Lars, my husband has told me about a car that his dad used to have. It probably would have been in the 30’s or 40’s. It had to be driven in reverse up a hill as the gas in the tank would run to the back of the tank, cutting the engine off from getting fuel. If it was driven in reverse, the engine could continue to get fuel.

High beam foot button

I have a lot of experience with 12 volt power, plugs, sockets and devices. In cars. On boats. Even off boats. TV sets, VCRs, lights, heaters, vacuums, air compressors, and , and, . Even now, I use a 12 socket that connects to a 12 volt battery to power a CPAP machine when needed. You can blow a fuse if you put on too much of a load, which I've done with a Y splitter to connect two devices to one socket. No worries, you replace the fuse and lower the load

Apparently some people with experience don't have the knowledge to apply that experience. Instead they try to use the word experience to try to put down those with actual knowledge who state facts.

Michele, you certainly know that's the notorious 2CV, said as deux chevaux (two horses). It was to postwar France what the VW bug was to West Germany though very different.

When we lived in Europe, friends had one as a second car. They drove us downtown to a restaurant dinner in it. When we returned, the car had been hemmed in front and back. With the help of a couple of passersby, we were able to drive away by rocking it front to back on the shocks and then lifting it up and sideways (away from the curb) as each end alternated moving upwards. Really. .

I forgot. But it was as I said, another instance of "I know nothing but you're wrong". Every comment is a reminder, I need to pay better attention.

Three on the tree

Four on the floor

Lack of air conditioning

Laundry basket to hold the baby

Having had the experience of drowning doesn't make one a great swimmer. LOL But carry on.

Back to the subject.

Old cars came with a manual that actually showed how to maintain and service a vehicle instead of one that has 50 pages of safety warnings and one page that says if this happens make an appointment with the service department.

Repeatedly speaking like a fool and saying dumb and pointless things doesn't make one wise.

Have a good day. Oh if only there were an ignore switch in this forum.

Full sized spare tires

Manual brakes and steering

four by sixty air conditioning

I'd completely forgotten about 'curb feelers' or 'whiskers'. My BIL put them on his wife's car, she had a way of scuffing up the whitewalls. I remember how mad she was ;0)

Wire feelers for parking, running boards, sunroof which had to be taken off manually, roll down windows, bench seats, two-toned cars.

And no cigarette lighters do not work in the newer cars, I have tried.

Ah, who knew but the car/s you tried must have had what is called an 'accessory socket'. Which look very similar to a cigarette lighter socket according to this info:

https://www.lifewire.com/cigarette-lighter-vs-accessory-socket-534783

... you could use that cigarette lighter socket to power your electronics, but that didn't change what it was. Then dedicated accessory sockets showed up on the scene, and all of that went out the window. These 12V accessory sockets look like cigarette lighter sockets, but they aren't, and the differences are pretty important...

Baby Moons, Laying in the back window of our old car, probably from the forties, Dad could not see out the window at all! In 1973 my DDIL rode on the floor in the front seat in a laundry basket! Then when seat belts came in we had a child car seat that we strapped in instead of strapping in the kid in it!

Fuzzy dice.

Yellow headlights in France. This was required from 1937 to 1993. Yellow headlights are illegal now unless the vehicle was first registered before 1993.

my push button rambler transmission

Running boards

My kids didn't believe me that cars used to have 5 speeds and you had to shift. We had to call my husband at work so he could confirm. Lol! They would have really have hated my dad's 1964 Willys Jeep. That think only had 3 speeds. My dad would shut it off going down a mountain to save gas and turn it back on at a stop sign. It was made of real metal. If some idiot backed into it in the parking lot, their car suffered a major ding.

ash trays in the back seat

The 'shelf' behind the back seat and under the rear window. I slept there for many miles on long trips.

The gas fill behind the tail light. There was a lever built into the grillwork that caused the left tail light to swing out of the way to reveal the gas cap.

@wildchild, minibar in the glove compartment? How did I miss that?? I want one now!

flipping open the fin on a 57 chevy to fill gas. DH thinks that it was a 56 chevy that you filled gas behind the tail light

My older brother had a '56 Bel Air with that setup bengardening. I don't know how many years they did that. It was way before my being able to drive time. But I remember what you are describing. I wonder how many other manufacturers did that. Later I had a boyfriend with a 57 Bel Air convertible. I think it may have still been under the fin on the drivers side but that 's a lot of years to go back, I can't recall for certain.

Just Googled it. Yep. Between the fin and the taillight on the drivers side. So your memory and your DHs are both good.

I had a 1979 Plymouth Volare when I first moved to Los Angeles in 1989, and that car was made of all metal. One day, as I was driving on Melrose Avenue, someone who was watching pedestrians (or shop windows) instead of traffic rear-ended me, and I was able to drive away without a visible scratch, but the front end of the much newer car was crushed. We did not have to exchange insurance info because I had no damage, but he had to be towed.

Oh wow, that brings back memories of playing with opening and closing my grandmother's red and white '57 Chevy's gas tank cover as the car sat in our driveway. I would have been quite young for that memory, but she was still driving it by the time I had a driver's license. Can't remember if I ever got to drive it. I do remember how when she went to get gasoline, people would gather round smiling and asking her how much she'd take for the car. Yeah, that car had that Jesus straps, too.

