother fucking buttons right in front of us!?
Amen
tbf they don't send idiots to the moon but do give them driving licenses ...
It was too confusing as people were not used to those buttons but to a shift stick. If I would switch gas and break pedal, the car is not harder to drive: There are still just two pedals and one still controls gas and one still control breaks, so not a lot has changed, right? But guess how many accidents there would be because people accidentally pressed the wrong pedal? When you are used to drive a car in a certain way for 10, 20 or maybe even 30 years and all of a sudden cars don't work that way anymore, that is a problem. I'm sure drivers who learned driving with those 5 buttons and never drove anything else had no issues with them but how many of the people who bought that car would fall into that category?
Buttons is hard...
I get to work on newer vehicles in my field and for the past few years it takes me a while to figure out how to get in reverse or drive on many of these freaking science fiction space ships. Buttons right in the middle of the steering wheel could not be easier. How it confused anyone is astounding. "D"..."R" "P".... really?
Speaking of unwanted car features, I just can't stand those idiotic infotainment screens that protrude from car dashboards today! They look like they have been duct taped to the dash, they obscure the view of the road, and they just look, well, stupid. Whatever happened to integrating the infotainment screens INTO the dash, where they DO NOT obscure the view of the road? These days, nearly every darn car from an Amazon delivery truck to a Mercedes Benz has those awful, out of place, screens. edit: way back when, our neighbor owned a Jag XK8 😄 After he had that thing towed to the shop for the second time, he bought a Lexus. 👍
ive not seen an in dash anything that blocks your veiw of the road, what screen blocking your veiw of the road are talking about
I just hate the idea of having to scroll through menus to operate basic features. Hopefully that will go away. Not only for safety and convenience but because who wants to deal with losing so many features because a screen went out? And they ALL will go out eventually.
They are okay for a back up camera. But once driving forward no one driving should be watching or operating a screen at the same time. Just the windscreen. Lord knows how many accidents are caused by the distraction?
GM does a better job of integrating screens than anyone.. Benz is one of the worst.. theirs look like iPad glued to the dashboard.
They're a driver distraction which should not be visible to or controllable by the driver. Riding a motorcycle most of the time I am all too well aware of distracted drivers. And talking dashboards? I was offered a tidy, smokeless Renault 25 in the 1990s, cheap because it could not be silenced (malfunction) and spoke only Arabic.
They headed touch screens back then and we still do! Just give me a knob to make my heat or defrost go on and I'll play the radio to my own station
Touch screens are certainly a hazard; yes, we USED to have touch controls but those didn't require even looking at them, all could be adjusted by feel, without ever taking our eyes off the road. Now every car requires the driver to stop watching traffic, in order to adjust ANYTHING, which increases accidents. I cannot understand how this junk becomes a good idea to anyone.
I am in the automotive electronics industry and see the sticker shock when people want to replace a broken radio or upgrade it. I have to explain it is not my fault the factory decided to install an AM/FM air conditioner. So dumb.
I like the Yugo car 3.990$....hell i could buy a new one every month! Wish the prices today will be cheaper
@@d.e.b.b5788 Dang man, I agree. With all this hype about safety and cars being so much safer and you have to need 3 or 4 button presses to do most things. What was the problem with texting and driving, Oh yeah that's right taking you eyes off the road to press a button. Oh this isn't texting it's safe button pressing.
Yes, we all must have a car that looks like a half melted bar of soap. And it must be grey, silver, black, or white.
9:08 My brother dropped a small block AMC V-8 in his Gremlin and turned it into a screaming hot drag racing machine. I remember the first time he took it to the drag strip and the smart-ass announcer thought he was going to be funny. He said something to the effect that everyone should get out their calendars and time the car down the quarter mile. He had to eat his words when he saw the elapsed time (ET) and top speed. LOL
A guy I went to high school with had a Pacer with an AMC 360... It was QUICK!
@@caseyfox4414 That was the engine my brother had, it was a great sleeper.
back in the day i thought gremlins were beyond ugly, but today they have a special kind of charm to them.
