While writing my CCTV article on the 1984 Corvette, I got to thinking how despised the digital dashboard that the C4 introduced was at the time. Excoriated by the press, Chevrolet had to quickly rush our a revised dashboard for the Corvette in 1995 with a set of “proper” gauges. Yet I’ve never heard any actual owners complain about the digital gauges. No, the rabble rousing came almost exclusively from the automotive press.
The string-back driving gloved editors of the auto press held considerable sway over automakers at the time. Indeed, it is hard to find a better example of the tail of the automotive press wagging the dog of the manufacturer than right in front of your face on your instrument panel.
Most of the arguments in favor of analog gauges don’t hold much water in my opinion. The fact that analog gauges are more readable at a glance don’t make much sense: What could be more readable than two (or three) digits indicating your speed? The fact that needles give you a better sense of the rate of change by the speed of the sweep also seems a little too esotaric to be useful.
Indeed, the fact remains that the vast majority of drivers are better served by digital instruments. They are more precise because they don’t suffer from parallax, and the user doesn’t have to interpolate the distance between hashmarks.
Need further proof? Virtually all scientific instruments now (from thermometers to micrometers) are now digital. Or take a look at any modern Formula One steering wheel, like the example above. What do you see? Digital readouts.
But a few opinion makers at automobile magazines kept this technology from drivers for decades, in a trend that we are only now starting to see reversed.
So what are your thoughts? Are you a digital dude like me, or are you still a needle junkie?
I like the look of analog gauges, but give me a good set of customizable digital ones in a new car.
Analog all the way! Like a clock face you can get the information just by visually scanning the position of the hands. Gas too low, speed too high, rpms approaching redline. I don’t mind additional readouts that can give more accurate assessment digitally, for example actual engine temperature, actual gallons of fuel remaining, exact voltage readout on the ammeter. It’s worse if you have to access the touch screen to view this information. Many modern cars are almost like the old “idiot light” read outs, you won’t see anything until it’s too late.
Exactly. The analogs are far superior – a mere glance at what I see as a pie chart gives better, more intuitive information – just like an analog watch is superior in most cases to a digital one.
This. As I was reading the intro, what Jose said is pretty much what I thought. “What could be more readable than two (or three) digits indicating your speed?” A digital number may make more sense but position on an analog gauge gives me a better point of reference. One glance down instantly tells me all is well or, rarely, something is up.
+1
This is Human Factors (ergonomics) 101. You can scan analog faster…
The only experience I had with a digital dash was in my 83 Mercury Cougar.
I didn’t like it. I kept getting distracted by the numbers changing or when another gauge dropped or rose.
I prefer analog but that could just be because it’s what I’m used to.
I didn’t drive the Cougar very long
Same here. For me the digital speedometers are, oddly, too precise; the constantly changing numbers are much more distracting than a slightly-moving needle.
Our minivan has a digital readout in between the tach and speedometer that we usually have set to show speed. I admit the car guy in my wants to like the analog speedometer better, and it looks better, but I really do like having the digital readout and if I could only choose one, it would be digital. I never use the analog one when the digital one is on.
It doesn’t help that modern speedometers are so imprecise.
120mph in 20 mph increments on a minivan is ridiculous.
To be fair, it does have 283 HP, it could probably hit 120 no problem if it wasn’t governed. 😉
Not as silly as 160 in my Elantra. The minivan could probably get to 120. The Elantra could probably get to 120, but could never get to 160. No reason for it to go that high at all except to make the speedometer worse at what it’s there to do.
+1, I do the same in my car.
Worth noting that the scientific instruments I most commonly use, spectrometers, I only look at digital readouts and actual numbers during calibration, when said numbers are pretty much all I’m paying attention to. Otherwise data’s fed right to a laptop, where it’s recorded immediately and I can later look at later. A lot of my labmates’ work involves daily biogeochemical cycles, that means a lot of graphing—while not truly “analog” it’s definitely better to have a result I—or, more importantly, someone who’s not intimately familiar with the data—can look at and contextualize immediately. A graph gives a better idea of that than a table.
I think in driving it’s similar: we know about where the speedometer (and, for some of us, tach) needles are supposed to be, and you can really notice them in your peripheral and register what they’re saying without either them being anywhere close to the top thing in your mind. Granted, I think this difference is marginal—registering a number doesn’t take much thought, either—but I think it probably makes a difference, especially since a lot of those string-back driving glove types want to keep the tach and speedo in mind simultaneously.
