[rrsteer]

I miss the simplicity of the old cars.

I also tend to associate complexity of the modern cars with the unnecessary electronics they have. One of the many reasons why I avoided buying a XUV recently was because it had too much unnecessary electronics, I felt.

[KiloAlpha]

Originally Posted by aadithsince1980

I miss "Double de-clutching" in my dad's amby to get the car from any higher gear to lower gear

I miss pumping the brakes to get the feel of the pedal

And am serious about this. Driving dads 1961 Amby was the most involving ever!

Why do you miss the double-declutching? I still do it on all the modern cars I drive. Old habits die hard.

+1 to driving involvement.

The one thing I do miss, really, is the lack of instrumentation. Speedo, tacho, fuel guage, and thats it? Sad.

[faustus77]

Hi everybody
Until the mid 50s(last I saw them was on Hillmans)there was no blinking turn indicators.
The switch used to be immediately above the horn which was in center of the steering wheel.And out would pop a sort of 6" arm from the center pillar with yellow/amber light.
Regards

[John]

Remember the little rubber bulb that the Fiats had, to spray the windshield and a plastic bag for the water.
Miss those relaxed Sundays spent cleaning the carb and topping up the battery and radiator, the clutch and brake master cylinders.
And how can we forget grease nipples on the suspension!

[aadithsince1980]

Originally Posted by KiloAlpha

Why do you miss the double-declutching? I still do it on all the modern cars I drive. Old habits die hard.

+1 to driving involvement.

The one thing I do miss, really, is the lack of instrumentation. Speedo, tacho, fuel guage, and thats it? Sad.

+1 To the gauges, I really miss them, more the gauges kinda made the car feel more sporty

+1 To the double de-clutching too...well said, old habits die hard! I still double de-clutch in my lancer

[shankar.balan]

Anyone remember the old style headlamp "dipper" switch which was mounted on the floor of the car, near the other pedals?

Particularly in old Ambys (Mark 2 and Mark 3 I think) and early Fiat 1100s (I think)?

[one-77]

The one thing I've felt is conspicuous by its absence is the old "choke". Remember pulling out the choke for cold morning starts?
Then of course there's the "filling up the radiator" routine before every long trip. Things I remember from old Amby days.

And the things people did to their cars as if routine, would seem crazy now. Engine transplants, totally new interiors, dashboard including! Extreme levels of customization. Phew. No two Ambys were the same!

[apachelongbow]

I have a question to all the old time drivers here. Why dont we need to add water coolant to modern cars? How does the coolant not evaporate? And do cars still have a radiator with water in it?
Also my Safari has a warning light with a heater symbol in the meter console. Does it still need to heat glow plugs before start?

[YaeJay]

Those days! Starting from whitewall tyres, column shifts, the dipper switch near the clutch, the gauges, the sofa seats, the boot and engine bay lights, the simplicity, the need to know your car, the many DIY selftaught lessons, the need to open the hood every day before every drive and at every food break to check. Those days saw the max in customs. True to the name, as per the owners requirement, mostly about practicality and usefulness.

Biggest joke was the conversion of column shift to floor shift on the good old amby (not the Izuzu). The travel was so much like you could tell your co passenger, hey give me a second or two, let me go out there and engage the 3rd gear and get back to my seat.

[faustus77]

Shankar.Balan
Hi
At least from 1959 onwards the Fiat had the dipper switch near the steering wheel.
The old ambys light switch surrounded the ignition key and you had to twist that to put on the lights.
Regards

[KL01BE]

Another thing we had on our old Ambassador was art leather cover of the dash board with a small cushion effect. As kids we used to enjoy the wind blowing in through the tiltable small window in the ambassador and rest our head on the dash board.

[Positron]

Originally Posted by apachelongbow

I have a question to all the old time drivers here. Why dont we need to add water coolant to modern cars? How does the coolant not evaporate? And do cars still have a radiator with water in it?
Also my Safari has a warning light with a heater symbol in the meter console. Does it still need to heat glow plugs before start?

I am no expert, but the coolant systems are now more or less closed loop (probably the wrong terminology). When the coolant heats up and expands, the system will have additional room within the coolant tank (or perhaps an additional tank for overflow), and it just keeps circulating within. However this is not completely maintenance free either - when you bring the car to service, they would usually check the coolant levels and top up if required - or you can do it yourself too.

[trave11er]

I remember the small fans (table fan kind of, we usually see in small shops) in many of the taxis and the fiats and padminis. I can still see these fans in some of the ambys owned by the army and ofcource yes, we can see curtains as well .

[vivekgk]

Originally Posted by Rough Square

Recently I was travelling in a old Premier Padmini and the car broke down. The driver got down, opened the hood and switched on a light in the engine compartment.

Thats when this thought hit me as to how practical that small bulb is (found in all old Ambys and Padminis), but not found in any of the cars today.

The question is - Why doesnt any of todays new age car have that bulb inside the engine compartments when they have gone ahead and placed puddle lamps, follow home lights etc?

I don't want to seem too pragmatic, but if your car hadn't broken down, there would be no need for the driver to open the bonnet, right? Cars today just don't need to have their bonnets open except for adding windscreen washer fluid, and even that is usually taken care of during the service.

Most of the stuff that we miss from the older era aren't there anymore because better stuff has substituted them. Whitewall tyres? They were painted white to minimise the ugly tall black sidewalls, for which we have now low profile radials instead. Similar case with all the old features.

I think that older cars were the smartphones and tabs of yesteryears, something that you could tinker with, and show off to others. "Dude, I tinkered with the carb a bit and now she just purrs at a 100 miles an hour!" has ben replaced with "Dude, I just updated my Galaxy S3 to Jelly Bean, you should see the Antutu scores now!" Not as fun as getting down and dirty under the hood, but on the plus side, less grease and grime!

Nowadays, no one wants to spend the whole day before a 500km trip making sure that the fluids are full, lights are working, spares are available and all that jazz. Even car owners who mod their cars would rather pay and have it done right, rather than get their hands greasy and risk grounding their rides. Is technology to 'blame' for all this? Not really. If anything, technology has made it possible to 'bolt on 10 bhp' with a replacement chip or ECU, something that would have been impossible in the old days.

I remember when in our old Padmini, we used to stop by the road after every 100km, so that the car would get a chance to cool down, we could stretch our legs, have a tea at a local tea shop or something. Now, we never stop anywhere other than for food or pee breaks. We cover long distances at a steady 90+ kph, when we could never safely exceed 80 in our overloaded Padmini. Is that bad? In a way, it prevents us from having interesting local experiences and mingling and enjoying the scenery, but overall, I'd rather do these things by choice than by necessity.

One thing I do miss: Fabric seats made from vividly coloured American Velvet. The Art leather that you get nowadays just isn't as good, and too plain.

[King_pin09]

I sincerely miss the chrome hood on the headlamps on old cars (and amby's n particular), as can be seen in this picture http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/attach...y-img_2445.jpg.


Similar hoods were even used on motorcycles like Yezdi, Jawa and Bullets as well.

Headlamp clusters on modern day cars are so much asymmetrical that installation of such hoods is nearly impossible.