@@easterworshipper5579 I also owned a Gremlin with an inline six engine that was surprisingly fast. The advantage a lot of those small cars had was low weight, so the weight to horsepower ration was quite low.
I knew a guy that dropped a 440 into a Plymouth Duster. All he had to change was the oil pan and the exhaust manifold.
They took out the ash trays - and now smokers just flick their butts out the window - *genius*
In all fairness, they always have, most ashtrays were removable. Nasty people would let them fill up and then they would dump them out the window
Stop smoking! Let’s try to chew it this time! 😂😂😂
Because I dislike dirty ashtray cars as if they gross me out and make me gag repeatedly.
13:33. That is a REATTA not a Riviera.
These people don't know what they're talking about they don't even know that the tellea touch Edsel was an automatic
And the Subaru 360 is now worth Megabucks so don't talk about that being worth nothing this is the biggest clickbait I've ever seen that doesn't know what the hell they're talking about
Do you wonder what percentage of viewers didn't catch this glaring error?
thank you. I knew this at first glance but couldn't put my finger on it
Car record players were phased out in the early 1960s.
I guess that robovoice decided to flip a number upside down to avoid controversy 😂
I have seen tons of vintage cars. I have never seen one with a record player. I once rode in an old Ford with a rumble seat and no speedometer, only a tachometer.
@@protorhinocerator142 do an internet search on "record players in cars" the initial result will have a pic of a car record player. Now, click on "images" in the result header. Bingo!! All the pics of record players in cars you could dream of. Enjoy.
best of all is the air conditioning "cools in winter, heats in summer..."
The concept of the Teletouch Transmission was totally valid. Chrysler had push button transmission selectors for years with no problems. Ford's execution was inadequate and the location in the steering wheel center hub was just awkward.
Chrysler pushbutton was an automatic, the Teletouch was a manual using solenoid servos to shift, but you still had to clutch.
I recently drove an Aston Martin DB9 that had touch buttons above the center console to change gears.
Where did you get that idea?@@johnpohlson9860
Packard offered a push-button control for the "Twin Utramatic" transmission in 1956, Mercury offered push-button transmission as an option on the '57-'58 modrls, and AMC's Rambler and Ambassador models offered push-button shifted Flash-O-Matic in the '58-'62 models. And Renault used push-buttons for automatic Dauphines and the R-10 and R-12 models well into the sixties.
@@johnpohlson9860 There was no clutch on the Teletouch. It was the same automatic transmission used in Ford cars. The only difference was where the fords used a traditional shift linkage, the Edsel used the buttons to control an electric motor mounted on the tranny that moved the mechanical linkage. I had a '58 Villager wagon and other than the electric shift (which the previous owner had converted to a mechanical linkage on the floor), it was a good dependable car.
15:57 Started in the Mid One Thousand Nine Hundred and Eighty S S! I did not know Renault had a car model called " Mid One Thousand Nine Hundred and Eighty S S!"
Damn, beat me to it 😂
One of my best friends had one. I don't recall it talking, but we slid it sideways on ice for about four blocks one time...
I think that’s a new Samsung Galaxy or iPhone model 😂
Wait, air conditioning was an unusual feature that no one wants anymore? 🤦
Said no one ever who lives in South Florida...
@@whichgodofthousandsmeansno5306 Or California, or Arizona, or anywhere in the Sunbelt.
I think it was because the penguins smelled fishy.
No, it was that damn penguin that came with it, that they didn't like. You had to feed it and the car smelled like fish. 😁
@@whichgodofthousandsmeansno5306Said no one ever in the world*, probably. A.C includes heater too.
I'm 74 and never even heard of the record player in a car; if such indeed existed it ended well before the 1990's. I saw my first 8 track in early 70's.
My mate had a record player which played 45s in his car in the early 70s, but it was a 1963 Vauxhall Victor FB
Come on man, the Jaguar's problem was not the plastic tensioner, many car has plastic tensioners nowadays. The Jag's problem was the Nikasil coating on the cylinder liners. The fuel with high sulphur content (which was not uncommon at that time) eats up this coating. Then the piston rings score the liner and the engine got low compression as a result.