I think digital is gimmicky, some cars it’s cool in(then and now) but mostly I see no real benefit to it over analog. The only reason I think automakers have regurgitated the idea is because it’s now CHEAP due to the proliferation of LCD technology in recent years, but they have the same problems as always….
Here’s why analog rocks – Sunlight totally washes away LCD screens and polarized sunglasses obscures it even more.
I never had a problem with registering digital numerals at a glance, but I never look at the numerals on my speedometers, I know the positions they should be at, and with a tach, temp, fuel gauge and an analog speedo, I feel I can take in ALL at a glance whereas I only register one or two at a time with digital. And let’s not kid ourselves, no OEM digital cluster would get consumer acceptance if it was as spartan and utilitarian as the F1 steering wheels. But I never did care for F1 technology trickling into the mainstream(I’m looking at you paddle shifters)
“Here’s why analog rocks – Sunlight totally washes away LCD screens and polarized sunglasses obscures it even more.”
Completely agree, and these issues were even more pronounced back in the eighties when manufacturers first introduced digital dashes.
Analog. I find flashing number changes distracting and annoying.
Similarly in sensing what’s going on behind the vehicle, peripherally sensed from 3 mirrors (in a car that is… with a truck you physically need to look to the side because of width issues and seat placement etc), an analog gauge gives a sense of speed without needing to look down all the time. In my car, straight up = 100 km/h.
Digital gauges change with unimportant changes in quantity – which is poor way to alert someone. It can be distracting (as noted above).
Analog gauges provide context – the wavering between 52 mph and 54 mph is easily ignored, plus the relative position of the needle lets you know roughly how fast you are going.
In the Corvette picture, you can see with the speedo and tach, that GM tried a kind of hybrid digital / quasi-analog gauge to give you a feel of relative rates.
One exception is MPG meters – I prefer digital, because the readout is more amenable to maximizing one’s fuel economy – all you care about is keeping the value high as possible.
Same thing with digital thermometers, all you care about is the single reading. If you wanted to measure heart rate changes over time, you might want something different.
Context. That’s the word I was trying to think of.
Give me digital speed (max varies, needs to be known with precision), and analog tach (watch rate of change and red more than reading).
I will always love real gauges, what car guy doesn’t. But then I still like stuff like the display my mom had in her 1984 Maxima or something like an ’80s Pontiac 6000 STE.
I’m very pleased with with the design combo of classic analog gauges along with crisp modern digital read-outs in my new 300S The 7″ center area is highly customizable to display pretty much anything you’d want, even several things at one time and easily scrolled/adjusted via the steering wheel. I usually have the large white digital MPH dead center, much easier to see at a quick glance than a needle. Never had a nice combination like this in any of my previous vehicles all the way back.
I’m fine with modern TFT screen displays with high-resolution screens as long as they’re well designed, which are much better than the 7-segment numerals from 1980s digital readouts. For some items, analog display works better – do you really want to know the exact temperature of your engine or do you just care if it’s hotter or colder than it should be? Tachs are more useful as an analog display too. I still like the 3-dimensional look of analog gauges – it’s the same reason most watches aren’t digital.
That said, a Nixie tube speedometer would be the coolest thing ever….
Nixie tube anything is the coolest things ever! ?
I have two Nixie multimeters (Fluke bench and Heathkit portable), on the lookout for a good Nixie calc that isn’t huge
+1 on the nixie. They are flat out gorgeous, and in combination with similarly hued analogs, would be a lovely sight.
I think I just decided what my next customization project will be . . . . .
A quick search shows it’s already been done by a few people, but mostly not all that well. This may be the best: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fb0DH3laBFE
Like some others above, I have a car that has both analog instruments and a digital speed readout. The dash of my Crown Victoria is below.
At first, I thought the digital readout was silly, but after driving it for a while, I almost always utilize the digital speedometer, as opposed to the analog one. In my case, your hypothesis is correct — that I find two large numbers to be very quickly readable.
On the other hand, a digital dash with a bunch of unnecessary junk is more distracting than useful.
A lot of our work cars and our current Subaru has analog gauges with the digital display in-between. I find that I usually change the display to show speed and I tend to use it more than the analog speedometer. I find it quicker to reference, especially if its a car that I don’t drive all the time. While I generally prefer the look of analog gauges, I have owned purely digital gauges too and they were fine. I never had any issues reading digital gauges in sunlight or at a glance. So for me, it’s a wash. Although if I have something sporty, I’d probably want analog, purely for aesthetic reasons.
