Going back to the 40's and early 50's, if you wanted turn signals, they were optional, and usually installed by the dealer.
One of my hobbies id restoring classic cars and I have a couple out in my shop that I had to add the turn signals to. Today I am pretty well out of the new car market. I can't find anything that I like that doesn't come with the touch screens that are being put in almost all new cars except for some basic models. I have ridden in and driven cars with this feature and hate the touch screens. I refuse to pay for features that I don't want or need, so I guess I'll save myself a lot of money. Here's one of my daily drivers, when the weather is good.
I agree that new cars are loaded with useless stuff, all guaranteed to break at some point and all costing the earth to fix. After a lot of research, I recently bought a 2004 Toyota Solara ragtop. Lots of power (which I mostly don't use), top goes up and down in 30 seconds, auto or manual shift, pretty good handling. Not as pretty as the E Type I sold, but the E Type went for $45,000 and the Solara cost me $10,000, and it seats four and it's waterproof.