There are more recent cars than going back to the 70s that doesn't force data collection on you... My car is from 2018 and has none of that stuff, and it even has buttons for all controls, no touchscreen (2018 Audi A3).
I like the feel of driving classic/older cars, but I really cannot justify the safety and pollution drawbacks if I wanted to use them daily.
Probably not the kind of car you are looking for, but my friend's 2015 honda odyssey (which he just traded in) had no smarts. No cellular, no GPS, console used knobs instead of a touchscreen... Whatever Deadpool's opinion of it was, it did make a great van for cargo and humans with good fuel economy for that class...
But, sooner or later it'll be a problem. What would be interesting to me is, is it possible to deactivate cellular on a modern car without losing key functionality, and, if it is ever reactivated (say, to pull updates) would it promptly push years of data upstream.
If you’re willing to do a little bit of work you can often remove the cellular radio from some modern cars to remove the data collection connectivity, not sure if it’d still be buffered on the device still but it’s a step in the correct direction. I’ve read about this in some modern BMWs so it might be worth a bit of googling if you have a particular modern car you are interested in. Or if no one else has done it with a particular model you could also blaze your own path here.
As mentioned elsewhere in the subthreads somewhere here, I got a 2018 Audi A3 in 2019, wrote about the experience re data collection + that purchase here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42736918
For sure. I just really like the SL!
Currently have a 2012 C350 Coupe that I love to death. Have had it since 2018. Fantastic car, I don’t think it spies on me too much