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There is SO much ugly going on there.

Nope. My mom bought a light blue Renault station wagon after she got rid of her MG, but never anything with paneling.

What Nicole is failing to mention was the Chevy Ecoline that the Rents also bought.... OH MY. It had an odd earth tone swirly paint job on the outside and paisley curtians and cloth on the inside. Lets also not forget the CB! I was quiet young when my dad procured that thing but I have many memories of it's hideousness.
 
Plenty of safety standards back then. Not as many as we have now.

Engines were often bigger, and virtually always less powerful relative to their size. Sometimes shockingly so.
 
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Technology and in particular turbo has changed many things for the better.

Can you imagine what the hot rod community of the 1950s would have thought of a modern LS motor, engine sensors, or... computer controled fuel injection?
 
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Maybe, but that's not accounting for the structural support smaller cars have to mitigate the impacts of crashes vs the big shiny metal deathtraps the older cars were
 
I saw some TV show where they pitted some 60's "land yacht” vs a newer small car in a simulated head-on. Needless to say, the folks in that major hunk of steel would have perished while the small car occupants all were ER candidates. No word on the two kids that were on the rear window shelf of the land yacht (my normal riding location).
 
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I had a neighbor who liked to put his daughters in old trucks once they got their licenses, because he thought size was an adequate substitute for modern safety-oriented design. There was just no convincing him of the unfortunate truth about those older vehicle designs. Too bad.

Honestly, I think the hot-rodders of a half century ago would have looked at modern engine tech and immediately asked, “You mean people can’t do it all themselves anymore?” And they wouldn’t have liked it at all.

...Right up until they saw how many races that tech won. And then they would have loved it.

Then we could show them Model S ludicrous mode drag times, not even 10 years into the real commercial era of all-electric cars, and blow their minds all over again...
 
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