I drive a 2012 Civic with a smashed-in back bumper. Somebody rear-ended me in June, and fixing it would cost about what the car is worth, so it stays smashed and I haven't bothered with a car wash in years. People look at me in parking lots like something is wrong with me. Something is, but it isn't the bumper.

I also haven't opened the hood on that car in a very long time, and that has nothing to do with money. Everything under there runs through a computer, and I am not about to be the man who broke it. This comes from a fella who once put a 350 engine into his Ford F-100, in the desert — literally in the desert — with a mechanic beside him. It was not that much fun, but at least I knew what I was looking at.

So this week I sat down with somebody who isn't afraid of the computer and getting his hands dirty. Axxel Banda is a Gen-Z certified mechanic, born in 2002, and he's opening his own shop. I asked him everything I've been too nervous to find out for myself about modern cars, plus a few things about my cell phone battery that I'm still not ready to act on.

It’s showtime!

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My parents gave me my first car in 1975: a gold 1969 Cadillac Sedan DeVille that weighed more than two tons and burned premium gas. This luxury car felt like driving an aircraft carrier with wheels. But was it comfortable! Sitting on the leather-covered bench seat was like lounging on a fine couch. I merely touched the brake pedal and the golden hulk slowed smoothly. It seemed that vehicle read my mind, because I could steer it using only two fingers.

The 472-cubic-inch V8 engine burned up to twelve miles per gallon on the highway and eight in the city. But what the Hay? In 1975, premium gas was only 68 cents a gallon, less than a third of my $2.50 hourly pay! Plus, I didn't need to get out of the car at the gas station, because the attendant pumped the gas for me. With a nearly 22-gallon fuel tank, I could drive from Anna, IL, where I worked in radio, to my suburb of Park Forest, IL, with only one stop. The whole trip cost only $18, and I'd fork over the cash through the window to the attendant after he wiped my windshield.

This golden dinosaur could easily accelerate to 70 mph in 30 seconds. The trunk could hold ten bodies, and five live people could fit in the front and five in the back on sofa-like bench seats.

Everything under the hood was spread out nicely for easy servicing, and I could slither under the vehicle to change the oil without jacking it up, if I had wanted to.

Plus, the Golden Wonder boasted cruise control and an air conditioner that could cool Southern Africa. And the radio was both AM and FM!

Today, with a 12-miles-per-gallon MINIMUM fuel burn and at $4.79 a gallon at my local station in Mountain Creek, the same trip would cost $127!

And the pollution? The 1969 Cattle Truck had no catalytic converter. But the vehicle fit right into 1975, because Chicago and other major cities were inundated with a constant bluish miasma except when the wind blew.

BUT

There were no touch screens in those days, just buttons and levers, and lots of them. There were buttons to turn on the radio, change channels, switch on the headlights, turn on the wipers, and move the front bench seat. Then there was a button on the floor that you punched with your left foot to switch from low to high beams.

And the restraints? You had to fasten the seat belt, then clamp the shoulder harness onto it. I felt like I was in an airplane cockpit.

So, are we better off today now that most of these Monsters have been turned into…deck chairs, steam irons, and metal bongs?

Frankly, yes, because though my well-used Civic is neither huge nor fancy, it gets me where I want to go efficiently, at nearly 40 miles a gallon on the highway, with a modicum of comfort.

Except it's like getting into a go-kart!

Axxel's project car is a 2003 Nissan 350Z, which makes it exactly one year younger than he is. I asked him the question every Boomer with a light glowing on the dashboard wants answered: what do those lights actually mean? His answer was… not comforting.

We also got into touchscreens, and whose bright idea it was to make you dig through a menu to adjust your own mirrors. I have a theory involving a brain in a glass jar at Harvard. Axxel has a better one.

I've had a theory about touchscreens for as long as car makers have been putting them in dashboards. Knobs mean cutting holes in the dash and wiring up every one of them, and a screen is one piece, so I figured somebody in accounting saved a few dollars and the rest of us now scroll through a menu to change the temperature. That's what I told Axxel, along with my thoughts on where the inventor's brain ought to be kept.

Axxel didn't argue with the money part, but he added something I hadn't considered: bragging rights. The car companies want the flashiest, brightest thing on the lot because flashy sells, and plenty of the folks buying them want something to show off.

That stopped me, because a few scrolls up in this very newsletter I bragged about a car radio. My 1969 Cadillac had AM and FM, and fifty years later I'm still giving it an exclamation point.

The big screen is today's AM/FM radio, the feature you show your friends first. I would still like my knobs back. But I've lost any right to look down on somebody for wanting the shiniest thing on the dashboard, because I was about Axxel's age when I had mine, and it was gold.

WELL. I'LL BE DAMNED.