Top 10 car technologies millennials can’t use

Remember the old pull-and-twist style park brake that sat directly in line with your left knee cap? While it was handy for removing your patella in the event of a sudden stop, it wasn't always as effective at holding the car on a hill when parked.

Like it or not, the umbrella park brake, and the old ratchet-style park brake between the seat and the door have gone the way of the dodo. Most cars are now fitted with an electric park brake, or if you’re really behind the times, a console or floor-mounted mechanical setup.

Oh, the hill-start fun we had…

Carburettors and cold starts are now a thing of the past. But before fuel injection made our cold-morning commutes a thing of luxury, the good old choke was a necessary means of cranking the Kingswood to life.

Pulling the choke a little, matching the revs for a while, and juggling all the other outmoded technologies in this article was a normal part of any cold start – as was remembering to open the choke again! If the lack of power and high idle didn’t give it away, the plume of black smoke from your exhaust was a sure sign you’d forgotten to reset the choke.

Ah, the good old days.

We didn’t need gym memberships when I grew up. Parallel parking took care of that! Yanking on the steering wheel at low speeds, fighting to get the car in and out of a drive-through… the days of Armstrong steering were muscle-building indeed.

It was a rite of passage most of the weak-armed iPhone generation wouldn’t have a clue about. Imagine exerting any kind of energy while driving around? I mean you wouldn’t have any energy left to take a selfie, or swiping right on Tinder.

What a time to be alive…

It’s not a technology as such, but since when did turning your head become so hard? Nowadays there’s a beeper for this and a camera for that. But back in my day [geez, I’m that old?] you had to turn your head to park, to reverse, to change lanes, and even to go through an intersection.

Imagine how many research and development dollars – and how many microchips – could have been saved if we all just turned our heads. There’d be no blind spot monitors, no reversing cameras, no rear cross-traffic alert – and probably far fewer accidents.
By crikey, give me a head-check over self-parking sensors and buzzers any day.

Why is it that opening the door and sticking a key in the ignition is so hard? I mean it’s one action, and the same key! It seems keys have become passé.

Kids these days need their soft little hands free for WhatsApp and their caramel latte; just walk up, grab the door handle, push a button and go!

I mean, how’d you be in the dark and rain, sifting through the key chain to unlock the door, leaning over to let your mates in, then pulling the choke and turning the ignition.

Too hard, for sure.

Microchips have all but done away with the dipper switch entirely. But remember when you used to dip your high-beam lights with your left foot? I do. But I’m sure most millennials wouldn’t.

Most millennials can’t understand why a car has three pedals, let alone a switch. Throw in an umbrella park brake and a choke and you’d just about blow their minds.

I mean, who doesn’t love managing the pedal pressure of their non-assisted, non-ABS drum brakes while dipping their lights and changing their non-synchro column shift?

I sure did. And bring back leaded petrol!

As if dipping the high-beam with your left foot, turning the key with your right hand, swivelling your head on its axis and pulling the choke with your left hand wasn’t enough, drivers from my era also needed a book to tell us where to go.

There were no talking TV screens linked to satellites in the sky in our day, by gum. We rifled through the index of a well-weathered book as thick as a Bible to locate the street, then orient the direction in our head (that was simultaneously performing a head-check) to sort out which road we were meant to turn down next!

Turn-by-turn instructions, indeed. If the passenger got it wrong, they walked home.

Poor diddums would really struggle with the concept of regulating their window by hand. I mean, climate control has just about done away with the idea of using fresh air to ventilate the cabin, and push-button electric windows are now standard on even the cheapest models on the market.

Back in my day power windows were a luxury. They were futuristic and expensive, and something only posh people had. For the rest of us, winding the window by hand was as much a part of driving as using the street directory, turning our heads, changing gears…

…And let’s not get started on flicking your cigarette ash out the quarter window.

If you live in the US of A, the column shift transmission is probably still a bit of a thing; but probably only for an automatic transmission. Where’s the fun in that, I ask you?

When I learnt to drive “three on the tree” was pretty much the norm, and if you didn’t have to double-clutch to get first gear, then you were a bit of a snob, quite frankly. Kids these days can barely cope with two pedals, drive and reverse. Imagine how they’d go slotting the right ratio from a lever on the left side of the steering wheel!

Even worse than three-on-the-tree were the Japanese light commercial vehicles like the Toyota HiAce Commuter with five gears 'on the tree'. Mind blowing.

Imagine trying to change gears while reading the street directory, performing a head-check, pulling the choke and cuddling your partner on the bench seat beside them.
Never gonna happen.

As pre-millennials, we’re basically the custodians of the dying art that is the manual gear shift. Automatic licence? Who heard of such a thing?! Blasphemy, if you ask me.

Choosing the right gear for the job and having proper control over what the car is and isn’t doing is part and parcel of driving. It makes you more aware of your speed and how much room you have to stop, and keeps you better focussed on the job at hand: DRIVING. Any wonder there are so many accidents these days.

Newer drivers are so focused on anything but driving the car. There are simply too many gadgets.

Now, if they had a clutch and a gear stick to focus on surely there’d be less time for distraction… or changing gears on the column while reading the street directory, performing a head-check, pulling the choke, dipping the lights, rotating the umbrella park brake, fumbling for your keys and yanking on the steering wheel.

Oh, wait…