Top 5 extinct motoring features

Though they were once considered cutting-edge, these technologies are now as obsolete as Sony’s Betamax and public payphones. How many antiquated automotive contraptions can you remember?

We now live in an age of unparalleled automotive gadgetry. From VR racing games in the driver’s seat, to integrated AI technology that will turn a run-of-the-mill VW Golf into the equivalent of K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider, there’s little modern cars can’t do.  

But today’s article remembers a simpler time. A time when using electricity to roll up the window seemed like the work of science fiction. So, without further ado, here’s the good, the bad, and the ugly of outdated motoring inventions.  

Pop-up headlights

Pop-up headlamps make little sense on paper – or in practicality – but that hasn’t silenced nostalgia-fueled cries for a comeback. For some reason this design strikes a chord with many.

Looking at them through the logical lens, it’s easy to see why they met their demise. Adding both weight and complexity to an otherwise simple system, the cons clearly outweigh the pros – at least from a manufacturer perspective, anyway.

Trafficators 

Once commonplace in the motoring world, trafficators would win the award for most needlessly overengineered automotive feature ever.  

This small, illuminated metal strip would spring from the window pillar like the bird in a cuckoo clock – informing other drivers of where you wanted to go. Quaint, yes, but wholly unnecessary.  

That said, there is something undeniably charming about this vintage solution to a problem that didn’t need solving. 

Starting handles

If you’re under the age of 70, chances are you’ve never even seen one of these medieval-looking contraptions in person. However, before the advent of the starter motor, motorists were forced to hand crank their engines into life – sometimes resulting in disastrous consequences for the wrist.  

Believe it or not the last manual starting handles appeared in cars as late as the 1980s, although we can’t see them making a return anytime soon.  

Cross-ply tyres

Ok, so technically cross-ply tyres aren’t extinct — given several manufacturer’s still produce these designs to keep classic cars rolling — but you won’t find any new metal adopting this bygone tyre tech.  

Before radial tyres hit the mass market cross-ply was considered the gold standard. As the name suggests, cross-ply tyres are made with cords placed at a 45-degree angle to the middle of the tyre. While this solution results in a strong sidewall, it compromises nearly every other metric from grip to comfort and even rolling resistance.  

Thanks to their far superior safety and efficiency, modern tyres like Michelin’s award-winning Pilot Sport 5 now adopt a radial design with cords which follow the direction of travel.

Manual handbrakes

We round off this list with a feature that isn’t yet fully extinct, but certainly falls into the critically endangered category: manual handbrakes.  

Once upon a time all cars required a little elbow grease to secure when stationary, however since electronic parking brake switches/buttons were introduced, most car manufacturers have phased out physical levers.  

With recent data revealing that as few as 9% of new cars come with a good-old-fashioned stick between the seats, it looks likely manual handbrakes will soon die out. And many petrolheads aren’t happy about it, after all, what was wrong with the old way?  

Well, according to car makers an electric setup affords greater space in the cabin, and while that’s hard to argue with, a switch does make handbrake turns a thing of the past (on a closed circuit, of course).  

Would you like to see any of these automotive features make a comeback? Let us know which you remember most fondly.

Hero image credit: Mazda