Washing the bores. Short journeys killed them
Ford Edsel? It is just Edsel. It was a brand, not a model. You would not say Ford Lincoln, or Ford Mercury. The 360 was not made of fiberglass. Only its roof was I think. Corvair? Swing Axle? Riviera?
The Edsel was a division of Ford and created by and named after Henry Ford’s only son Edsel Ford. Edsel was also responsible for creating the Lincoln and Mercury divisions of Ford. During Ford’s peak in the ‘60-‘80s, dealerships were identified as Ford Lincoln Mercury.
The problem with some of these features is that they were ahead of their time. The technology did not exist to make what they were trying to do work in a useful and practical way. Touch screens are standard in cars nowadays. Unusual old car features that were made before the technology was ready. However, some of these features were simply very bad ideas such as in-dash record players.
Touch screens are dangerous. All it takes, is a second with your eyes off the road, and BAM! You've now crashed into something, all because the designers created a control system that you had to look at instead of feel. 1960's radios, tape players, a/c, windows and heat controls were all designed to be easily adjustable by feel, you never had to look at them to adjust them.
Wasn’t the 1980’s Pontiac Fiero made of fiberglass?
@@InCaveEntertainment It was a combination of fiberglass and metal.
@@d.e.b.b5788That is part of my love-hate relationship with my Tesla. The lack of buttons and knobs makes the interior look nice and sleek, but trying to adjust the temperature or fan speed for the heat/ac is a nightmare of taking your eyes off the road, touching the screen just right and dealing with any bumps in the road while trying to adjust the slider on the screen. You even need to use the screen to open the glovebox.
@@d.e.b.b5788 I don't remember which one but one of my son's GM cars would randomly display a message on the screen warning the driver to keep their eyes on the road. You had to focus on the screen to remove it!
Overengineering stuff is the downfall of the automotive industry. I wish they would stop.
Agreed
Chrysler offered a talking car in the 1980s
So did Datsun.
Porter built one (only one) in 1928. _My Mother, The Car_
Mitsubishi too I think. It would say things like "Door Ajar. Key in Ignition" etc. So dumb.
Yeah.. Problem was that nobody was asking for a talking car.
@whichgodofthousandsmeansno5306 yes it would say things like that, it was a dumb feature.
Ah, the Ford Edsel, so much hate and so many people calling it ugly, and here I am loving its looks and dreaming of owning one 😂
Can you imagine, people were confused and maybe almost about to die, because a steering wheel had "5" buttons on it!
@@kwils6685 And pushbutton shifters are on new cars today.
@@oldtc3615 Don't get me started on new cars today. I have to work on them and sometimes it takes me 5 minutes to figure out how to get it moving. Some buttons that say "P. R, N, D" would be so nice.
"Imagine being excited for your favorite song only to have it skip at every bump" Ah I remember you well diskman...... and I'm glad you're gone.
Your discman did not have a buffer?.
@@fitzstv8506 poor midwesterner
@@FolkBlue No one is perfect!
By like 1994 even the cheap portable CD-players had a ten second anti-skip.
@@BigFatCone And they worked flawlessly and forever right? There is no way that my joke is representative of my own experience in the 90's and drawn directly from those experiences and the feedback from my peers. Jesus dude is it that rough do you need a hug?
Oooh! They really had me rolling when I heard, “… that only a *man* can really understand!” Here’s to all the great women mechanics of past, present, and future! I personally met a lady who owned her own shop, where she repaired big trucks, and she was brilliant! 😊
Bring back front side vent windows !
In the early 1970s, handling difficulties with the Corvair were proven no worse than other cars of that era if driven as designed (not like a sports car) and the specific issue was repaired in 1964 and as indicated, resolved in 1965 to the end of production.
