I always thought those side scoops at the back of station wagons were so that you could run with the back window down without ending up with exhaust in the car. Absent those things, rolling down the tailgate window at medium or higher speeds would often funnel exhaust into the back of the car.
And of course in the days before air conditioning, running with all windows down was the desired condition.
As a kid rattling around in the empty space behind the back seat I breathed a lot of fumes that way.
The first car I remember was my Dad’s 1962 Mercury Comet. It had no radio, though there was a place to put one in. Sis and I begged Dad to put a radio in, but he didn’t. Our next car was a 1969 Chevy Nova–with an AM radio! Hooray!
I do remember buying a Honda in the mid-1980s that did not come with any kind of radio as standard equipment. (The dealer would install an AM/FM unit for 3X the price I could find elsewhere.) Fine by me; I went to an aftermarket shop, and got an AM/FM/cassette deck installed at a reasonable price.
Some of the useless crap I’ve bought before deciding that “stock” is always the ideal state:
[ul]
[li]A bra for my Escort (yeah, yeah).[/li][li]Wind deflectors for the windows on said Escort.[/li][li]A Libby light for my Cougar (why are Fomoco’s names so suggestive?)[/li][li]A single disk CD player for my first Civic.[/li][li]Pin striping for my earlier Escort.[/li][li]A passenger side rear view mirror for that same Escort (they weren’t always standard).[/li][li]I installed a home made DRL into the second Escort.[/li][li]Ah, yes, and aftermarket driving/fog lights.[/li][li]Air fresheners that hang from the rear view mirror.[/li][/ul]
I had an FM converter in the 70s. Believe it or not, someone actually broke into my car and tried to steal it. In the 80s I installed a rear-widow defroster.
When I bought a stickshift in 2005, I got a suicide knob so I could steer at low speed with one hand. The knob actually folded down when not needed, so it was a little less murderous than earlier styles.
My first car was my mother’s worn-out 1962 Chrysler. It didn’t have seatbelts (they were a dealer-installed option) or outside rear view mirrors (they were aftermarket.) My first outside mirror got torn off in a car wash. I got a better one after that.
Radios and tape decks almost all the time but I was one of those who never should have been allowed a JC Whitney catalog. From putting in my own moon roof to the usual window covers/shields I did almost anything one time or another. One thing I did on all my 50s cars I intended as drivers that made sense – 4-point restraints for the driver and primary passenger. And attached to the frame; not some cheap bolt-it-to-the-body thing.
I remember the old plastic drink holders that slid into the window slot and hung on the inside of the door. I also remember cleaning mom’s carpet when I left a drink in one and shut the door too hard.
My '86 Trans Am, that I bought in '92, had a factory AM/FM radio, no cassette. I thought I was King Shit when I bought an AM/FM/cassette pull-out Clarion head unit from a coworker who had upgraded to something better, and installed it myself (quite well, I might add - Crutchfield’s install kits are great.) It made the journey to our first car after I got married, after it’s factory head unit lost either the left or right side speaker outputs about a month after the warranty ran out. Crutchfield install kit to the rescue again!
The Club. I bought one the first weekend after I bought the T/A; it also made the journey to our first car after marriage (buh-bye T/A :(:(). It’s entirely possible that my Club is still somewhere in the garage…
The yellow-painted armored collar that bolted around the steering column of your car, to prevent thieves with a flathead screwdriver from popping the ignition cylinder out of the column and driving off to the nearest chop shop. Almost bought one of these after I found out from an acquaintance that “some guys he knew” had been eyeing up my T/A, specifically for the wheels and T-tops. Went with a “Protected by Viper. STEP BACK!!” alarm instead.
Split-Fire spark plugs. Still see them in outdoor power equipment sizes, but I haven’t seen them in automotive sizes in a couple decades.
The Tornado. Holy crap, people are still buying this junk!
2/3 of every JC Whitney catalog I ever saw. I was on their mailing list as a teenager (all those car & truck magazine subscriptions…), and got their printed catalogs for years.
In the late 1990s, I bought a replacement for my radio/cassette player that included an auxiliary input jack - so I could plug in a MiniDisc player. The reason I replaced the built-in player in the first place was, I had burned out the heads on my cassette player (I had a 45-minute commute), and it wasn’t the first car where I had done that. I would have went with a CD player had CD burners for computers been readily available at the time.
My current car’s radio not only has an auxiliary input jack, but a USB port, and is Bluetooth compatible on top of that.
I worked with a guy who just did a frame off every nut and bolt restoration of a 1970? Olds Cutlass. For shits and grins he found an in the box factory under dash 8 track player and put it in.
I remember those knobs - everybody in 750 Motor Club trials cars had one on the wheel because it made it easy to wind full lock on and off rapidly, which you needed to negotiate your way round the course.
Extensions to the lights and wipers switches (which were mounted on the dash on the Austin Mini). You needed them to reach the switches in the (vanishingly unlikely) event that you wore the seat belts, which nobody did in those days. Belts didn’t have inertia-reel extenders then.
Wing mirrors which actually were on the wings (as opposed to the doorframe) and which vanished under safety impact regulations in later years.
Head rests, er, whiplash restraints. My brand new '67 Toyota Corona had been rear-ended by a big Pontiac and pushed into the rear of a big Lincoln in front of me and I suffered whiplash so when I bought a replacement '68 Toyota, which was before the items were required or even optional, I bought a pair that just slipped over the seatbacks.
Solar-powered exhaust fan that had a long intake (outtake) slot that fit into the top of a side window opening and was held up against the top of the opening by the raised window. The fan sucked the 120° air out and actually lowered the temp to 119° after a couple of hours. I had a tobacco barn thermometer that registered that high.
Necker’s knob and moon hub caps (plus rear fender skirts) on my used '50 Ford.
Ma had a 57 Buick Special, two-toned blue, that Dad bought her new, 8 months before he died. Two years later we were headed for California with the new dad cuz he was in the oil bidness. Summer of 59. Driving through Arizona when they still gave you canvas canteens to hang in front of your radiator to try and help keeping it cool. We got to Phoenix, and Ma wouldn’t go another mile if he didn’t put in an air conditioner. Big clumsy unit hung under the spacious dashboard.
