Here today, gone tomorrow

There was a time before the Internet when the Earth was still cooling and man co-existed with the dinosaurs, whose V8 engines roared at every street corner and drank deeply with no regard for the reserves of precious juice that pooled underground.

It was a simpler time, when cars were blunt instruments. The engine spun the rear wheels, just as the Dodge brothers had intended. Lift the hood and all the spark plugs were within easy reach. The carburetor could be tuned with a screwdriver. Back then, a hard drive was something you experienced traveling to Sudbury for Christmas with no snow tires.

With the prospect of the manual transmission going the way of the dodo in the near future, it got us to thinking about which automotive features have been lost to the mists of time. Rather than go way back to magnetos and kerosene lamps, we'll stick to features that were commonplace in the 1970s and 1980s. Like we said, ancient history.