The problem was that American drivers were nowhere near skilled enough to know the limits of the Corvair's suspension and some of models were sold a poor-man's sports cars. GM could have made all of the suspension upgrades of the '64 model standard from the start; they were always available. Also, relief valves on the front tires would have prevented mechanics, who were used to working on normal cars, from over-inflating the 16 PSI front tires. There was plenty of internal debate over the Corvair at GM, but when it came time to start shipping it, the orders were (to paraphrase Iggy Pop) "This isn't the right thing to do, so let's go!"
Automatic car record players were gone by the 60s any trace that was gotten rid of by eight track tape
@pcno2832, no, the problem was that self-promoting grifter Ralph Nader saw an easy way to get famous and make a quick buck at the same time.
The engines were JUNK !!!
@@mikesmith-po8nd Meh.. I think he was trying to protect consumers but went too far. Most of us can drive anything and not blow up or wreck. But there are so many idiots on the road unqualified to drive and seems they all want to kill me.
Nader didn’t even have a driver’s license. The Corvair was a fun car to drive if you knew how to handle oversteer. All other American land yachts understeered.
In the 1950’s, my aunt and uncle bought a house in Los Angeles California. My uncle worked as a presser in a dry cleaner his entire life. My mother purchased her house for $11,000 in the 1950’s. In the 2000’s, purchasing a house in Southern California is only possible for the wealthy. Previously, teachers and union members could afford to purchase houses in SoCal. I could give up cellphones, iPads, home computers, Facebook, Internet influencers, and Google for cheaper more affordable home ownership and rent. All of this electric junk, Internet apps, and the way people have become stupid and deliberately misspell words and make up acronyms in the age of the standardized dictionary, and the way people would rather text on their cellphone than talk to the human being standing in front of them is what is useless.
I never seen a car in the 90 s have a turntable in it
Because none ever existed. They goofed that up. By the early 60's it was obsolete unless someone rigged one into a later model car. By 1990 I don't think any cars made would even have a spot to fit a turntable lol.
It is not the 90s, it is “the one thousand nine hundred ninety E.S.”, a completely different era 😂
you mean the 'mid one thousand, nine hundred and nineties.' - this video ... ???
The were gone by the 70’s.
*hold my beer*
Before we were married, my wife bought a 74 gremlin, mostly because of gas mileage it has a 21 gallon gas tank, and the mileage was really good on the six cylinder. We liked it.
So the fiberglass body on a subaru was considered unsafe but the fiberglass body on the vette was desired.
02:16 - "By the mid one thousand nine hundred ninety ess" When text-to-speech doesn't understand "1990s"
Amd the person making this video not watcing it before rendering it to file.
I miss old cars.
I thought the Gremlin was pretty cool. Especially the one my neighbor had with a V8 and manual shift. He hot rodded it and I was in love. Now the Pacer.. that was a train wreck. Known for it's great visibility but no one wanted to be seen in it lol.
The Gremlin be it a strange beast is kind of cool. Well compared to a Cybertruck that looks like it was designed by a toddler.
Pacers were a rolling fish bowl.
or the spirit
Not sure where the idea of the plastic tensioner damaged the Jaguar's good reputation. I've never heard of any Jaguar having a good reputation. That's also a small factor in the car's bad reputation.
Still despise touch screens for the reasons given.
No one wants sensors anymore, just more to fix. No one wants car prices so expensive, they have to live in it if they buy it.
My uncle bought an Edsel. He got so mixed up with the buttons on the steering wheel he went off the road and was killed when he hit a tree. After that he didn't buy any more Edsels. Well, he was dead, so....
Just like any other automatic there was/is really no reason to shift while the car is moving (except maybe to downshift when crawling slowly down a really steep hill). The only real problem with the Edsel teletouch system was the unreliable electric servo motor that actually did the shifting.
@@markpospichal1309 I mean, for Americans a manual is a right nightmare to operate so I understand how pusing buttons could be hard.
There are a lot of errors in this video. Record players in cars were phased out when 8 track tapes came out in the 70s.
The early tapes were nasty quality and the automotive tape decks enjoyed the taste and texture of popular music
8 tracks came and went fast. My '72 Chrysler had a cassette. They lasted longer before CDs killed them.
