> And cars lasted much longer back then and were much easier and cheaper to maintain.

I lived through those "amazingly affordable" decades, and while the engines were simpler (if you're driving a '68 Caprice 327 V8 without all those pesky environmental gadgets), no way they were more reliable. What was reliable was oil leaks, and burning oil. My parents popped a bottle of champagne when the station wagon hit 100k miles! 100,000 miles is table stakes for auto reliability these days.

My father was a quite capable home mechanic, but most people weren't. I guarantee you cars spent more time in the shop then than now.

Go to a car show and compare the interior of anything from this Golden Era to Nissan Versa somebody else mentioned, and tell me you'd take the old thing.

I have nostalgia for the decades I grew up in, but it's for the people I loved and simpler life of a child, not the stuff.