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In a new age of vinyl and Polaroids, here are some of the features from old cars we wish would come back, too

The 1958 Chevrolet Bel Air Impala Sport Coupe.

For better or worse, I am part of the generation that sent vinyl-record sales soaring to new heights last year, and whose hunger for all things analog prompted Polaroid to bring back its OneStep camera and instant film. This is a strange phenomenon, given that we were too young to experience these things first time around. Our nostalgia is entirely invented. Maybe it can all be traced back to a handful of Instagram influencers, or maybe it's caused by genuine interest in old technology.

Either way, it's time this analog nostalgia trip struck the automotive world. Bringing back the Mini and the Fiat 500 was a good start, but the main thing they have in common with their ancestors is their names. The original 500 was a rear-engine thing of beauty, albeit a dreadfully slow one, and the new Mini is no longer mini at all.

There are so many other discarded automotive inventions ripe for comeback: bench seats, whitewall tires, the pillar-less coupe, huge tailfins.

Peak-fin was vogue in the late 1950s, when Cadillac had towering tails reaching nearly up to the roof. The 1959 Chevrolet Impala's trunk had wildly curvaceous sheet metal leading into horizontal fins that stretched the width of the car. Some fins incorporated brake lights, others were shod with chrome. They were dangerously pointy. Such exuberant design was a by-product of economic prosperity.

The 1959 Buick Electra Convertible.

The front bench seat still exists on many full-size pickups. Why not put it back in sedans, convertibles and station-wagons too? You get an extra seat, and a bed in a pinch.

Elon Musk tried to give the jump seat a comeback. For an extra $5,300, you can have your Model S sedan fitted with two rear-facing seats in the back. Both come with racing-style five-point safety harnesses. Jump seats were once common in station wagons. Old Volvos – the V70R, for example – could be ordered with flip-up jump seats in the trunk. Similarly, old SUVs such as the Land Rover Defender and Toyota FJ40 had side-facing troop seats in the cargo area. Nothing better to make the daily trip to school feel like a safari.

The inside of today's Ford Focus looks inspired by some alien craft. What happened to the clean, simple dashboards of older cars? Belying its messy name, the cabin of the 1967 Alfa Romeo Giulia 1750 GT Veloce was minimalist perfection: a horizontal strip of leather atop a horizontal strip of wood, interrupted only by two round instrument dials and a steering wheel. There may have been a heater and radio in there somewhere, too. What more do you need? The dials themselves were a minor work of industrial art – so much so they've inspired an entire line of wristwatches by Autodromo.

The 1959 Cadillac Eldorado.

Because modern cars are so packed with features and adjustable settings, minimal design is probably impossible. So, go the other way. Bring back real buttons. Give us a centre console that looks like a stack of vintage McIntosh amplifiers, with dials and buttons galore. The Lamborghini Miura or Lancia Delta Integrale are fine examples. Either one would be a welcome departure from modern touchscreen controls.

Entire genres of automobile have disappeared over time. Some are certainly ripe for a nostalgic comeback à la Polaroid. It would be lovely to see "shooting brakes" return to showrooms. Modern examples of these two-door station wagons exist, but they are exotic treats. The lovely Ferrari GTC4Lusso springs to mind, as does the new limited-edition Aston Martin Vanquish Zagato Shooting Brake. Older, more affordable models, such as the BMW Z3 M Coupe or the Volvo P1800 ES, could use a remake.

Older, more affordable models such as the Volvo P1800 ES, could use a remake.

Pillarless coupes faced a similar extinction. They're defined by their lack of B-pillar, which makes for an open, breezy driving experience. Classic examples include the late-eighties Mercedes-Benz C124, the Jaguar XJC, BMW 8 Series, Bentley Brooklands Coupe and countless big American coupes from the fifties, sixties and seventies. The typically American phenomenon of the four-door convertible is also worth a nostalgia trip. Think: a modern version of the 1961 Lincoln Continental convertible.

The four-door convertible, pillarless coupe, jump seats and most of these other nostalgic automotive features have one thing in common: They were unsafe. They would crumple like a tin can in a modern crash test. As a result, they were quite rightly relegated to the annals of automotive history. But what if the brightest engineering minds in the automotive industry – instead of working on perfume atomizers and massaging seats – were working to make new, safe jump-seats or tail fins? These are not insurmountable engineering problems. In 2020, we could be listening to vinyl, taking photos on instant film and driving four-door convertibles with fins and whitewalls again.

There's no question cars are far better over all now than they were, but we have lost some good things along the way.

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