@@M1903a4 but while they were there, they were awesome. they had some technologies for music that cassettes could not carry, thank god for CD's and DVD's
Engineer to CEO: We have problems to correct before we start selling it. CEO: I don't care about the problems. We need to kick it out the door and start making money.
9:40 The Nash-Kelvinator "ALL SEASON WEATHER EYE" air conditioning system was the first integrated automotive HVAC system and is the general layout that almost all cars use now, seventy years later.
It didn't have a compressor it was just the name
@@RonaldDaub-xi5jz Actually, the "ALL SEASON WEATHER EYE" was a true air conditioning system using a refrigeration system produced by the Kelvinator division of Nash-Kelvinator.
Owned a Suzuki Titan 500cc 2-stroke that screamed out of the hole...traded for a Suzuki CB 750 "Water Buffalo" that I never truly liked and traded for a Chopped Triumph with extended front forks That's the one that nearly my life.
The 1965 Buick Riviera had hideaway headlights but the 1936 Cord was the pioneer of this design. the 1940 Shark Nose Graham was the pioneer in composit headlight design
One of my best friend's family bought a new 1975 Gremlin "back in the day". The tiny back seat was nothing less than TORTURE! Too small for anyone larger than a toddler!
compared to todays automobiles where unless you see the brand badge they all look alike. Just because the Gremlin looked different didn't mean it wasn't a good car. Ralph Nader never even rode in a Corvair. Just like a lot of lawyers today he was out to make a name for himself even if he lied about it. Why don't you do a video on things they have taken away from cars that should come back. Like tow hooks to get pulled when you are stuck. And cars that you can fix yourself without computers.
If the Gremlin was so bad ---> why didn't the Pacer get mention? It was like driving in a fishbowl.
It's too bad modern vehicles don't offer an in-dash CD player any more.
A test track engineer once said about the Corvair swing axle, "It was never proven that a Corvair would roll over if left alone in a parking lot."
I'm just going to touch on a couple of things. Automatic seat belts were a response to the passive restraint requirement for all MY 1990 cars sold stateside - yes some cars had them before that model year. Air bags were required by MY 1999 so no need for a passive belt. I concede that they were universally hated. If you really think fiberglass sucks for a car body then you might want to talk to Chevrolet. As for durability you might want to talk to the boating industry as a whole. They also don't rust. Furthermore sheet metal or fiberglass bodies don't do didly in a crash with regards to protection. The Subaru was simply too small, smaller than a Beetle, and slow compared to the land yachts roaming the roads at the time. Lastly the GCC in the Riveria and Reattas was simply too advanced for its time. I had one in a 1989 Riveria that worked much better than any modern touch screen I've had. Yes it took a little time to remember where the "buttons" were but how is that any different than the loads of menus we have today. I enjoyed my GCC until the day I got rid of it. As a matter of fact it was the only thing that didn't break on that car.
You obviously didn't get " hung up " by your belts
@@davekeller2798 I got it. As someone who owned a 1990 Accord with them it happened a few times to passengers
Romantic, I agree, fiberglass isn't much to it. I wondered why GM didn't make them out of steel and solve the problem. Composite will be the next thing up. Toyota uses them in their truck beds. Just don't try to repair if rear ended. I loved the 64 Riviera, Buick always made good cars. I like old school. I don't like video games on my dash
@@davekeller2798 There were several reasons Chevrolet chose fiberglass over steel. It's lighter and cheaper to produce since sheet metal typically requires casting dies for pressing. Low volume, relatively inexpensive sports cars aren't going to justify the investment. You could use an English wheel but, again, that's rather expensive. I like Corvettes but never did care for the smell. I haven't been in one in a while so I don't know if it's as strong as it used to be. Edit: I hit post too soon. The '64 Riviera is definitely a beautiful car. The third gen boat-tails really got me interested in them. Being a kid in the 80s though I gravitate to the seventh gen. The GCC was just so advanced for the mid-80s. My favorite though was the final eighth generation, especially with the Series II s/c. If I wasn't a broke college kid it would have been a really difficult choice between the Mark VIII and the Riviera.