Amen to the usefulness of the digital speedometer option on an unfamiliar car. I once rented a Chevy Cruze, and for whatever reason I had a really hard time reading the analog speedometer at first glance. Once I realized my speed was also displayed digitally in the center screen, I never looked back.
I would also echo those who have commented that on some new models, style has trumped readability of the dashboard instruments. Eric’s Crown Vic dash above, by contrast, is a thing of utilitarian beauty!
I’m a little in both camps. For most things I’m fine (or even prefer digiital.). I was interested in Digital instruments on cars when they appeared in the 80s as they seemed so new and high tech. However I am that guy who “hates” nuneric speedometers. Actually I prefer needle gauges on any rapidly variable instrument. Audio evample of the difference: I prefer digiital tuning radio dials, but also prefer needle VU meters on recording equipment. When doing electronic work a use a DMM for most readings,but still have a traditional needle VOM for any (usually audio) signal that I visually want to “average”. So I’m ok with Digital for all but a the Tach and Speedo.
On a new car? Analog. But on an early C4 Corvette that Totally ’80s digital dash is an important part of the experience.
Analog tach, digital speedo is what makes sense to me … and not that swooshy tach graph on the Corvette dash either, though a less design-y electronic thing like that would work, especially if the indicator changed color as it approached redline. The problem with so much digital stuff, though, is visibility under different light conditions; my ’01 Subaru’s LCD display is unreadable under low-light conditions, and also if I’m driving into a near-horizon sun.
I can’t imagine anything less useful though than a numbers-only digital tach, especially in a car whose engine will hit the rev limiter almost instantly if you drop the hammer in 1st gear, and PDQ in second. A great big dial would be best … ask me how I know!
I’m in the same camp, although I wasn’t when I bought a car with a high-mounted digital speedometer and an analog tach filling the top hole of the three-spoke steering wheel. Since then, I’ve realized that everything else is inferior for my driving. Maybe I’ll change my tune if I ever drive a car with a similarly brilliant execution of a HUD.
I like them both but I did convert my 71 Capri to digital.
Analog, but only because it’s what I’m most accustomed to. I’m sure if I had to, I could adapt to a digital display.
Had both and it absolutely doesn’t matter to me. One exception is that I lost the speedometer in an early 90s chev pickup. Digital but read like an analog. No cable, which surprised me when I went to fix. Expensive.
Fast forward to my next truck, a 95 4runner. Last year, I think, that had a cable. Lots more durable, less expensive, and not likely to be killed by a short like the chevy. The chevy of course, was not truly digital but it represents the reason I can easily do without the high tech.
+1 for the analog readout. I had an ’88 Subaru GL-10 wagon w/digital display, and the flipping numbers were distracting and the rate of change is not intuiitive, as others have pointed out.
You won’t be given any choice in ~5 years time. New car wise, that is.
And even the current ‘analog’ instruments are actually ~digital. All the signals they receive come straight from the CAN bus, driving a stepper motor or something of the sorts.
Personally, I prefer the needles, you can tell straight away what the car is doing with a quick glance.
Being said that, nowadays I rather have a digital speedo, mostly because of the heavy handed local speed limit enforcement.
Digital. Some folks have said that the readout changes too dramatically for a small increment, but that’s not true. If the speed limit is 35 mph, there’s a big difference between driving 42 mph and 45 mph.
Big increments, on the other hand, I can simply “feel.” I need the speedometer to tell me whether I’ve crept over the speed which triggers the wrong kind of attention.
I prefer analog myself, it’s a much more tactile way of reading and it has the benefit of not being obscured by sunlight. That’s not to say I couldn’t accept a car with a digital speedometer, but I just prefer analog. Plus, seeing that little needle keep going up as you step on the gas is always going to be more cathartic to me than watching numbers change on a screen.
There have been many good and many bad analog and digital instrument panels. The ’62 Plymouth had a very fine analog panel (and its designers had a lot of very thoughtful things to say on the subject; viz this). The ’80-’89 Stinkoln Clown Car had a fairly decent digital panel, as did some ’90s Subarus.
