4 Old In-Car Features that the Younger Generation Won’t Quite Be Able to Comprehend

4 Old In-Car Features that the Younger Generation Won’t Quite Be Able to Comprehend

4 Old In-Car Features that the Younger Generation Won’t Quite Be Able to Comprehend

Speedmonkey
25 June 2019

Every generation goes through a significant amount of change as new innovations or social attitudes replace those that have come before. However, the speed of which society is evolving seems to be increasing exponentially due to advances in technology and continuing globalisation.

In the motoring world, we haven’t quite reached the stage of having flying cars as we were promised in ‘Back to the Future’, but vehicles have changed significantly over the last few decades. Here are a few features of driving that the younger generation may find it hard to understand. Hopefully, wheels will make it onto this list in the next decade or so!

A to Z maps

Remember having to think about how you were going to get to a location before starting the car? A to Z maps had to be studied in advance and directions written down before any unknown journey commenced. As the internet evolved and home printers became common place, studying the A to Z eventually give way to printing off directions from the world wide web. Now we just tap a postcode into our sat nav or smartphone and off we go. They say in-car technology distracts us from the road, but trying to look at a map or reading scribblings from a piece of A4 on the passenger seat didn’t make driving particularly safe in the old days!

Wind-down windows

Now-a-days, everything from opening a garage door to a can of beans can be done at the push of a button. This also includes car windows. However, not that long ago, all four passenger windows and, sometimes, even the sun roof had to be manually opened using a crank handle. This made it particularly awkward for drivers when they were pulled over, as the police officer had to patiently wait whilst the offender slowly struggled to wind down the window.

This eventually evolved into buttons in the front and crank handles in the back (maybe because kids have more energy!), but in most modern vehicles all passenger windows are controlled by the simple press of a digit. No wonder we are getting fatter as a nation!

Cigarette lighters

Surprisingly, it wasn’t that long ago that smoking cigarettes was so socially acceptable that you could light up anywhere, including inside public venues such as cinemas and restaurants, and cigarette lighters were included as standard in most vehicles. The lighter its self is no longer a feature in modern cars, but the power socket still remains. It is also still referred to as the cigarette lighter by those of a certain age, but it is mainly now used to charge smartphones.

A cigarette lighter did, however, make an appearance recently in a modern movie. In the first Deadpool film, the Marvel anti-hero dispensed of one of his adversaries in an in-car fight by making him swallow one whole. Anyone under 30 must have wondered where the glowing metal stub came from!

Cassette players

Currently, CD players in cars are slowly being phased out as more and more drivers connect to Spotify through their infotainment systems via Bluetooth. Therefore, the days of raffling through every CD case in the car to find the desired album (because every disc has been put into the wrong sleeve) are almost behind us.

In-car Mini Discsplayers came and went quicker than Usain Bolt over 100 metres, but prior to this came the in-car cassette player. Young people will never understand what it is like to have to flip over a cassette half way through an album or to drive whilst wrestling with an 80m magnetic tape worm!

About The Author:

Flexed Car Leasing are specialists in 28 day car leasing. To lease a car with all the mod cons from 28 days up to a year, please visit the Flexed website!