10 Classic Car Features That Have Been Banned

Car designs change and adapt with the times. Vehicles improve in safety and fuel efficiency with each generation, and lately, the market has seen the rise of electric vehicles and the common myths surrounding them. The same is true of car shapes and features. Advances in technology and changes in taste dictate how vehicles look and what they can do. However, the march of time isn't always kind to cars.

Admittedly, car builders add many features simply because the technology exists to do so. Some are so high-tech they are downright unnecessary. However, cars don't sprout new features eternally. Manufacturers have dropped features for a multitude of reasons. Sometimes, companies abandon these ideas because they become obsolete. In other cases, the cost of manufacturing causes the demise of a once-loved characteristic. There are also those that disappear due to changes in laws and safety standards. Often, the technology behind them isn't technically banned, but car manufacturers have their hands tied due to these laws. Either that or it's too much hassle to reinvent the features to conform to regulations.

Here are 10 classic car features you won't find in cars anymore. 

The exhaust systems of most, if not all, internal combustion vehicles direct exhaust gasses away from the driver and passengers. In some cars, exhaust is a significant element of style. Builders of hot rod kits and classic car fans often enjoy loud exhausts. The character of the exhaust note defines many cars. Once upon a time, you could use them to alter the engine's sound from a purr to an all-out roar. Unfortunately, tinnitus fell out of fashion.

Any kit that lets you enhance the sound of a car's exhaust is frowned upon by many communities. Legal ordinances and federal legislation often limit car manufacturers' ability to design their vehicle's exhaust system. This will become a running theme throughout the article, as local laws and ordinances frequently determine whether or not a car has a particular feature.

Let's say you live in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. Currently, vehicles weighing 6,000 pounds or less cannot produce noises exceeding 95 decibels, which the local government compares to the noise produced by a standard lawn mower. You can tweak your car's exhaust to scream at 94 decibels, but anything 96 or higher is against the law. New Jersey has similar laws banning exhausts that "produce an excessive or unusual sound," as does every other state. States such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Nevada have objective noise-measuring standards. Meanwhile, Florida, Kentucky, and New York go one step further and ban exhaust kits that create more noise than standard factory-installed ones.

Lights are essential for nighttime driving. You can't exactly drive safely if you can't see the road. As technology has improved, modern headlights have become brighter. At one point in time, car technology gave us headlights that could fold away when not in use, like some giant metal frog blinking its eyes. Unfortunately, features that look fancy aren't always safe.

Due to pedestrian safety regulations, most modern car manufacturers don't make pop-up headlights. Anything with a potentially sharp surface that wouldn't deform upon impact with a pedestrian was deemed an unacceptable hazard. But that was only half the problem. Like all mechanical components, pop-up headlights could malfunction and fail to open, so safety regulations also require these headlights to open without using tools. Most companies considered it too much of a hassle to manufacture folding headlights that met this one-two punch of a safety requirement, so they just went the easy route and focused on the static headlights most cars have today.

Again, we must stress that just because most car manufacturers don't spend the time, money, or effort to produce pop-up headlights doesn't mean they are outright banned. Case in point: Ares Modena's Panther Progettouno features pop-up headlights that stick close to the body, reducing the danger to pedestrians. However, the Panther Progettouno is a luxury vehicle, so its exorbitant price tag is probably one of the few reasons its manufacturers were able to work in pop-up headlights.

Not all customization kits are meant to turn cars into hot rods. Popular car customizations could also involve installing speakers, lights, and a DJ station to transform vehicles into mobile rave parties. While stereos and turntables are still legal modifications, neon lights are another story.

As their name suggests, neon under glow lights illuminate the underside of a car in any number of colors. Like other classic car features in this list, they aren't universally banned throughout the United States, as laws and ordinances differ from state to state.

