[Tarmac.terrorist]

1. Pop up headlights.
2. When luxury cars were just about luxury.
3. Straight bodies.
4. Hard bumpers which faired well in fender benders.
5. Big extremely relaxed engines.
6. Physical buttons.
7. Easy DIY repairs.
8. Yellow Headlights.

These are to name a few trends.

[condor]

Nice thread !

Some that I can list out straight away:

1. Straight bodies with clean lines.
2. The engines are getting smaller :(
3. Physical buttons
4. DIY repairs
5. Analog instrument clusters
6. The simpler mechanical construction & working
7. Space to work in the cars (engine bay, body)
8. Getting parts over the counter.
9. The well built cars ..
10. The temperature gauges ..

[BlackPearl]

Every generation will say that the cars they had were perfect and miss those things. Change is necessary and unstoppable. We can point out n number of things that we like in our generation of cars, but that will not make any difference. For example, "Hard Bumpers" have been mentioned, but I feel that softer bumpers are necessary for making the vehicles safer for pedestrians. The quicker we embrace the changes, the lesser the heartache! Sorry if it sounded too philosophical.

[Samba]

Nice thread! I can go on & on.

My list-

Big extremely relaxed engines.

Physical buttons.

Easy DIY repairs.

Straight bodies.

Mechanically less complex cars.

Cars with less electronics.

The connect! The new cars do not connect with the driver as the old cars used to do. Though the modern cars are much more faster & safer.

The engine sound! The cabin of the new cars are much more silent and muted. Listening to the engine roar while redlining the car was more prominent in the older cars due to their poor cabin insulation. But I used to love it!

I do miss a simple dashboard layout like this, in the new cars-
The Palio Dashboard was slightly tilted towards the drive and I used to love that.



Going by the trend, am afraid to say, after 10-15 years, manual transmission & an internal combustion engine may get added to this list! Leaving aside driverless cars!

[SmartCat]

Hydraulic feelsome and weighty steering:



- Boxy design language:



- Tailgate mounted spare wheel:

[gururajrv]

Smaller turbo packed diesels like the national Diesel engine of India - FIAT multi jet

Regards

RV

[vb-saan]

With every generation cars are overall getting better and safer. I don’t miss any specific trends as such, except maybe for the simple mechanical connect which is becoming a rarity in the current age of tech overload. In future we may say “those good-old days of petrol cars”

[kiku007]

People buying CARS.

Seriously speaking that's the trend I'm missing to see.

[BrakeFree]

Fog lamps - low mounted so that you can avoid the light getting reflected back. Also these lights were very useful on undulated/pothole ridden roads at night. Most of the luxury cars have started dropping them.

[warrioraks]

Manual transmission - With more and more people buying automatic cars, I worry that manual gearbox will be a thing of past in few years. This is one thing I will miss the most.

Edit (added later):
Also engines having missing cylinder(s) for the sake of fuel efficiency.

[arindambasu13]

Has to be proper hot (or at least warm) hatches. The likes of the Abarth Punto, Figo S, the Polo GTI, the JTP twins etc. I have a feeling that cars like these might come back, and that would be great news. Nothing is more fun that a fast, chuckable hatch back which is perfect for city roads as well as a blast out on the freeway. The Indian market has also matured to some extent and there might be a number of people (still a small percentage) who would be willing to pay for a high quality and powerful hatch back. The current global Polo, Ford Fiesta hatch are some cars that have been on my wishlist but not going to make it to the Indian market.

[SS-Traveller]

Originally Posted by SmartCat

- Tailgate mounted spare wheel

That's one feature I'll be happy to miss. Anyone with a creaky back trying to change a tyre on an old Sumo or Safari single-handedly would entirely agree.

[jfk1975]

Nice thread!

My additions to the list (with full understanding of reasons why a lot of these are being done away with).

1. Manual transmissions, especially in the German Big 3.
2. Old school pushrod V8s from Detroit (granted that there are still few that are surviving).
3. Affordable small roadsters.

[vishy76]

The following car trends are the ones I miss the most:

- Clean understated lines. Forget the classic mercs, even Volkswagen cars around 2008 had such clean and understated design language. Even Hyundai gave us some really good looking cars such as the previous gen Creta. Look at them now. I don't really fancy the T-ROC (feels like it's trying too hard) and I definitely HATE the overdone 2020 Creta for sure.







- Large displacement engines mated to smaller turbos and not the other way round. The Endeavour 3.2 is a classic case in point. A proper 5 cylinder diesel which did things so effortlessly. Downsizing obviously scored and the Endeavour now gets a 2.0 4 pot. Power figures might be on par with the Fortuner but that's exactly where the problem lies! The engine is no more a reason to pick the Endeavour over the Fortuner.



- Naturally aspirated petrols. Not something I need to elaborate on. Large displacement petrols with a high redline. The 1.5 VTEC is still one of the best petrols on sale even though all competitors have moved onto fuel injected turbo petrols. Those who think the turbo whistle is the best sound a turbo petrol can make, the intake growl of the 1.5 VTEC is to be heard! There are exceptions in the form of VWs brilliant 1.2 TSI and Kia's 1.4 GDI.

- Proper 4 cylinder engines and not 3 pot mills. Indirectly related to the last point. Having experienced both, I will anyday pick the 4 cylinder naturally aspirated engine over the turbocharged 3 cylinders.

[balenoed_]

Gone are the days where one can just pull over the car (the old cars) in case of any issues, open up the bonnet or go underneath, fiddle with it, try fix the problem and move on. These days you rarely see a broken down car on the road side and a mechanic trying to repair it. The modern cars needs to be towed to the nearest work station to fix any issues. Thanks to the numerous sensors and electronics and concealed engine compartments and other areas. Or probably they never break down.