Digital or analog, either is fine with me; what matters much more is whether or not it’s well, thoughtfully, and correctly designed in accord with the relevant principles of ergonomics for easy, fast, and accurate legibility; hierarchy of message priority; appropriate illumination colour, etc. Many instrument panels flunk these basic requirements because engineers and designers get overridden by stylists and marketers obsessed with “infotainment”.
Seriously: spare me the idiotic (“Land Speed” callout on the Mustang speedometer, tachometer on a car with automatic transmission), the just plain wrong (red general illumination), and the silly (256 selectable colours)—just get the goddamn job done first, then maybe we can think about frills and frippery.
As always, the voice of reason.
»doffs cap«
I don’t mind the color selection, but there are only ever be three colors I’d ever select – green, light blue, white. I agree so much with the awfulness of red, it’s like being in a dark room at night in Pontiacs or old BMWs. Land Speed is stupid, when I sat in a 2015 the first time that was the first thing I noticed.
Or in an olde-tyme photo darkroom. But more to the point, red means emergency: your brake system has failed, your alternator’s not charging, your engine has lost oil pressure. Washing the whole IP in red is the wrong way to do it.
Red is used in aircraft because it does not mess with your reaching and maintaining maximum night vision. But that never comes up in night driving because white light is everywhere around you.
VW tried to do it differently. They lit up their ’00s clusters dark blue.
Looked good, but after a long period driving with would tire your vision a lot. After 10 years of criticism, they went back to white numbers and displays when the mk6 Golf debuted.
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Ugh, yeah, VW’s blue IPs are also the wrong way to do it. Blue is very difficult for the human visual system to cope with. It tends to focus just off the retina rather than on it, and it scatters in the eye more than any other colour except indigo and violet. The effect is cumulatively stabby and VW ought to have been ashamed of themselves—but as usual, they weren’t.
(Ever notice how the blue runway lights or the blue-light storefront signs at night have blurry edges as viewed from a distance, but the other colours are sharp? Yeah.)
It took them 10 years, but VW did get ashamed, as in 2008, they debuted this.
Looking between those two unenlarged thumbnails on my screen shows the effect really clearly. Blue is a blur, while white I can make out almost every number.
My ’07 VW has blue only on the four gauges and radio LCD. Everything else inside glows red at night. Even after they dropped the blue for white, the kept the red lighting everywhere else until on recent designs. The Jetta for example still has most interior lighting in red; the Mk7 Golf though is all cool white (probably LEDs) inside.
Here’s a picture of the ’62 Plymouth dash, from Sean Cornelis’ comment at CC here. I totally agree with you Daniel, this dashboard is perfect.
I own a 15 Mustang and none of that stuff bothers me, people that don’t know how to enjoy life and have a little fun do.
Agreed… the “Land Speed” thing is probably a tip of the cap to an airspeed indicator in the original Mustang… you know, the one from the ’40s with the Rolls Royce Merlin engine that could go like 450mph in a dive. I think they called that ‘stang a P51. ?
As to being able to choose your own color? I love it! My 2007 Mustang has that feature, and my Dad’s 2014 Mustang allows you to save several themes, even with the interior lighting colors, which I find totally cool.
My speedometer at night in purple…
If I need to be reminded how fun my car is by 11 letters printed on my speedometer I’m clearly doing it wrong, but then again, this is the same car pumping fake engine noise through speakers. My idea of fun isn’t so artificialy whimsical.
So it’s idiotic to have a tach in a car with an automatic just because it’s not strictly necessary? If you say so. Personally I like to know what speed the engine is turning, even if I can’t do much about it. And yes, the change in engine sound is a clue of course, but it’s about as imprecise as you can get.
+4.25 X1000 (RPM). ?
I don’t mind the digital displays in new cars. The ones with analog looking spedo and tach and configurable extras such as trip meters and fuel economy and what not in between or on a centre display.
That first shot with those dancing bar graph type of displays were just awful. I wonder if the digital readout stopped at 85 when set to dispay mph. Nevermind, I don’t really care. It looks too much like KITT from that show starring “The Hoff”. I’m glad I don’t live in that version of the future. Maybe some day the Tesla or other potential self drivers might be programmed to hold a conversation while it drives you around. Now that would be cool just as long as I get to take the wheel once in a while. Oh hell now I’m just rambling.
