It comes up pretty often in my house, as I have four kids, although the older two only live with me and my (second) wife part time. Our '99 Subaru Legacy only seats five; so if we are all going somewhere, I ride my bike (or we all do, depending on how far it is). And we obviously can’t all go out of town together. (Minivans that have decent ratings and less than a bajillion miles on them are out of our price range.) The front bench seat used to be a common feature of a basic, no-frills car and I just wish that were still the case.
I realize this was 15 years ago now, but when I bought mine in 2000, the available automatic transmission was a 3-speed (and they were giving them away for free since nobody wanted them). The carpet, rear seat, and right-hand rear view mirror were options. Manual locks, manual windows, and manual soft top were standard with no option for automatic. So were interval windshield wipers. This all applied through the 2006 model year. I know the trans has changed significantly since then, and I’m pretty sure you can get auto windows & locks now. Don’t know if the right side mirror is standard, but I’d imagine it is.
Note I said “first world vehicle”. Wranglers hardly count, being deliberately designed to ape a WWII military vehicle as closely as modern safety regs permit.
I’m not dissin’ on 'em. My wife bought a new 2002 soft top 5-speed Wrangler in that dark copper color with the light tan roof. Very fun. But very proudly *not *a first world vehicle.
I know that’s how it’s supposed to go, but the motions of taking my key out and starting the car are so ingrained in me, that if I start the car with a button I have a nagging feeling I’ve forgotten something…
Also, I don’t recall how it happened, but once when we had a rental car with the feature, my husband was driving but the keys were in my pocket. He stopped to let me out somewhere and right away had to call me back to give him the keys!
The Miata is brand new for this year and still has a manual top. Most of its recently departed competitors also had them, like the Solstice and MR-2.
Running boards. Used to be standard.
Rumble seats. When I was about 10, I rode from Philly to the Jersey shore in a rumble seat.
Split windshields.
Two and three tone cars.
Parking lights (a tiny fender mounted red light) disappeared during WW II and never returned.
Hand-cranked starters.
Whitewalls, oddly enough.
Colorful cars in general. White, black and gray (silver) seem to be the most popular now. Many new car lots just don’t have the palette they used to have.
I’m not a car person, but I’m pretty sure that bench seats went the way of the dodo when we collectively decided that wearing a seatbelt and thus not getting flung through a pane of safety glass in the event of a collision was a more than reasonable tradeoff for “cuddling with your sweetie”.
Speaking of seating in cars, I’m sure the rear-facing foldable seats in station wagons are extinct. That was by far the best part of carpooling with the neighbors as a kid…
That’s just a trend, which will come and go in cycles. Though monotone white, grey, and black dominate, there are plenty of dark blue and red cars, though green’s a bit rarer, and a few models come in other brighter colours.
But rear seats have seat belts (including shoulder belts) in three positions including the middle.
But what if you’re at the drive-in?
I really miss the high-beam switch on the floor. Is having to take your hand off the wheel an improvement?
Well, if you’re at the drive-in, I’m assuming you were able to pimp out your time machine with your seating arrangement of choice. 
But again, as with the Wrangler, the Miata (we call it an MX5 by the way) is deliberately designed that way - it is part of the appeal of the vehicle,
A “traditional” lightweight, front engine, RWD soft top
I’ll take up that challenge for you with two cars
a) Toyota Wish
b) Toyota Alphard
According to the Wiki page, it comes in 4WD.
Again, according to Wiki, the 2nd generation has 4WD as an option but doesn’t mention the 3rd generation which is just coming out now.
Coat hanger hooks over the back seat windows.
Hand loops on the B column to help you get out from the back seat in a coupe.
It looks like the Wish was based on the MC Platform, which underpins such AWD-available cars (familiar to my American eyes) as the Matrix and the older RAV4. Plus, as Telemark points out, it was available with a (presumably conventional) AWD system itself.
The Alphard, according to wiki, had a hybrid 4WD system with electric motors in the rear that wouldn’t necessarily have required a driveshaft. However, it’s built on the New MC Platform, which underpins such cars as the current RAV4 and Lexus RX.
Except that the Miata (it’ll always be a Miata to me!) has been available with a power-retractable hard top since the NC generation, and presumably this brand new one will also have a powered roof as an option. So it’s “deliberately designed” to have both.
The Miata, of course, benefits from being small, which means you can raise and lower the roof manually while sitting in the drivers’ seat. Any car where you’d otherwise have to get out to put the roof up will never again have a manual roof option, because electric motors and wiring are cheap. The Solstice that I mentioned, still a thoroughly modern car, required getting out of the car to raise/lower the manual roof, and it rightly took some heat for that.
Not quite the same thing, but my late model sports sedan has grab handles over the rear doors which include coat hanger hooks.
As a guy who drives a 2000 Cavalier, I had no idea that cars now are lacking:
- crank windows(I thought you could choose)
- manual locks(I thought you could choose)
- coat hanger things in the back? Why did that go away?
My car has all three of those. Anyone know when the last car was offered that did NOT offer power steering, or at least had it as optional?