Seeing rust creeping up from the door sills of a modern car is about as rare in this day and age as white dog poo. They are both, it seems, relics of a by-gone era.

Which is no bad thing, as rust on a car was not only commonplace but if you wanted to mend it yourself, then you entered the world of hotch-potch bodge jobs (or, at least, I did) where a fibreglass fix could, if you weren't careful, look worse than the rusty hole you were trying to conceal.

And that was before trying to buy a matching pot of paint which, invariably, was never quite the same as the hue the rest of the vehicle was. More steel and better paint has since solved this dilemma.

Cars, it is far to say, have come an awful long way over the last 30-40 years.

Yes, they remain incredibly expensive - especially if you want to trade up to an electric vehicle (which currently seem priced to deter anyone other than company car providers or the very wealthy to make the switch) - but the creature comforts they now offer make the vehicles we drove in the 80s and 90s seem like a horse and cart.

Wind-up windows (which had an uncanny ability to snap off, almost inevitably when the window was wound-down) have been replaced by the touch of a button. Granted, they are just as prone as deciding not to work as the old handles, but at least they feel more reassuring. And most of the time you don't need it as air-conditioning - once a top of the range perks - is standard in so many today.

It used to be a treat if your car stereo had a cassette player - rather than just a tune-it-in-yourself old school radio. Which, more often than not, was only good for crackly old medium-wave. Buy a new motor today, and even the advent of CD players (remember those units you could buy to put in your boot which could hold dozens of CDs to link into your stereo?) has been superseded. Now it's all digital radio and wirelessly connecting to your phone, providing you with access to everything the likes of Spotify can throw at you.

A map in your glove box? Oh come on grandad! Today its either a built-in satnav or your phone. No-one knows where they are in the country while driving any more, but they do, at least, get there with clear directions and matrimonial harmony maintained.

And who can forget those awful plastic seats? The type on which, on a hot day, felt like they were glueing your shorts-exposed legs to the upholstery. Not to mention that awful smell they would give off (the seats, not your bare legs) which helped fuel an entire generation's car-sickness when travelling.

'It was also an era when seat belts for passengers were seen as something as an edict from an over-powering nanny state...'

But perhaps the biggest step forward is an insistence for safety. No longer can cars roll off the production line offering to concertina at the slightest sign of impact. If you wanted some sort of reassurance while driving, well, once upon a time, you had to look to the likes of Volvo. The Swedish manufacturer seems to steal a march on everyone else by promoting themselves and their vehicles as they way to protect yourself from the worst a road traffic impact could throw at you.

Many mocked it at the time.

Mind you, it was also an era when seat belts for passengers were seen as something as an edict from an over-powering nanny state - as opposed to the clear life-savers we all recognise them as today.

While wearing them in the back seat - if you had a car with such fittings - was seen as being rather over cautious.

This was, let us not forget, an era when we drove around in car belching lead petrol into the streets while having a cigarette.

Times change.

In another 30 years, the mind boggles at the progress cars will have no doubt made. Petrol stations will look very different (and probably be renamed 'energy stations' or something similar) - with a forecourts just full of recharging points and lots of bored folk standing around waiting for their batteries to top up.

Or perhaps - and arguably crucially if electric is to be the norm - technology will have advanced to have sorted that out too by then.

But then Back To The Future promised us flying cars in 2015 and self-drying coats. So perhaps keep those expectations set to low.