Ah yes, the old "Tiger in your Tank" with the tiger tail hanging out of your gas filler.

Then there's the stuff that wasn't there. My GF's father had a car that had seat belts before the retractors...the shoulder belt had to be folded and slipped into brackets in the ceiling that held it.

The seat backs were very low with no head rest.

I remember one time Mom had to stop fast, I slid forward (no seat belts) and split my lip on that non-padded dashboard.

And the steering wheels were huge as there was no power steering. And braking took a lot of leg strength compared to now...no power brakes, no anti-lock brakes.

No cup holders, no side door pockets, no fold down rear seats.

Rear wheel drive ... so much fun in the snow and ice!

The first car I drove after passing my test was one of these.....

My mom had an early '60's Plymouth Valiant with a push button transmission.

I think that I remember a parking brake pedal on the left floor? and later a pull handle on the left lower driver's side (where the hood and gas releases are on my current car).

I do remember how steering wheels were much larger and also narrower - not padded but easier for a small hand to grip. I remember my mother's rings clicking against the wheel as she turned the wheel (remember being taught to turn by crossing hand over hand?)

The little triangle windows by the main door windows that opened. Doing a Google search I see them called wing vent or quarter glass windows.

When we were young kids, in the 60's, our parents had an old Mercury that the entire back window went down. We loved kneeling on the backseat hanging out the back window!

Undercoating was a necessity on Detroit rust bucket automobiles. (US manufacturers were lapped by imports that did not rust. Not Invented Here is still an American problem.

DH and I once took a train to Bolzano and picked up a cheap rental car to drive through the Dolomites. We had to go back and upgrade to something that could make it up the first mountain.

We called those windows quarter lights. The Morris Minor in my picture has them.

I knew them as "wind wings".

I had a friend in high school who had a Morris Minor I helped to "rebuild" and refurbish. It was a sedan, not a soft top. Sorry, no disparagement of British automotive prowess intended but what a piece of junk that car was. Flimsy with a lot of ill-fitting parts. It ran when we were all done but not reliably, maybe as a result of having high school boys doing the work.

Our first car was a Morris Minor, bright yellow, with mach nix sticks (sticks that pop out from the left or right to indicate a turn. Dealer explained they were called mach-nix because they didn't matter. Nobody paid any attention to them, anyway.

Piece of junk? You bet! Last we saw it was in dealership, with its parts laying around it. We had to trade it back for a running Renault. Cant remember which of those winners had us lugging a case of oil in the trunk. Used almost as much oil as gas!

I loved driving that car. But then, it was the only one available to me. When I lived in Germany I found the Beetle very similar to drive. It was entirely suited to driving over here ie it was small and comparatively fuel efficient. It suited our narrow roads and comparatively short distances. It wasn’t subjected to severe winter weather. One beauty of those cars was you could unbolt all the components and rebuild bits if you wanted. I could still recognise the sound of that exhaust if one came down the road. We had three in succession in our family and my uncle had one too. They’re collectors items now.

Flip out ashtrays on the backs of the front seat for the smokers in the back.

Bumper jacks

Going way back, rumble seats !!!! Susanwv

I don't know if they've been mentioned, but the knobs attached to the steering wheel that swiveled so you could turn the wheel just by turning the knob. Spinner knobs.

My dad had an early 50's something Kaiser that had push button interior door handles.

I bought my husband a classic 1949 Cadillac and much to my surprise, I knew to find the gas filler by pushing a button in the taillight. I don't know how I knew it was there, but reading this thread makes me think that maybe my 1957 Chevrolet of my youth had one and I'd forgotten that detail.

Olychick, we used to call them suicide knobs...

Another thing that we used to have were volume controls on radios that were also the on/off switch. Now with volume controls on the dash and in the steering wheel, they don't turn the radio off, but just keep going around.

Annie, our Jeeps still have the volume control/on off knob and the knob to change the station. Plus the buttons on the dash and steering wheel. I still mostly only use the knobs. Old habits die hard.

I was looking for confirmation that our Kaiser had the push button door opener inside like I remembered. I did find pictures and articles which showed them. A few times, I've looked up old Kaisers trying to also confirm that there was a 3 door version. I remember ours having 3 doors, but memory is a tricky thing and I could never find a 3 door model, so thought I must be mistaken. But, when looking for the door openers, I finally found a couple of articles that confirmed there was a 3 door model! Apparently, the rear driver's side door was welded shut and the spare tire was placed in the door-well, with a fake handle on the outside. I faintly remember the spare being over there, I think. It was nice to have my memory confirmed - that I wasn't crazy remembering it only had 3 doors.

Did anyone mention Hula dancers on the dash?

THANK YOU to those who mentioned curb feelers. I have been trying to find them on amazon but didn't have the terminology.

Bench seat in the front.

Not in a car but remember the hoses at “filling stations” that were on the ground to be run over on purpose? They rang the bell for the attendant. The attendant who pumped the gas, cleaned the windshield and checked the oil.

.....and child car seats like this! (Internet photo)

They had car beds also. The legs were telescopic so you sat the bed on the rear seat and supported it with the fronts legs on the floor. Then when you arrived somewhere it became a portable bassinet.