I’ve always kind of gravitated toward “odd” instrument panels. The ’66 Toro with its rolling drum speedo was actually pretty easy to read, while the ’64-6 T-Bird and early ’60’s Imperial linear indicator was inaccurate at best while looking really cool each in their own way. Other cars I’ve owned have had the standard analog dash and they’re ok as it goes but I prefer the ‘winking digit dash’. My first was the ’87 Riv with its touch screen magic, the ’92 Continental which was very accurate in its readouts and my current boat, an ’05 Deville has a fairly minimalist digital layout. Some of the cars I’ve rented that have both analog and digital readouts have been very likeable indeed.
I prefer analog, as I find constant movement of digital displays distracting.
Although slightly off topic, I think the Corvette digital display pictured above was used until 1990, when the Corvette got a new dash with a hybrid instrument cluster.
I’ve had both, but prefer analog. I can still see it in bright sunlight with sunglasses on, and it really is a stylists dream, with any number of configurations. The biggest gripe that I have about analog speedometers is when they read in 20 mph increments. Lose the numbers above 100 and break the rest into 10 mph increments. 20 mph increments make the speedometer onto a puzzle that has to be figured out to get a true reading.
Tom, while it is true that a digital readout displays a precise immediate readout, it fails to give a meaningful visual proximity of the operating condition relative to the lower and upper limits of normal operation or proximity to the danger limits.
For example that digital oil pressure reading of 45 psi doesn’t tell me whether the oil pressure system is at normal or below or above normal unless I know what “normal” operating pressure is. When I see the needle at the lower limit on a analog guage, then I know something is wrong.
Same with the digital coolant temperature: Is 122 degrees F normal? Is it above or below normal temperature and by what magnitude? Unless I know what normal operating temperature, according to the manufacturer specs, a digital readout doesn’t indicate how much leeway I have before it starts getting into the dangerous red zone.
And how important is it for the average driver to know the **exact** display value? What does it **really** tell me?
If you look at the instrument panels of vintage high performance cars and aircraft with the analog guages, you’ll find the gauges are calibrated so that normal operating conditions are indicated by the needle at 90 degrees. Some gauges will have green ranges indicating normal operating zones as well as redline markings for danger zones. A quick cursory glance of all needles lined up vertically tells me that everything is normal and A-OK. Any needle deviating immediately stands out and tells me something is wrong and I can quickly identify the problem area. Can you tell that from a row of digital number displays?
I’ve seen some analog tachometers marked green range zones indicating the useful rpm range of optimum horsepower or torque and a red range for not-to-exceed rpm. Some analog speedometers have notation marks at specific mph indicating not-to-exceed speed for transmission shifts at a glance. Very informative if you know how to interpret.
Can digital readouts give you that meaningful information? With digital you have to pause and “compute” the meaning of the readout.
I don’t agree that digital readouts are best for meaningful information. Yes, they have their place for precise scientific measurements, but when it comes to meaningful indicators of operating ranges and conditions, they are inadequate, in my experience and opinion.
And lastly, a lot of great engineering feats, I.e, the Lockheed SR-71, the Saturn V rocket, the 1955 Chevy small block V-8 (to note a few), were designed and built with those “primitive and imprecise” analog instruments and slide rules.
Halwick said: “If you look at the instrument panels of vintage high performance cars and aircraft with the analog guages, you’ll find the gauges are calibrated so that normal operating conditions are indicated by the needle at 90 degrees. Some gauges will have green ranges indicating normal operating zones as well as redline markings for danger zones. A quick cursory glance of all needles lined up vertically tells me that everything is normal and A-OK. Any needle deviating immediately stands out and tells me something is wrong and I can quickly identify the problem area. Can you tell that from a row of digital number displays?”
GM got this right on our Silverado and Trailblazer; oil, temp and voltage normal at vertical, with actual numbered scales. (How accurate the numbers are might be another story.) Why is this a difficult concept for most carmakers to grasp?
Oh and other thing: digital readouts are as about as informative as “idiot lights”.
I prefer analog, primarily because I can tell the needle’s position on the scale at a glance.
But I do find the current Mini’s fuel gauge entertaining – eight LEDs on the side of the tacho that progressively go out as you use up your fuel load. That both tells me all I need to know and is fun to look at!
It’s pretty darn cool.
The F1 comparison is not really relevant. The readouts on the wheel are times (lap time, split times, gap to leader, etc), with current gear the big number in the middle. Tach is indicated by a sequential row of lights that give an (analog) indication that the driver is approaching redline and must shift (and these are just below the sightline so they can be seen peripherally). F1 drivers don’t care about speed – they just need to lap as fast as possible.
