Is this just a movie thing? Aside from the lack of comfort, how well did old cars drive on dirt roads, which presumably were everywhere? I can’t imagine they got good traction on those thin wheels, or even produce enough power to push through a bumpy hill, so I’m wondering if there’s something I’m missing here?
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Many of the features that makes a car a good off road vehicle makes it a poor highway vehicle. Features such as soft suspension, high ground clearance and soft tyres makes them consume more gas and can cause them to more easily tip over. Off road vehicles also tend to prefer low weight solution to help them climb better and not sink into soft ground as easily. However that makes them dangerous in high speed accidents as they have no crumple zones and the luxury in them are quite bad. A classical off road vehicle even tends to be a soft top which makes them impossible to heat or cool, it makes a lot of wind noise at speed and they tend to leak in the rain. So in general you have to chose between a good highway vehicle or a good off road vehicle unless you want to challange the laws of physics.
In the past cars were better off road. Part of this is that they were lower price and therefore lower weight as they were built with less material and less luxury features. But it was also because roads tended to be much worse and you therefore needed a car that could handle some mud and snow and rough terrain. Most roads were just horse tracks with minor upgrades when the car came along. It was first in the 60s and 70s when the major highways were constructed that people actually had smooth roads to go on and would need highway cars. But there were still a lot of local roads that could not be traveled on with any car.
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