This is the biggest difference between modern cars and those of the past

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Siata Dash

Matthew DeBord/BI

Modern cars are much safer than the automobiles of yesteryear. They're also more powerful and faster.

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But cars are still cars. Even the most advanced 21st-century vehicle still has four wheels and a motor. The basic principles have remained unchanged for a long time.

Except in one area: on the dashboard.

We got a vivid demonstration of this recently when Business Insider's Ben Zhang and I went up the Hudson River to check out some vintage cars that are being auctioned this coming weekend in Hershey, PA by a new operation called The Finest Automobile Auctions.

One of the rides we sampled was a 1952 Siata 300 BC Spider, a nifty little red "barchetta" sportster that could sell for between $350,000 and $425,000.

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This car is about the joy of driving. It isn't about Apple CarPlay. Study the instrument panel:

Siata Dash Skitch

Matthew DeBord/BI

That's right, there are exactly three analog gauges.

Now have a gander at the most advanced modern instrument cluster available: the "Virtual Cockpit" on the Audi R8 supercar - a screen that can be customized and reconfigured based on driver preferences, and that can pipe in all the infotainment features in the car:

Audi R8 36

Hollis Johnson

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This is the biggest single difference between cars of old and new cars: in old cars, you are distracted by pretty much nothing, while in modern cars, even inexpensive mass-market rides, you're distracted by ... everything.

I'll leave it up to you to judge which is better. And of course, the Siata is basically a race car. Who needs the extras?

However, I once owned a very simple car, a first-generation Mazda Miata, which lacked any infotainment tech and had a grand total of five gauges.

It was fine by me.

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