As for road cars, I recall long ago reading of some research that suggested the eye actually follows an analog needle out from the centre, so the relative position of the needle can be discerned more quickly than a digital readout can be read and interpreted. Digital is more precise, but absolute precision in a speedometer isn’t really relevant (esp if it’s only accurate with 5 km/h or more).
One of my objections to digital speedometers (and to Athos’ point, I mean digital in the sense of “displaying numeric digits”) is that they imply a level of precision that they seldom actually possess. I don’t want instruments to tell me I’m going exactly 37 mph when they really mean “somewhere between 35 and 40, kinda in the middle.”
Also, digital instruments (same caveat) don’t do well with visual reference points or rate of change. I have a manual gearbox, which means that I need to at least attempt to match revs. With sweep pointers, I can do that by glancing at the relative position of the needles. With digital instruments, I would have to do math in my head, which is not conducive to anything resembling speed.
The same would be true if I had real gauges for temperature, oil pressure, and so forth. (I have a temp gauge, but it’s one of those deals that only reads normally until it reaches normal range and then stays locked there unless it exceeds some critical threshold.) Knowing what the water or oil temperature currently is may be less relevant than noting whether it’s rising or falling and how quickly. A numeric readout doesn’t tell you that.
Here about’s they have portable devices to set up along the road to tell you how fast you are going. Not sure if they are accurate, but my CTS’s digital read out (which is in the middle of the analog speedometer display), seems to agree perfectly with the DOT’s device (except when it says to SLOW DOWN).
not a great photo of my gauges but you get the idea.
I think about the same about those roadside radar speed warnings, except that it’s not the speedo, analog or digital (I can work/live with both) that disagrees with “SLOW DOWN,” it’s ME!
I do notice that when I use my smartphone or GPS for navigation in an analog-readout car, I tend to use its digital speed readout for precision when in known radar speed enforcement zones, or in a place that “feels like it might be one.”
I’m one who thinks that digital readouts for such things as oil pressure and coolant temperature should be supplemented by an analog bar display with danger zone indicated.
Analog for me all the way. Bonus for mechanical vs electric too. One of my favorite looking clusters is the ’62 Chrysler Astrodome. Fantastic, futuristic and functional.
There’s also the fact, or rather subjective opinion, that analog gauges are more beautiful. Perhaps digital instruments are more exact, but they have nothing against the beauty of a round clockface. That’s why all high end clocks like Rolex are still mechanical and analog. That’s why most railway station clocks are still round and analog. There’s a certain beauty and charm to it, and digital clocks will never take that away, no matter how effective they are.
Not auto related, but in my area there are several digital bank thermometers with a curious defect. At 0 degrees F, the temperature reads 0. When it gets colder instead of reading -1, they read -0. Negative Zero! It blows me away every time I see it.
My CTS’s gauges are electronic analog simulations available in two different types. There are also two digital simulations. All are electronic displays though. I would like to be able to display oil pressure and the transmission temperature. My 84 and 86 Corvettes could display both.
I could live with a digital clock but that is about it. I like gauges. I like pods. I like how they look and nice and pretty in the dark.
Especially if they’re electroluminescent! (I recognize a first-gen Charger night dash shot even in thumbnail size)
We could poll what the best illumination color is. I prefer red (late ’90s Audis, ooooh), but I know alot of people don’t.
Analog devices are warm and mechanical where digital things are binary and mathematical and cold. They are logical and perfect yet we like our old cars, our sports cars, our old trucks and Landcruisers because they are imperfect, because they are illogical, and despite this or maybe because of it they inspire passion and excitement, nostalgia, and emotion.
Most of us will never race in F1 or even sit in one of those cars.
The needles in our analog gauges represent and mirror in some ways the pulse in our veins, the beating of our hearts, the expansion of our lungs as we rev those four, six, eight, ten, or twelve cylinders; smell the gasoline and the leather; feel the wind with the top down; sense the g forces as we keep the throttle rolled on in yet another corner.
I tend to speed more with analog than with digital instruments. Just got a speeding ticket in our Citroên C1. Tend to go over the limit in the Mark IV, but rarely in the Cadillac with ditigal.
This I thought was great. Didn’t have to put on my reading glasses or lift my regular glasses to read the instruments, like I do in most cars. Here the 2011 Camaro.
