What I miss

I reached into my truck shove the key in the slot and a moment later the engine was smoothly running, Yawn. 
  I miss stepping into the the car. Turning on the key and while the the fuel pump pulsed filling  the carburators, pulling out the choke to just the right point for today's conditions. Then as the pump finished, cracking the throttle just right. 
If a recent tune up introduced new plugs, timing set. The points exactly set correctly. Carbs synchronized perfectly. Then I enjoyed the pleasure of it starting immediately.  
 

New is fine,  in many ways better.  But what pleasure do you miss? 

I miss not having to work on my cars, but getting to work on them.

Other than that, I miss being happy.

I miss old, ma-bell style landline phones.

If you got mad enough, you could hang them up hard enough to ring the bell.

In reply to ShawnG :

And pound the handset on the table to really make your point. 

I miss mechanical fuel pumps, that didn't need to pre-pressurize before turning the key from On to Start.  If the carburetor bowls might be dry, from sitting too long, the fuel pumps had a priming lever. And I miss wire wheels (with real knock-offs).

I could say I miss gravity-fed carburetors and cooling systems that relied on convection, instead of water pumps, but that only applies to tractors for me.

I miss simple, light weight cars from the mid to late 80s and early 90s without a E36 M3 ton of "technology" and windows that you could see out of.  I said CARS. Not SUVs. And I miss being able to park my car in a parking lot and not have a mother berkeleying SUV on both sides of me so I could actually see what traffic was coming so I could back out without guessing.

I miss the smell of a carburetor.

jimbob_racing said:

I miss simple, light weight cars from the mid to late 80s and early 90s without a E36 M3 ton of "technology" and windows that you could see out of.  I said CARS. Not SUVs. And I miss being able to park my car in a parking lot and not have a mother berkeleying SUV on both sides of me so I could actually see what traffic was coming so I could back out without guessing.

To my Geezerdum simple stopped with smog equipment.  Not that smog equipment isn't needed or important. It just added another layer of complexity. Carbs make sense to me. As does distributors with points. That all ended after 1967. 

An old garage. My grandma's garage. They just have that seasoned wood, old paint, ancient gas and oil spills smell. If I could figure out how to artificially create that smell, I'd hose my current garage, and ever garage I own, thereafter. 

Unfettered exhaust aroma, before catalytic converters. Still get it in the Thompson and Lime Rock paddocks. And from motorcycles.

In reply to Gary :

For me it's the smell of burned leaded race gas.

I miss the tick of an SU electric fuel pump.  And if it ever balks on you, you can just offer up some corporal punishment to wake it up and start it ticking (at least for awhile).  Try that with your electronic fuel injection!

The smell of bean oil wafting through a race paddock.

Tom1200 said:

The smell of bean oil wafting through a race paddock.

Add a little nitromethane to that and I'm with you. That and 25000 rpm engines. 

I miss being able to work under my car in a "grease pit". I don't miss parking car over a ditch to work on my exhaust.

wspohn said:

I miss the tick of an SU electric fuel pump.  And if it ever balks on you, you can just offer up some corporal punishment to wake it up and start it ticking (at least for awhile).  Try that with your electronic fuel injection!

The poor SU fuel pump. Hit it if it stops.  Actually all you have to do is clean the points. I'm going on 50 years on my SU fuel pump.  All I do is slide a folded piece of very fine sand paper through the points when I change the oil. It honestly takes only a minute or so. 

Tom1200 said:

The smell of bean oil wafting through a race paddock.

I put a little caster bean oil in the gas tank. A couple of tablespoons full when I want to smell it.  If I put too much in I have to clean the spark plugs.  By running a few tanks full of 10% ethanol through. ( the alcohol does a nice job of cleaning everything) but I go down 2 flats on the carbs to make up the added fuel I need using alcohol.