The 15 Most INSANE Old Car Features That Put Lives At Risk

Old car features that put lives at risk — these are the 15 most insane things classic cars once had. This is American nostalgia at its strangest: the forgotten car features of 1960s cars and 1970s cars, and the car features that disappeared for a very good reason. Look at an ordinary American family photo from 1968. Dad is behind the wheel, Mom is on the front bench seat, and between them a little kid is standing up so he can see through the windshield. Nobody is reaching for a seat belt. Classic American cars of vintage America came with chrome bumpers, a vinyl roof, an ashtray and a cigarette lighter in the dashboard — and old America thought all of it was completely normal. Vintage cars, vintage American cars, retro cars, rare cars, the ordinary old cars from the 70s sitting in every driveway: this is car nostalgia and baby boomer nostalgia, 1960s nostalgia and 1970s nostalgia for the good old days. So here are 15 old car features and missing safety systems that millions of drivers lived with in American cars before modern automotive safety changed the way cars were built. Real car history and classic car history — not museum cars. CHAPTERS 0:00 This was normal?! 0:42 Why I love classic American cars 1:09 15 dangerous things old cars had 1:25 1. Riding completely unrestrained 3:04 2. Lap belts with no shoulder belt 3:45 3. The metal dashboard 4:56 4. The rigid steering column 6:06 5. No head restraints 7:19 6. Single-circuit hydraulic brakes 8:10 7. Drum-brake fade 9:43 8. Vacuum windshield wipers 10:38 9. No anti-lock brakes 11:42 10. Rear-hinged "suicide" doors 12:54 11. Hood ornaments 13:51 12. Bias-ply tires 14:58 13. Fuel tanks and hidden fillers 16:09 14. No side-impact protection 17:09 15. "Built like a tank" 18:13 Old cars were not stupid 19:51 Your turn — tell me what you remember 20:33 Coming next WHAT MAKES THESE OLD CAR FEATURES SO INSANE Riding completely unrestrained. Lap belts with no shoulder belt. Hard metal dashboards full of chrome, hard knobs, big radios, ashtrays and a cigarette lighter. Rigid steering columns aimed at the driver's chest. Bench seats with no head restraints. Single-circuit hydraulic brakes. Drum-brake fade on a mountain grade. Vacuum windshield wipers that slowed down when you needed them most. No anti-lock brakes. Rear-hinged "suicide" doors. Hood ornaments built like a spear. Bias-ply tires. Fuel tanks and filler necks hidden behind the rear license plate. No side-impact protection. And the biggest myth of all — the "built like a tank" body. Every one of these old car features was completely normal in 1960s cars and 1970s cars, and almost all of them are car features that disappeared. WHY THIS ISN'T ANTI-CLASSIC-CARS This isn't about pretending old cars were bad. Classic cars of the good old days had more personality than anything on the road today. Give me the colors, the chrome bumpers, the vinyl roof, the vent windows, the bench seat, the physical knobs, a dashboard I can recognize from twenty feet away. But underneath all of that, I'll take the collapsible steering column, the three-point belt, the head restraint, the dual-circuit brakes, ABS, modern tires and a body designed to manage a crash instead of simply looking tough afterward. That's the real car history and car nostalgia here: not that old America was reckless, but that the definition of "normal" had not changed yet. Which leaves one question — what are we doing in cars today that somebody in 2075 will look at and say, "They thought THAT was safe?" TELL ME IN THE COMMENTS Did your family actually buckle up in the 60s, or were those belts mostly decoration? Did you ever stand between the front seats? Did you sleep stretched across the back seat on a road trip? Did your first car have vacuum windshield wipers? Did you learn to pump the brakes in the snow? Which old car feature — dangerous or not — would you bring back tomorrow? I read them all, and some of the best classic car history on this channel ends up underneath the video, because somebody says: "You forgot the one my dad had." If you grew up with a Chevrolet, Ford, Plymouth, Buick, Oldsmobile, Pontiac or Cadillac in the driveway, this is your kind of American nostalgia. Vintage cars, retro cars, rare cars, station wagons, old cars from the 70s — the ordinary vintage American cars people actually drove, not the ones under museum lights. Like the video, and subscribe to Every Home Had One for more vintage America, baby boomer nostalgia, 1960s nostalgia and 1970s nostalgia every week. COMING NEXT: 15 Old Car Features That Were Decades Ahead of Their Time — the forgotten car features that were so clever, so useful or so far ahead of their time that maybe we never should have lost them. A few of those are going to start an argument. #ClassicCars #AmericanNostalgia #VintageCars #CarHistory #OldCars #1960s #1970s #RetroCars #Automotive #VintageAmerica #ForgottenCarFeatures