Currently, external neon lights are illegal in several states, including Washington, Michigan, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Virginia, Minnesota and Pennsylvania. These features are legal everywhere else, with a few caveats that include limitations on colors. For example, in Alaska, you can't install blue neons on your car. Meanwhile, states like California and Alabama only restrict people from using red neons visible from the front. If you plan to install any of these lights on your car, thoroughly research current laws to ensure you don't accidentally break them. And remember, state laws apply to you and your vehicle even if you only use neon lights on private property. 

Seating space has always been at a premium in cars. How many passengers can you fit in a vehicle at one time? That is the wrong question. What car manufacturers should be asking is how many passengers can safely fit in a vehicle at one time.

Despite the name, rumble seats weren't car seats that jostled around like a Nintendo Switch Joy-Con controller – that would be way too distracting. Instead, rumble seats popped out of the back of early cars. These were usually outside the car's main body and contained little more than the upholstered back and the seat itself.

As with other car features, no single law killed the rumble seat, which is still very much legal. Instead, it is widely accepted that car manufacturers stopped adding them due to disappointing sales. The last U.S. cars with rumble seats were released in 1939, but the feature stuck around in the U.K. for one more decade. While car manufacturers could hypothetically resurrect the rumble seats, seat belt laws would serve as a big hurdle since rumble seats predate them. Also, given the modern car audience's obsession with trunk space — even small cars can have deceptively large trunks – rumble seats would be such a hard sell they might as well be banned.

Most car features are "banned" only once. For instance, pop-up headlights were discontinued because of safety concerns. However, a feature is sometimes banned twice, once for evolving safety regulations and again for a completely different set of safety regulations.

Chrome bumpers used to be the height of car fashion. Every other aesthetic add-on paled in comparison to big, shiny bumpers that stuck out in front of and behind a vehicle. However, these bumpers were all flash and no substance since they provided little protection. In the 1970s, new safety regulations stipulated that cars and their bumpers had to withstand collisions as slow as five miles per hour. Bumpers had to protect more of a vehicle and be more flexible, forcing manufacturers to replace chrome bumpers with materials that fit the new requirements.

Even after chrome bumpers went the way of the rumble seat, the car industry wasn't done kicking chrome parts square in the gut. In 2024, a regulation change banned new European cars from using chrome plating for any components. This time, the decision cited concerns regarding the material's toxicity as an airborne emission and its capacity to produce lung cancer. American car manufacturers are scheduled to follow suit by banning all chrome in new cars by 2039.

Mirrors are as essential to driving as tires. Rear-view and side mirrors help minimize blind spots, but only if you can adjust them to fit your seating position and height. A side mirror you can't reposition on the fly is essentially useless, and some lawmakers decided they should be illegal.

Most side mirrors are situated right outside the front car windows. This design choice gives drivers a good view of the lanes behind them, but more importantly, it lets them adjust the mirrors in case the electric mechanism fails. Once upon a time, cars in the United States could feature side mirrors that sat further away from the driver, closer to the front of the vehicle. These fender-mounted mirrors provided even more visibility by reducing blind spots, but the United States government didn't see things that way.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration enforces a standard that requires rearview mirrors, including side mirrors, to be "adjustable by tilting in both horizontal and vertical directions from the driver's seated position" (via Govinfo). This regulation ostensibly bans fender-mounted mirrors because they are too far for drivers to adjust while in traffic. Hypothetically, you could ask someone else to fiddle with them while you sit in the driver's seat or install a mechanism that lets you remotely tilt them like modern side mirrors, but that's more hassle than it's worth.

The more time passes, the more people understand the dangers of smoking. Granted, smoking in and of itself isn't outright illegal unless the smoker is of a certain age. However, many rules and regulations serve to discourage people from smoking, and quite a few try to reduce their exposure to second-hand smoke.

