>>>perhaps only as something covered with a drape, sitting somewhere in the corner. The VAX which I managed on the previous job was then sold at a price lower than the huge AC it had to have.
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>Amazing to think of the spectacular leaps in technology we've lived through.
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>It's about to happen again in personal transport. I'm seriously considering purchasing the insane CLS63S Shooting Brake that is the last of the big European V8s (no longer being produced as of 2017) and will be the last car I own that I can drive myself.

The fly-by-wire is already in the realm of electronics in the car where I don't want to go. Knowing how the mechanical engineering companies go about software, specially car makers, makes me rather fail to trust them. Just consider what we were reading around here for the last few years - laughably hackable key fobs, for one. I simply don't want to cash out for anything that isn't under my control, and if there's a theoretical chance that something out there may do something to my car remotely, I'm not buying such a car, period.

The shooting brake class of a car is not something I'd buy, anyway. I prefer my 16-year old citroën saxo, 1,1l - it gets me everywhere, theft desirability around 0,1, nice color (dark blue metallic - not the ugly stovepipe gray) and maintenance still below 400€/yr (including, last 12 months, winter tyres, new ball bearings and clutch). And I use it as a two-seater, because every now and then there's a load of stuff to carry: the crates of tomatoes etc from our garden/orchard, casks of fresh brandy (made first batch for this year yesterday, sour cherry)...