[Heart_Revs]

I miss the following:

1. Build quality - earlier even mainstream cars like humble Fiat and Maruti 800 had thicker sheet metal than today's 20 lakh cars.
2. Lovely feel-some steering.
3. Fewer buttons + more physical buttons.
4. Clean designs - though design efforts were there but they seldom seemed overdone.
5. Comfortable seating - many folks complain of lacking under-thigh support. Just take a look at the seats of vintage cars and awe at the Maharaja style seating
6. Materials- there was no attempt at hiding or disguising. If it looked like wood or leather, it was wood or leather. Various types of plastic never substituted these in their fancy forms like "wooden trim" or "artico leather". Also guys tell that leather in their aged Palio's steering still feels better than new Punto's.
7. Simpler engine construction and robust mechanicals. Can today's cars last the distance? Nah no chance.

Note from Support. LIST added. Typos, spacing fixed.

[landcruiser123]

Tech has to advance and things will change. But I hate the planned obsolescence behind everything.

Here's a list of things I feel needn't be changed at all:
1. Complete Elimination of buttons- touch screens are a hazard and voice commands can be irritating. While touch screens have great advantages, I feel there has to be an array of buttons for basic functions. I wish voice commands are just optional.
2. Electric everything- I'm looking at you Tesla. What was the point of reinventing door handles?
3. Lack of spare wheels
4. People buying higher cars. I love sedans and just hate the trend of some manufacturers giving up sedans in favor of SUVs
5. Extremely low profile tires
6. Gauges which display in an counter-clockwise manner. Nope, can't tolerate that.

Two other things I wish weren't changing: (wouldn't call these needless changes; just me being a rebel)
1. I'd love to have a physical key which I can turn to start and shut off a car
2. EPS over HPS (hydraulic power steering)
3. Auto start-stop feature

[Kosfactor]

Style!

The Bad -
The front end is getting shorter, the grill is becoming massive and headlamps are missing where they should be. I'm not liking the thin strip of LEDs at the top and moving headlamps below to club them with fog lamps.

The Ugly -
Everything has become a X-over, Dzire and WagonR may also become an SUV soon. I understand the value proposition and I would not mind recommending an S-Presso against an Alto.

The trend is sometimes silent, hatchback and sedans are being raised in ride height to a point that they sit now taller off the ground than their SUV cousins, most hatchbacks and sedans now on sale needs a lowering kit to get the looks back.

Maruti, Hyundai (others will hopefully follow) please lower your vehicles to a ride height that suits their style. Let i20 be i20 and Baleno be Baleno. Also MB , how could you even think of a GLA?

[aniyo]

There are a few I miss.
1. Suspension. Why has even 20L cars gone for Torsion beam over multi-link. This has changed in the last 10 years.
2. Car turning into gadget. I would rather have a car that is mechanical robust than car with too much tech. Few things need to remain simple.
3. Already mentioned but again, larger engines. I mean 1500-1600CC cars are sufficient. I do not like the trend of 1L and 1.2L turbo replacing larger engines. Cedia 2.0L was quite good to drive so was the Outlander 2.4L petrol
4. Most cars going wrong side of european. Many cars today don't focus much on the back seat, typical of euro cars. I would have been happy if our engineering went in that direction instead of packaging.

[Jagann13]

The trend I miss the most is the manual key start.

Cars nowadays come with button start/stop which is convenient but the feel and the crank that I hear when I turn the key to ignition will always put a smile on my face

[2000rpm]

One thing I absolutely miss in new cars is, a clean steering.

With so many buttons on the steering, I just dont like the clutter. My Polo 1.6 thankfully has a plane, jane steering. Hopefully with voice commands etc, the steering wheel will de-cluttered soon.

[Rahul Rao]

What I really miss is longitudinal engine and rear wheel drive in comfortable budget cars.
How ever well built a car is the transverse lay out makes you tired on long drives, and things like torque steer controlled by electronic interference removes the pleasure out of driving.

The situation is such today that very few vehicles like TUV, Innova and Endeavour come with the conventional lay out. Unless Tata gets in a BS6 Hexa or Storm they will only have compacts and oversize compacts, and no conventional vehicle.
With Kia Carnival I thought an Innova competitor would come in, but it is again a overpriced transverse.


Rahul

[dragracer567]

There are only two trends that I miss:

1) The sedan and estate body styles are dying.
2) V8 and V12 were more common but are being killed due to emission norms.

Other than these two trends, cars are better in every conceivable way today than cars above their current segment were back in the day. For example, a modern day Swift is much more relaxing to drive at 130 km/hr than a Corolla from the 90s. Also, a modern-day Camry is much more comfier than a 90s E-Class over long distance.

I'm also gonna go ahead and say that cars today even look better than they did 10 or even 20 years ago (I'm gonna get some flak for this ). Examples: 90s and 2000s Corollas vs current gen Corolla, 90s and 2000s Mercedes S class vs current gen S class.

[Doge]

Let me see how many I can churn out:

1. Ashtray inside the car. Please.
2. Real keys, I hate the push button system that my car has.
3. Visibility. High belt line and thick pillars are a royal pain.
4. Turbo laggy engines, they are just more fun.
5. Character. New cars drive and feel like tablets on wheels.
6. Real SUV's. Although India has a fair share of them still around but body on frame trucks are a dying breed.
7. Funky designs. I feel cars are usually designed too conservatively and all of them look kinda the same.
8. Honest cars. Why is this hatchback pretending to be an SUV and this sub 4m Dzire pretending to be a luxury car?

