These 1990s Car Trends Are Better Left in the Past
The 1990s gave us some unforgettable cars, but not every trend from that era deserves a comeback. From odd design choices to short-lived tech experiments, some fads are best left in the rearview mirror. Here’s a look at the car trends from the 90s we’re more than happy to forget.
Over-The-Top Body Kits
“The Fast and the Furious” has a lot to answer for! Between that and the rise of ’90s tuner culture, everyone wanted their vehicles to look like beasts and slapped on a ton of body flared fenders and huge spoilers. However, they often made your vehicle slower!
Pop-Up Headlights
Headlights that seemed to wink at you were stylish additions to ’90s vehicles, but what you gained in pizzazz you lost in other respects. To begin with, the extra moving parts were prone to breaking, and then there were the safety concerns with pedestrians.
Fake Hood Scoops
Actual hood scoops channel air to feed or cool turbochargers, but many of the ’90s examples were fake! They were purely aesthetic and glued on to look impressive, but over time people realized without function they were superfluous to requirements.
Two-Tone Paint Jobs
There were so many single-colored cars on the road that the easiest way to draw attention to your ride was changing that - hence two-tone paint, which combined art and indecision, often in mismatched colors. Some were personally applied, others from the dealership but they’re unfashionable now, and good riddance!
Neon Underglow Lights
You weren’t anybody in the ’90s if your car didn’t have underglow lights in either tube or LED form! That’s how it started anyway, and then people realized how distracting they were. Laws came in, and now in-car ambient lighting is the preferred method.
Giant Car Phone Antennas
In a time when smartphones and wireless technology were all but a fever dream, car phones were huge bulky beasts that required antennas like a giraffe’s neck. They were as impractical as they looked too; they snagged on things, bent and frequently broke.
Oversized Sedan Spoilers
Spoilers are designed to make fast cars more aerodynamic and increase their speed. In the ’90s though, every car (including family sedans) were open to massive, sporty-looking spoilers, and they really didn’t help! These days, spoilers are integrated in the cars that benefit them.
Sticker Bombed Windows and Bumpers
Nothing said “this is mine” in the ’90s more than slapping stickers and decals all over something to add your own personal mark. Politics, bands or just cool-looking logos, nothing was left out of the sticker bomb explosion. Whether that was good or bad largely depends on your opinion.
Excessive Chrome Trim
Chrome was status in the ’90s, and adding tons of it to your car was considered a good thing. The more the better! That era had never heard the term “less is more,” but it tarnished quickly and even added extra weight that slowed your vehicle down!
Fake Racing Stripes on Family Car
Adding stripes to something makes it go faster, right? The good old ’90s trend of fake racing stripes began as a homage to performance cars and ended up on minivans (as well as your mother’s sedan). These days, stripes mean speed rather than questionable decoration.
Faux Wood Paneling
Back in the ’40s and ’50s, wooden panelling was a beautiful addition that added a touch of class to a car, but the ’90s loved tacky, and nothing says that better than faux-wood plastic. It was everywhere, and didn’t just look cheap - it often peeled in the sun, too.
Velcro Seat Covers
Personalizing your belongings was a big ’90s thing, and seat covers were no exception. The velcro kind were supposed to protect your seats, but at what cost? They rode up, didn’t fit and collected dust like dragons hoard treasure. And if you wore wool? Oh, the horror!
LED Digital Dashboards
The idea of a futuristic, spage-age dash does sound appealing, but the ’90s implementation involved a lot more pixelated speedometers, pulsing jagged lines and obnoxiously glowing numbers than was healthy. It was like you were driving a Tetris-inspired vehicle, but thankfully modern technology has delivered the real deal.
Rotary Dials on Dashboards
Before modern touchscreens, dials were the big thing, and ’90s vehicles loved them! They were big, chunky devices that controlled everything from seat adjustments to radio tuning to climate controls. They were also often flimsy or awkward and tended to get accidentally turned!
Air Fresheners Everywhere
If you wanted to capture that ’90s interior aesthetic, you needed air fresheners. Not one, but lots, and hanging from every available surface. Don’t worry about complementary scents - just throw them all in there! The dangling objects could obscure your view though, and subtle modern diffusers have moved in.
Velour Interiors
Nothing screams ’90s like velour on every car interior surface. It was added to doors, arm rests, seats… the works. It was comfy, but it also absorbed dirt and hair like a sponge which made cleaning your car’s interior a living nightmare.
Square Cars Everywhere
The ’90s were not a time for curves and sleek lines. Instead, you got sharp corners and a boxy aesthetic to everything, and cars got the same treatment. Never mind that it made your vehicle less aerodynamic and slower; at least you had minecraft fashion!