In 1963, my cousin was sideswiped one night on the campus of LSU in Baton Rouge. He was driving a '62 Buick Special station wagon, the tiny one. He walked into the police station and announced he had been hit by a Marina Blue 1963 Sting Ray. The cop said "It's dark outside. How do you know what the car looked like?" My cousin placed the broken-off "eyebrow" from the Corvette's front fender onto the desk. They found the rest of the Vette the next day. Perfect fit.
5:10 AFAIK, the only part of the 360 that was made of fiberglass was the roof panel, something most owners wouldn't even notice. My sister had one and every repair was a 6 week wait for imported parts. With a top speed of about 60, it was totally unsuited for American roads. The 2-stroke engine would not hold it on a hill in REVERSE, so when the emergency brake failed, you had to park it on level ground or it would slowly crawl away. But whatever pros and cons it had, the fiberglass top was no big deal.
Sounds like mostly _cons!_
WHY Was Fibre-Glass Perfectly Fine for a CORVETTE's Body - Or an Avanti's - But BAD on a Subaru !?
Well maybe the plastic timing chain tensioners in the Jaguar XK8 did cause the car to be discontinued, but that's not the point! Those plastic tensioners saved the company 37 cents PER CAR!!!
I think the XK8 just came to the end of its run. They later came back with the XKR.
back in the mid 1 9 9 0 s . I gave it 2 minutes and couldn't bear it any more
My first car was a 1961 Plymouth Valiant and it had push button shifting. Loved it but it was on the dashboard.
My grandfather owned one of the first cars in Northern NJ with a radio. The neighbours used to call it the "carousel" because it played music and you could hear it. There were far fewer cars in the 1930s. Also, those automatic seatbelts had to be worn with the lap belt, which was manual. If not, you could be seriously injured in an accident.
and by "seriously injured", you mean decapitated.
the Edsel's biggest problem was when the relays that work the transmission would fail
The problem was it was built by Ford and was UGLY !
@@davekeller2798The push button transmissions in Chrysler products were totally reliable and worked well.
There was a small electric servo motor mounted on the trans that moved an arm connected a mechanical shift linkage. The servos would go bad. When I bought my '58 Edsel in 1972, the previous owner had connected the linkage to a floor shift, bypassing the problem. I had a '60 as well, Y Block V8 with three on the tree. Basically a '60 Ford with an Edsel grille and taillights. I loved that car...
@@markpospichal1309 thanks
who says no one wants these features? I'd love them all to come back.
So weird to hear a car produced up to 2002 as being OLD...... Now I just feel ANCIENT!
Subaru 360 never had a fiberglass body. Only the roof panel. And fiberglass isn’t un-safe anyway.
My parents had a 1991 Toyota Camry, which by then had one of those automatic *"shoulder harnesses",* that would wrap around your body when you closed the front doors. To say that I hated those things would be an understatement. Buckling my safety belt had long become second nature, and I felt this was just another piece of complicated technology we as a society didn't need.
Problem with those automatic seatbealts was the lap belt was separate. People thought once the shoulder belt was in place they were safe. Then when people were involved in an accident without the lap belt fastened they would do what was known as submarine under the lap belt and it would strangle them. The GM version had the entire belt mounted in the door and if the door came open in an accident you were no longer belted in and you got ejected from the car.
I miss the chrome and wing windows
I used to close a service station at night in the 80s. Those automatic seat belts used to startle me when I would move the cars to allow morning snow removal.
I wish we were back in the seventies. Best vehicles ever made.
No mention of the Chrysler pushbutton auto selector
I had a 1963 Oldsmobile Jetfire one of the first cars with a turbo. It ran good, but you had to check the turbo lubricant level all the time. If low you had to add fluid that was called ‘Turbo-Rocket Fluid’. Great name. Made in only 1962 & 3 the car ran good as long as maintenance was kept up.
