Excerpt:
"A stylish and functional feature that used to be a common car feature was pillarless side glass. When the front and rear side windows were rolled down the car’s interior was wide open. It was almost like having a convertible, without the inevitable fraying and leaking. It also made it feasible to drive a car without AC – in the summer – without arriving at work in need of a shower.

Pillarless cars (coupes and sedans) are part of the past, of course – and that’s part of the reason why you can’t buy a new car without AC.

One guess as to why.

The government issued regulations – this was back in the early ’70s pertaining to rollover/roof crush resistance – that effectively outlawed pillarless side glass (and also nearly did the same to convertibles; this is why the ’76 Cadillac Eldorado convertible was – at the time – expected to be GM’s last convertible and was marketed and marked up accordingly).

Italics to emphasize the devilish cleverness of the effectively thing.

The government rarely flat-out forbids us to buy a certain type of car; rather, the bureaucrats who operate the wheels and gears of the government issue regulatory standards that the car manufacturers must comply with. If a car isn’t compliant, it either cannot be sold or it is made more expensive and so harder for most people to buy, as for instance in the case of what are styled “gas guzzlers,” a term of opprobrium used to slander cars that are not . . . compliant with federal fuel economy regulations.


A Frau…
It does not matter that the people who choose to buy these “gas guzzlers” (or the pillarless cars, including sedans, people used to be able to buy) choose to buy them – and so, presumably, choose the supposed weaknesses and deficits the bureaucrats say they ought not to want – and must be effectively forced not to have.

Government knows best."