[am1m]

I know it's hypocritical, but I miss the trend of there not being so many cars on the road! Used to be able to cruise down the main road of my area post 7:30pm 15 years ago with hardly a soul on the road. Now it's peak hour on that road at that time!

[amitayu]

a) proper functional rear view mirror: with new design norms, the rear view mirror is fast loosing its relevance because of thick C pillars. One can barely see anything with those mirror nowadays and rear view camera is becoming the norm. However, there is nothing more efficient than a proper functional IRVM.

b) I quite liked the turn indicators on the side of the car. Somehow it is now less prevalent, perhaps under new design aesthetics or perhaps because they were broken more frquently.

[landcruiser123]

Originally Posted by landcruiser123

Tech has to advance and things will change...

Just from test drives, I like larger gasoline engines compared to a smaller engine with a turbo. I've not heard a single American who's been happy with a downsized gas engine compared to their larger V6 or V8.

Downsizing gasoline engines is clearly not good trend too.

[ron82x3]

I'd give a two fold answer to this discussing the pros and cons of modern cars in my view.
Consider that the fact that I'm an enthusiast with exposure to cars in only the last five years of my life. Hence, I don't have much knowledge about cars other than what internet taught me. But here is what I perceived from the internet.

Pros of modern cars:
1. Safety
2. Comfort and convenience
3. Cool headlights.

Cons:
1. Price.
2. Boy do I miss the carburetor. Yeah Fuel Injection is superior and what not, but tunability has completely gone for a toss.
3. Advanced ECU. Yes, they provide the advantages they offer, no one is denying the fact. But what about tunability? Even back in the 90s, ECUs were just simple lines of codes where one had to hit and try modifying the codes, and could somewhat easily delay fueling and other parameters to get the desired results. But man, are these modern ECUs complex! They even have multiple levels of encryption which makes them harder to work.
3. Exhaust and exhaust note: Try tuning your exhaust to get the exhaust note you prefer. And the run a OBD port scan and see the error codes. Tuning for a good exhaust note is getting more and more difficult.
4. Diesels: they are nothing but a crippled species. Their flexible nature of being a city commuter is now almost gone with the introduction of DPFs (which clog up in urban commutes) and SCR with AdBlue. Lord protect the diesels. Also, it is still debatable that diesels are no more harmful than petrols given they operate much leaner and they release less carbon dioxide. My verdict is diesel= Harmful for humans, petrols= harmful for environment. You be the judge!
5. Big engines: Being an enthusiast with a heavy foot, bigger engines actually makes more sense in terms of thermal efficiency. My point is that a 3 liters inline 6 cylinder will be more efficient in producing peak power than a turbo 1.6 producing the same peak power. Hence, one if better off with a big NA engine compared to downsized turbos, if all they want is pure performance .
Turbos are more efficient when cruising at highway speeds at lower RPMs than the competitive NA big ones.
Here's a good video to explain the same.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B5B88eKAjuw/
6. LOOKS: Don't get it wrong, but due to several restrictions car manufacturers need to be as aerodynamic as possible. Hence resulting in excessive body curves that sometimes turn out to be plain ugly. Example: the fluidic Hyundais. But I am guilty of the fact that even I like modern cars more.
7. Top speed: I know top speed is overrated but simply knowing the fact that my car can do excess of 200 kmph practically feels purely bliss. Newer trends like all future Volvos which will be restricted to just 180s does not feel like a good idea IMHO. Also, high top speed can be a safety feature in case of emergency. And what about people who take their cars to tracks?

These are the reasons which first comes into my mind when I try investing in a new car. The car market is nothing but confused because of the restrictions from the government. They have the technology to make huge leaps as far as IC engine goes, but the government needs to support them. One last thing before I go is that,
"The IC engine is not dead. And is not going to be dead anytime soon".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hatav_Rdnno

[procrastinator]

1. Using ruler to open the lock of car.

2. Non Power assisted Steering Wheel (sometimes) - It's like an offer;
drive a car and get a free workout of your biceps.

3. Asking for help to Dhakka(push) start the car.
(This might still exist but with internet in pocket, help is call or a message away)

4. Those long antennae which can be popped in/out.

[saket77]

Fellow members have basically covered everything that an enthusiast is missing in the newer generation cars. But on a 'macro' level, what I miss is that almost all cars are having butter smooth engines, very well insulated cabins, effortless gear shifts, all electronic bells and whistles, soft pedals - in short everything that can be offered. Though I don't mind having all this in a car but I feel that some quirks of older cars by lacking some features, having a slightly creaky clutch pedal, extra grunt of engine which is now muted by the smoothness- all this added to the character of a particular car.

I may be chased down the lane by fellow enthusiasts of this wonderful forum when I say that some imperfections in older cars made them one of their kind and every car stood out in its own way. Those clutch/brake/ Acc pedals though were not the smoothest but I loved the feedback; solidly weighted steering (hydraulic or even non-power assisted) provided perfect feedback. I don't feel the same connect with the latest gen cars which I used to with say an Amby, then my Fiat Delight, then Premier Padmini, then the M800 or even my old Zen. Newer cars all give me the same feeling while driving. Honestly, I feel 'un-involved' while driving these cars. Well, most of them.