No mention of the many GM SEDANS of the 70’s and 80’s with stationary windows in the back doors? My 1983 Olds Cutlass 4 DOOR car with only manual operated wing windows for the rear passengers? Lol. Imagine a modern sedan with no roll down windows in the doors. I was hoping for more actual features in the video, as opposed to style and taste features
Like the 1959 Chevy Biscayne and Bel-Airs, the stationary rear window thing was designed to keep the costs down for a salesman's vehicle. Many companies that provided salesmen with cars, used the cheaper "210-Series" as GM called their versions. If someone was ordering a new car and decided to keep the expenses down, then they didn't check the box "Rear Crank-Window Regulator" on the order form. The roll-down types were available across the lineup. There were, however, rear windows that only rolled 1/2 way down as a safety "Nader-Rule" to keep small children and pets from hanging outside the windows.
I had an 04 civic vp coupe that the rear windows were fixed. It made having the windows down louder than what it would've been if they'd just put pop out windows like all coupes had in the 80-90s.
Americans never liked smaller more fuel-efficient cars; they hated gas lines and spending triple digits for gas. That's why SUVs abound today. The old sedans were just replaced with SUVs.
The center mounted buttons on the Edsel steering wheel remained motionless while you steered the car they did NOT turn with the steering wheel and were always in the same place. People did not get confused as this man says, they simply went away with Edsel.
I remember being at a car show and Yugo had several of their models on display. One was a convertible and although I thought it was ugly, I was willing to consider it because they were so inexpensive compared to just about everyone else. My mind was quickly changed when - as part of my checking out the car - I climbed out of it and shut the door and one of the speaker grills in the back seat popped off and landed in the floor. Several others nearby who were also looking over the car had a good laugh at that. I never considered it any further. 😄 I really, really wanted a Prowler when began being advertised. I was set on buying one right up to the point when I test drove it. What a doggy, sloppy-feeling engine and transmission! I was so disappointed.
You missed hideaway wipers, I think DeLorean invented them when he was at Pontiac.
Automatic seatbelts worked fine, and weren't particularly annoying for most people.
"By the one thousand nine hundred ninety E S " Cyborg talk
I loved my 1964 Dodge Dart, it had a push button tranie and I would get another one I just can't say enough about my 1964. Except I got it in 1986 lol
I had a 1965 Dodge Dart GT. A great little car. Mine had the shifter on the floor between the seats. It's crazy that I have owned 3 of the cars that are listed as unusual. My first brand new car was a 1970 Datsun 510. It was considered the poor man's BMW.
used auto selt belts they worked great, the little side vent windows were great, but the car manufacturesers made more money by eliminating them, good feature should be offered as an option at least.
My biggest frustration with modern cars is that the f-ing touch screens you talk about at 13:27 came back! They are both annoying and much unsafe! Ban them before someone gets hurt!
The Gremlin was a sales success for American Motors. The Corvair wasn't nearly as dangerous as Nadar made it out to be and independent rear suspensions certainly were not "the usual."
The Caddy 8-6-4 and Riviera CRT touch screen make me wonder if GM ever bothered to test anything before putting it in full scale production. The customers were the guinea pigs. I've heard that the problem with the 8-6-4 was that the computer technology of the time wasn't up to the challenge, but I think it could have been a great idea if it spent more time being baked in the oven.
The Cad system was noticable when it dropped cylinders, and sometimes would turn on the check engine light. Easily disabled by unplugging one wire. At least the engines didn't have the mechanicalfailures like the modern afm gm, and Chrysler systems.
When they first mentioned Buick Riviera, the outside shown was a '60s model, but the touchscreens and related issues were in the 80s. Then they close the topic by again showing that 60s car exterior. What gives with the commercial doing this?!
The Ram 5.7 hemi engine features dual spark plugs per cylinder and that lovely feature of turning off cylinders. What a joke, even a bad wiring harness for that system will cause the engine to shut down all the time.
I had a caddy V864 in my '81 seville and some owners did experience the issues noted. But the real reason it was discontinued was due to the fact it idled and ran in 4 cyl mode [to conserve fuel] until more power was needed. It then switched to 6 then 8. if it got stuck in 4 when power was needed, such as enteinrg a highway, let;s say, it was so severely underpowered accidents were the result. GM converted them into standard v-8's before dropping the idea.
