Not sure I'd agree about the cars. As I age, I'm grateful for the advanced safety features in modern cars. (Adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping features, auto-braking, etc.)
Not to mention the fact that they can go 10,000-15,000 miles between oil changes instead of 3,000, don't need "lube jobs," last 200,000-300,000 miles instead of barely 100,000, start and run perfectly in the winter without having to "warm up" or having to use a manual choke to keep them from stumbling, and get 2-3 times the gas mileage that my first car (bought in 1978) did. My first car didn't even HAVE an odometer wheel for the 100,000's - it rolled over after 99,999, which tells you something about its expected life.
(FYI, I'm a "child of Eisenhower," so I became an adult in the late 1970's. Yes, I'm a dinosaur.)