The $25k car is going extinct?

Not to mention how much more functionality present day cars have. (mentioned in a couple comments elsewhere, but things like airbags/backup cameras/other sensors etc).

Well of course, but tech gets cheaper over time too. Just look at the price and power of today's MacBook air vs 10 years ago. You get way more value for money as you should

Do you buy 10-year-old tech like MacBook Airs so you can take advantage of the cost savings?

All cars have become a lot more bigger. I was just watching the movie Jewel of the Nile on Disney+. There was a scene, where a dictator and the protagonists cram into to Rolls Royce of 80s and I just thought the average suv these days has more interior space...

While flight travel has got cheaper by making seats more compact and planes more efficient, the cars go the opposite direction - drive luxuriously like kings and burn the planet with bigger and bigger gas guzzlers...

Not the OP, but I do buy used computers for cost savings.

Cars have much more functionality these days, and it is good. But too much of that functionality is mandatory, and this is bad.

For functionality meant to protect people outside the car (eg. automatic braking, or pedestrian airbags) there is a very good case for it being mandatory.

Unfortunately those are often not on the list of mandatory features.

That 80s car probably has comparable interior space. It's the exterior that's gotten bigger. 7" thick doors and all that.

What's new on the mandatory list?

Electronic stability control doesn't sound like it adds any meaningful costs over ABS. Backup cameras are a cost but not a huge one. What else is there?

ESC in effect mandates the same hardware as the highest end ABS systems and adds throttle by wire on top of that.

Pretty much every AWD car can do "dumb" ABS that uses pedal pressure to run with just the sensors the AWD system uses (front axle speed and rear axle speed) but you need an expensive ABS system with a pump and a throttle by wire system if you want to be able to have the system do stuff when no foot is on the brake.

A new pump or the power braking pump I already have?

Is throttle control a mandatory part?

There's a lot of features that aren't mandatory, but exist in just about any model so they might as well be. It used to be cheaper to get a manual transmission, now there are very few available, and usually on enthusiast models. Very few cars don't have power locks and windows. New cars generally have a touchscreen entertainment system. etc.

You can make ABS systems without the pump. They take use the driver's input instead. That's how lots of early systems worked. You give up a little stopping distance in the case where one axle or one side of the car has a ton more traction than the other (think like driving in the gutter of a really strongly crowned road in a downpour) but they work pretty good and are CHEAP, like real cheap.

Throttle control is necessary because you need to lock the driver out of the throttle for ESC. Think of ESC as basically preventing soccer moms from mashing the pedal and getting sideways unnecessarily. Depending on how sideways they get initially the ESC programming is going to want to drag certain brakes to help get everything good again and that requires a pump since the driver's foot isn't there to give pressure (it might still be on the gas).