Rear Window Wiper Arms
Rear window visibility is important, so a wiper to clear away the dirt and rain is vital. But in the ’90s they tended to be less useful. They often had a mind of their own, either flopping around like a dead fish or giving up mid-wipe.
Corded Handheld Cell Phones
If you had a car phone in the ’90s you knew you’d made it! They might have felt like the height of technology, but they were essentially just house phones feasting on your car’s battery. They were huge, clunky and awkward, and came complete with those spiral cords.
Shag Carpet Floor Mats
Floor mats are supposed to protect your vehicle, but these things were made of shag carpet which attracted things like a magnet. Dirt, crumbs, debris, hair, stains… if you had one of these, it was a germy mess, and after a rainy day it was even worse!
Excessive Badges and Decals
Minimalist branding is common now, but in the ’90s it was cool to shout as loud as you could about all the stuff you liked. Cars had stickers or badges for every tiny detail - their brands, features, specs, and don’t forget the classic “baby on board.
Tinted Windows
Modern window tints are elegant and refined, but those words didn’t apply to anything in the loud and proud ’90s! People liked to feel anonymous in their cars, but it didn’t just look suspicious - in some cases it was actually illegal, and the cops hated it!
Huge Truck-Style Mirrors on Small Cars
If you wanted to give your car comically large ears there was the ’90s trend of slapping giant mirrors on the side of your small car. The result didn’t just make your vehicle look like dumbo; it added drag that slowed it down, too.
Car Cassette Adapters
Since the ’90s were a weird transition between CDs and tape decks, you had adapters so you could play all your old tunes… when they worked. Often they made weird noises, or only came through one speaker - a far cry from modern aux ports and Bluetooth!
Fuzzy Dice
Did you know Fuzzy dice date back to WWII? They were supposed to be a good luck charm, and even though that charm had worn off by the ’90s they were still a staple feature in many vehicles, visibility be damned, apparently.
“Turbo” Badging on Non-Turbo Cars
Just because a vehicle had a “turbo” badge in the ’90s doesn’t mean it had any more horsepower! That didn’t stop manufacturers (and DIY sticker enthusiasts) from marking their ride with these badges; it didn’t make them any faster, though.
Bright Pastel Paint Colors
Modern paint jobs are metallics - usually black or neutral colors - but the ’90s was a time of excess. Many cars were colored with bright pastels, including coral pink, banana yellow, seafoam blue or mint green. It was fun but it aged quickly, then you were left with a wheeled easter egg.
Oversized Rims With Thin Tires
Back in the day, oversized rims were a cool feature, and they were often paired with super thin tires. Which was a parking lot flex, sure, but not a practical one. Those things would chatter going over potholes, and offer zero comfort on bumpy rides.
Fake Leather Interiors That Cracked Instantly
Whether the faux leather fooled you into thinking it was real or you were trying to be animal-friendly, these car interiors were great at first… until the sun came out. Then they had more flakes than a cereal bowl and cracked like crazy.
Built-In Cassette Players That Chewed Tapes
Whether it was your personalized road trip soundtrack or a romantic mixed tape a sweetheart gave you as a gift, the built-in cassette player didn’t discriminate. They would chew those things up like cookies and spit out the spool to taunt you. They were evil.
Fold-Out Cup Holders
There’s a fine line between madness and genius, and the fold-out cup holder crossed that threshold - and not on the genius side. Manufacturers put them on any available surface, but usually above something sensitive so when you hit a pothole spilled coffee ruined your console.
Trunk-Mounted CD Changers
Before Bluetooth, there was the trunk-mounted CD changer, a massive tower you loaded CDs into. If you wanted to change a CD, you’d pull over, open the trunk, change it and continue on your way. Makes you grateful for voice-activation, huh?
Dashboard Mounted GPS
In the ’90s Google Maps were a fever dream, but there was an alternative: a huge and heavy sandwich-sized slab that suction-cupped to your windscreen. You could change the voice to something humorous and have Yoda direct you to your destination if the signal didn’t cut out.
Tinted Headlights and Taillights
Yeah, car lights - the things that are supposed to be bright so you can drive at night - were tinted in the ’90s. You know, just to make seeing more difficult. That means your brake lights practically vanished, so this trend can stay in the past where it belongs!
Clunky Keyless Entry Systems
1990s tech came in large or extra large, and its keyfobs were no exception. Without modern keyless systems to fall back on, you had a remote-sized bulky device that even required codes to work in some cases. Yikes!