Chrysler had push buttons Transmission from 1956 to 1965. Had several of them and they were fine.
How strange that the Gremlin was not liked yet today nearly all hatchbacks have that SLASHED look.
Corvair swing axle suspension: DEADLY! It will kill you! Same era, Porsche swing axle suspension: The supposed pinnacle of sports car performance that every macho man wants in his car. But you never hear about that.
Foundation for Law and Government got the "Talking Car" right :).
The video claims car mounted record players disappeared in the 1990s. I suspect it was much earlier than that.
I grew up in the sixties and I never saw a car with a record player. It really was a ridiculous stupid idea.
In our state, the roads are so full of potholes, if you tried to play a record, the needle would skip so hard, the whole damned record player would fall off.
Last record player I saw in a car,was a guy I worked with had a 1963 or 1964 Pontiac Midnight blue Grand Prix!
The automatic seat belt were deployed by automakers because they were far less expensive than airbags, yet met government requirements that passive restraints be included in every car. They went away when the regulation changed.
I know a guy who almost crashed his brand new car with automatic seat belts. He dipped sniff and had a habit of opening the door on corners to spit out the door. So he was driving his brand new car and opened the door to spit on a right hand corner. The seat belt let up and he almost went out the door. Not expecting anything to happen, he had no clue of what to do about it.
Need the car expert from My Cousin Vinny to review and correct all the mistakes in this video.
DAMN 64 turbocharged Corvair left me stranded on route 66 70 miles from St. Louis , Mo. on a cold Feb. night. Blown engine.
The Corvair's swing axle was fixed in the '64, well before Nader's book was released. An additional brace was added to limit how far it could swing.
Transmission buttons are back in full force. I've seen them in everything from high end exotics to lowly Honda CRVs. While they work fine, I'd much rather have a traditional stalk to use.
Subaru wasn't only using a plastic chassis. Trabant 601 used a bakelite, and it lasted.
Lots of cars had push button transmissions. Nader killed the the Corvair, when it didn't need to be killed.
Nadar's claims were debunked by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration but 8 years too late.
Cylinder deactivation lives on,but if you know anything about car's you still don't want it.
Our 1956 Buick Roadmaster had a button on the floor you operated with your foot that changed the radio to whatever presets you had in it. It also had an electrically operated antenna that went up and down when you turned it on/off, and an electric eye that dimmed the headlights for oncoming cars. The dash had a speed tape that crawled across the speedometer the faster you went. I was just a kid, but I remember that it had a monsterous V-8 and for a car that probably weighed two tons, it went like a scalded cat! If you ever wondered what the "mouseholes" were called that were on each side of the front fenders below the hood, they were offically named "Cruiserline Venti-Ports"
I am going to guess you live in Canada because there was no Roadmaster in the US in 1965. The top of the line was called Electra 225.
@@mexicanspec Sorry, it was a typo, I'm 73 and my typing is poor. I got the numbers transposed, it was a 1956 year model, not a 1965. Thank for bringing that to my attention. I have changed it in the original posting.
That makes more sense and what a beautiful car. A friend of mine had a 1951 Roadmaster that he had me drive when we went somewhere. People that chase speed don't know what they are missing just cruising a straight 8 Buick.@@markbailey6230
I did not like it when the visor window was removed. It was the quickest way to get a hot car cool, aircon or not. When it went away, it took much longer in the heat.
I remember when the joke was in order to qualify as a Jaguar owner you needed to own three Jaguars. One was your every day driver. The second one was for you to drive when the first one was in the shop, and the third one was for parts.
yep
I remember reading in the news that a Yugo crossing the Mackinaw Bridge in northern Michigan blew off the bridge and into Lake Huron.
The public did not ask for automatic seatbelts. It was a stop gap by the NHTSA it wildly unpopular and disliked one at that. It was also incredibly dangerous.