I certainly didn’t mean a car from the last millennium.
There were a few fairly feature-packed cars but most occurred right in the last 10 years of that millennium.
Like the Mercedes I mentioned that with a push of the button for the keyfob would roll up all the way those and close the sunroof. That's a sweet feature. And once you've had it it really sucks to go back to a car that doesn't have it.
It's kind of like once you have DVR on your TV you never want to go back to having to watch live TV. I'm a person who can't stand to watch a commercial. It infuriates me. So we just started recording every last thing so we could skip every commercial.
I have said many times that it was right around 1996 or so that they've pretty much got cars and car engines figured out. Then we had that lovely Sweet Spot honeymoon. For a good number of years that cars were lasting much longer, engines going a quarter of a million miles without ever even having a valve cover off, no leaks and drips like the old days, no you all use between changes, not rusting out like they did up until and through the 80s...
They were just doing great! Yes, the prices had gone up with inflation but at least you were getting more life expectancy for the money you spent so you are able to keep cars longer so your cost per year actually went down.
I remember people buying cars and trucks back in the mid-seventies that had giant rust holes through them in three to four years. You could put your fist through holes in the fenders.
That's why a lot of people got into the habit of getting a new car every 3 years.
There's definitely kind of like timeframes and waves we're certain features become prominent or take over.
Think about in the old days and cars didn't have power steering or power brakes and they were just options. You can even order cars with or without. Then pretty much all cars had them.
Then the special option packages came in where you pretty much got cruise control and delay wipers and other things all as part of a package.
Things like AC coming with 10 and glass.
Power windows power door locks power driver seat.
Then around the late nineties you saw cars adding extra power ports as we no longer called them cigarette lighters or lighter sockets because smoking was out.
Then, high-end cars got navigation systems built in which is a weird story of evolution of laws and regulations in and of itself but that's a different story.
Then touch screens become more popular and integrated stereos and to touch screens and information centers along with Bluetooth and USB charging ports.
Heated and even cooled seats got much more popular around this time too.
Then there's the Adaptive or smart cruise control with auto braking and then the collision avoidance systems with auto braking and then Lane deviation warnings along with auto steering back into lane.
I find that a 99 to 2000 vehicle is often fairly Advanced though and has most all the convenience and features many people need. Certainly not a 2000 base model Ford Taurus or Focus or whatever they were making at that time
But a 99 or 2000 Cadillac or Lincoln Town Car is quite a nice, luxurious vehicle with plenty of comfort and convenience features.
If you want some of the newer technology you only have to go up to around 2005 to 2008 to get that.
It just depends on what each person wants but it's annoying to me that if you're going to buy new nowadays it's hard to find anything that's not jam-packed with stuff that a lot of people don't care about, will even use, or even want to be on their cars.