Best Car Features You Never Knew You Wanted

Interesting and uncommon car features that we would love to have!

Although having a car that is fast, beautiful, flashy or plush is great, for some of us it’s the features that really make the car.

There’s nothing that beats the feeling of driving a car with some neat party tricks. Just knowing that your car can do things that most others cannot brings about a certain feeling of smugness and exclusivity that may very well be a bit pretentious but that doesn’t make it feel any less satisfying. Here are some features that you may have never even knew that you wanted until now:

Hydropneumatic suspension or built-in jacks

For those who like to work on their car themselves and find themselves jacking up the car every other weekend, wouldn’t it be cool if the car could lift itself up without an actual jack? Well, that’s exactly what the now-classic Citroens used to be able to do with the use of their hydraulic suspension! This allowed motorists to change a wheel with less effort and also with a smug grin on their face.

Even better, we could be wishing for built-in jacks that pop out from under the car to lift it up, just as race cars have!

Speed-sensitive volume

A strange observed behaviour in humans is to turn down the volume when we slow down. Whether it’s because we’re looking for somewhere to park or if we’re trying to find our bearings, we believe that turning down the volume somehow helps us see better…

Well, some cars actually have a feature that turns the volume down when the car is slowed down significantly, which is certainly a neat trick and saves the driver from that all so laborious action of having to turn the volume down themselves!

Hot air cabin vent

It’s really not very nice to get into a hot oven-like car after leaving it parked in the Summer sun. So, imagine a fan that runs while the car is parked that vents hot air out of the cabin, thus keeping it cool for your return. The issue is that the fan will require power and would likely drain the battery, so to circumvent this the fan would be powered by small solar panels built into the roof.

This concept was actually made into reality and featured as a very cool (pun intended) part of the Mazda 929’s functionality. The feature could also be found in some early Prius models too! Why isn’t this still an available feature today?!

Automatic seatbelts

Those that experienced these first-hand in the early 90s may remember this feature as nothing special and maybe even as an annoyance but those that didn’t experience them may see them as a cool, retro feature that should be reintroduced today! Having to reach back and grab the seat belt yourself is so unluxurious and tiresome, afterall.

Wouldn’t it be cool for the seatbelt to be attached to a motorised system that brought the seatbelt over the occupants head when the door was opened and then retracted back to the original position upon the door’s closure? Even though it’s a retro feature, it sounds pretty futuristic, right? Not only would it save us from having to reach back but also it would add an immeasurable amount of style to exiting and entering the car.

Let us know which little-known features you think people would appreciate, in the comments!

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