Cars are getting very clever now.

In my job I’m constantly jumping in and out of different cars, and more and more often you open the door and there’s just a massive tablet staring back at you.

Everything is in there.

Heating. Navigation. Drive modes. Cameras. Seats. Lights. Sometimes even opening the glovebox seems to need a menu now.

And don’t get me wrong — some of it is brilliant.

The dashboards are beautiful. The screens are sharp. The graphics are clever. The amount of technology manufacturers can squeeze into a car now is genuinely impressive.

Then I get back into my trusty 20-year-old Volvo.

She’s not the prettiest thing anymore.

But she works.

Warm day? Turn the air-con on.

Cold day? Heated seats.

Need to reverse?

Well, my reversing camera is basically my trusty left hand behind the passenger seat, turn my head, look out the back window and use the mirrors like people somehow managed to do for decades.

She does have parking sensors too.

I’m not completely prehistoric.

Recently I spent three days driving a 2026 Mercedes C-Class for work.

Lovely car.

Loads of technology. Beautiful interior. Screens everywhere. Cameras showing you things from angles I didn’t know I needed to see. The car seemed to know what I wanted before I did.

And I really enjoyed it.

Then I got back into the Volvo.

Sat down.

Turned the key.

And thought…

Do we actually need all of it?

Not “is it nice?”

Because it is.

Not “is it clever?”

Very.

But do we actually need every single thing?

And then my brain went somewhere slightly darker.

What happens in 15 or 20 years when the software stops being supported?

We’ve all got that old phone sitting in a drawer somewhere.

Perfectly good screen. Battery probably still works. It switches on.

But it’s running an operating system that can’t be updated anymore.

You try to download an app and it tells you the software is too old.

Try to update the software and it tells you the hardware is too old.

Basically, the phone itself still works.

The world around it has just moved on.

And that got me wondering.

Is that what will eventually happen to cars?

My Volvo is 20 years old and still does what it did when it left the factory.

The heater heats.

The air-con cools.

The seats get warm.

The mirrors still mirror.

Nothing needs an update.

Nothing is waiting for a server somewhere to tell it that it’s allowed to work.

But what happens to today’s cars when the screens are old?

When the software is no longer supported?

When the connected services disappear?

When the app that controls half the clever features no longer works on whatever phone we’re using in 2045?

Maybe it’ll all be fine.

Maybe manufacturers will support these systems forever.

Or maybe in 20 years we’ll have perfectly good cars where half the fancy stuff simply says:

Service unavailable.

And that brings me back to spec.

Highest spec always sounds best.

More options. More technology. Bigger screen. More cameras. More buttons — or fewer buttons, apparently.

But does more always mean better?

Sometimes the best car is the one with the equipment you’ll actually use.

Heated seats? I use them.

Air-con? Absolutely.

Parking sensors? Handy.

Apple CarPlay? Brilliant.

A function buried four menus deep that changes the colour of the ambient lighting depending on my mood?

I’ll survive.

At National Car Finder, we’re not interested in finding the car with the longest equipment list just so we can say it’s got everything.

We’d rather find the one that’s got the right things for you.

Because the best spec isn’t necessarily the highest spec.

It’s the spec you’ll actually appreciate every time you get in.

And sometimes, after driving something brand new with every bit of technology imaginable, I get back into my old Volvo, look around at all those wonderfully boring buttons…

…and smile.