Ashtrays and cigarette lighters used to be familiar sights in vehicles, as were people with cigarettes in their mouths. But that all changed with the spread of anti-smoking laws. According to the CDC, there are restrictions to smoking in vehicles in more than half of the American states. Some of these laws only impact workplace vehicles, while others restrict drivers from smoking in the presence of a child. In order to ensure their products could be sold in all states, car manufacturers started hedging their bets and stopped installing cigarette lighters and ashtrays in their vehicles.

Today, you won't find any trace of ashtrays in most modern cars. However, plenty of vehicles still have the remnants of cigarette lighters. Car cigarette lighters worked by pushing a coil connected to a handle into a 12-volt housing. This heated the coil, and after some time, it was hot enough to ignite a cigarette. Nowadays, many cars have a 12-volt slot with no heating coil. These vestigial lighters remain useful, but only as power outlets with the appropriate adapter.

Distracted driving is dangerous driving, and there's more than one way to get distracted. Talking to people is a great way to lose your focus, even if they aren't with you in the car.

Phones have been an enormous boon to communications in general and the communication industry. Car manufacturers once raced to put specialized telephones in cars so drivers and passengers could stay in touch while on the road, usually to tell someone they're stuck in traffic. With the advent of cellular phones, car telephone units have become obsolete. You don't even need a smartphone to replace a car phone. Any low-tech mobile with a good signal can suffice.

You might be asking how the cell phone led to a ban on car phones. The answer is that car phones aren't banned but are subject to the same laws that regulate modern smartphone use while driving. Distracted driving laws are designed to help prevent accidents by dissuading people from making calls while behind the wheel. The severity of restrictions differs from location to location, but most criminalize texting or being on the phone in any other capacity while operating a motor vehicle. The letter of the law bans smartphone use, but the spirit of the law also applies to phones hard-wired into cars.

The dark secret of driving a car is that it is boring, especially on long trips. You must constantly pay attention to the road and everything around you, and getting distracted or nodding off for a second can end in disaster. A little entertainment can keep you engaged, but too much will be distracting.

Plenty of cars used to have dash-mounted televisions. Some even had seat-mounted TVs so young passengers could stay entertained (and quiet) on extended trips. However, these add-ons are no longer built into cars. One reason is pretty apparent. They're obsolete. Smartphones serve as portable entertainment devices that can play many streaming services. Why should a manufacturer spend money adding a screen to a car when drivers and passengers will supply their own? But then again, being superfluous isn't the same as being banned.

If anything killed the dashboard TV, it was laws against distracted driving. Regulations vary from country to country, but they are all designed to keep a driver's eyes on the road. As we just discussed, these laws were written with smartphones in mind, but they can easily apply to any attempt to resurrect the dashboard TV. But then again, who needs a television built into a car when you have a smartphone that can play hours of your favorite tech podcasts?

All cars have components called pillars that hold up the roof. The pillars that flank the windshield are known as A-pillars. As you can probably guess, stable A-pillars are essential for a car's structural integrity and have affected their design throughout the years.

A-pillars not only keep the roof intact, but they also support the front doors. These are some of the most expensive car body parts to replace, and they are the first line of defense in a catastrophic crash should a vehicle flip. A-pillars have to be built from durable materials and meet stringent strength standards. They can't serve their purpose if they're too thin.

Once upon a time, A-pillars were quite skinny. This design choice made cars more aesthetically pleasing, but more importantly, it also increased the driver's field of vision. However, changes in the federal motor vehicle roof crush resistance standards forced manufacturers to use thicker A-pillars. This meant more crash-resistant vehicles at the expense of bulkier bodies and more significant blind spots. Skinny A-pillars had been effectively banned, but this move raised a question. How thick was too thick? 

Companies had to balance the need for sturdy A-pillars with one critical drawback. Thick A-pillars reduced visibility. Aussie car manufacturer Holden determined that the thickness of its A-pillar increased the likelihood a driver wouldn't see a pedestrian or cyclist. Striking that balance was difficult, but it didn't bring back the graceful curves of the old A-pillars.