What better way to spend New Years Eve than continuing a rant?

Right. Nostalgia.

Nostalgia is a trap!

People remember the feel of old machines, not the consequences. They talk about how a vintage boat of a car “soaks up the road.” They don’t remember the ways it needed 200 feet to stop on a wet road. They don’t remember bias-ply tires squirting out from under you in a rainstorm.

Nobody waxes poetic about lap belts, bias-ply tires in the rain, or steering columns aimed at the sternum. Funny how that part never makes the highlight reel.

Modern cars hide their safety systems well because when safety works, you don’t notice it. That’s the paradox: progress is invisible when it works.

Memory has a way of sanding down sharp edges. But modern cars don’t rely on memory or luck—they rely on engineering. So how did we get from hopeful mass to managed safety in the first place?