9 of the best things we miss from Older Cars…

I only drove or have owned a few vehicles with Manual Chokes and I really still don’t get how they work. Pull it out when you start and remember to pop it back in when the engine is warm, still don’t get it. But never mind as all modern cars now come with Automatic Chokes.

My parents never had a car posh enough to have this feature, but my Grandad did on his 1989 G reg Vauxhall Carlton! They looked amazing and we couldn’t actually work out, how and when they would work but they still looked amazing.

Vehicle damage did happen in the 80’s and 90’s and most of the time it was kids bending the metal aerials off our parked cars, only to be replaced hours later by a coat hanger. It was effective, it worked and we could listen to the BBC Radio 1 chart show on a Sunday night (which happened to be broadcast on BBC Radio 2 FM).

We were subjected to some mix tapes and purchased albums, but it was always a good feeling when your Mum’s Simply Red album got chewed up by a Ford Stereo when she was trying to play the same track for a 5th time.

And talking about destinations, it was never the same if you went to the coast in the rare British heat and didn’t come home burnt by the sun and sticking to your parent’s Ford Cortina’s Vinyl Seats. That was after taking 10 minutes to be able to sit on them as they were as hot as an oven.

The days are gone when you’d find, full to the brim ashtrays in cars, matched with the yellow sticky residue on the windows where your parents chain smoked their way to Skegness. Missing are the 12v cigarette lighters that used to blow the fuses of my Mum’s Bedford Rascal Minibus (Yes 7 seats!) but I used to use to watch the glow. Now we have money holders.

I haven’t had an actual car key that you place in an ignition or key lock and start the engine in a long time. It’s always push button starts, or keyless entry, its just not the same. Even some of the nicer cars I’ve had with bigger engines, it’s still been a push button.

Another instance of the way things have changed is the sunroof. Air Con wasn’t a standard option until the late 2000’s, so a sunroof was your best bet. Some after-market pop-up roofs were simply cut using a tin opener and lightly sealed with rubber. In heavy rain fall, you got drenched.

This has to be number 1 really, the plastic handles of my Dad’s Ford Sierra used to give us arm ache when opening the windows, and thats if we were allowed some fresh air! When pulling away from school, we had to try and gain a new technique to simulate electric windows as some of the better off kids had already got these in their Dad’s Mercedes or BMW’s.

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