I’ve always wondered why more cars don’t have a heads-up display, at least for speed. That’s what you check most often. A friend’s 1999 Pontiac had one, and I loved it on the road trip we took because I never had to take my eyes off the road in unfamiliar territory. Maybe it’s more expensive to produce than I’d think.
The way GM/Pontiac implemented it, the windshield had a coating or specific laminate embedded in it to help the HUD image to be seen. Which was great as long as you didn’t have to replace the windshield, as they were more expensive than a standard windshield.
But, I loved the HUD in my Aztek, I could turn down my IP lights and increase the brightness of the HUD to compensate. I only wish that I could have gotten that on my G6, but it wasn’t offered.
Friend of mine had an application on his Android phone, providing a digital, GPS-based speed readout, configurable to a heads-up display that could be seen if the phone was placed in the right spot on the dash top, reflecting in the windshield. It was okay at night but washed out in daytime. But if you try it, use Velcro or similar to hold it in place. His slid across the car during enthusiastic cornering and flew out an open window.
Oops.
Analogs for me. I’m not even gonna go into a rational argument. All I’ll say is that to me analog gauges are much more aestetically pleasing, and that seals the deal for me.
Analogue gauges are much more readable at a glance, I can quickly tell if air pressure and liquid temps are ok just by where the needles sit, its a safety thing, I need to be looking out the windscreen at the terrain I’m travelling not trying to figure out what some random numbers mean.
Analogue all the way. Especially when they are set up so that when every parameter measured is in a happy place, all the needles point the same way.
As Eric said, the C4 got a new dash in 1990.When the ZR1 & then new LT1 V8 came out in 1992. The Corvette finally lost the passenger side “loaf of bread” crash pad. GM had digital dashes in the J & then new 1985 N Bodies. The 1988 GM trucks, instruments were more “why tech” than high tech.
I remember Brock Yates in Car and Driver magazine railing against the digital dashes. At the time I agreed with him, but 30+ years later, I think the hybrid approach we have now is better.
Last year I drove out to Colorado in my daughter’s ’16 Malibu with the TFT screen between the speedo and tach. There were a bunch of different values you can display in that little area, but mostly I kept on the speedometer. While I could easily scan the analog speedo for relative speed, the numeric display didn’t distract or bother me at all. However, I can see where it could be a distraction while driving.
Many cars now have all digital displays that mimic analog gauges, which I think is great. You can go full analog or full digital, whichever you decide. Right now, I have the analog gauges in my Olds and Pontiac which are fine. I would like to be able to tap into the other info that runs through the CANBUS just so I can monitor other things that fully equipped cars used to have.
Probably by the time I replace my cars, I’ll be able to find a model with the re-configurable IP…
Analog. Easier to read & more intuitive.
We are just missing out on a lot of data because we have to have two big clocks facing us all the time.
Exactly! And the thing is, the gauges that people think they need, they don’t really need. I mean, the Oil Pressure, Temp, and Voltage gauges now are all set to point to a predetermined point as long as the car’s operating correctly anyway, but even then, we don’t *need* to know if the car’s engine is running at 180 degrees or 190 degrees. I mean, we don’t have alarms that beep when everything is ok, yet that’s what we ask of our gauges.
Honestly, one of the greatest things about driving my old Lincoln is that there’s not a bunch of information I don’t need. It tells me how fast I’m going and how much gas I have. There’s a light-ONE light-that comes on if something has reached critical (oil pressure and temperature are the same “ENGINE” light). I can’t control the shifting, so I don’t need a tach. And, the absence of an illuminated light means everything is fine. If there’s a light, there’s trouble. Easy.
Then of course, we hide the really good information because we have to have our security blanket “gauges” instead. We could use those spaces to display fuel mileage and instant economy information. We could display navigation right in the IP for ease of use. Hell, Ford lets you look at the radio station and song playing on some of their IPs now. My old Riviera had a clock on its digital IP, and I could set the fuel gauge to display the last 1/4 tank across the entire display to better know how much fuel remained.
So many ways to use that space to give us good rich information, and instead people insist on having gauges continuously reassuring them that everything’s ok. I just don’t get it.
You want your gauges to tell you what’s going on? Get a British car with mechanical gauges and watch the temps rise as you sit in traffic on a hot Houston day. What would work better is a green light saying it was ok. Yellow for a warning and now have the numbers pop up. Once you start to think about it there is so much more you could do with a full on digital display. Hook it up to your pc and program it exactly like you want.
I just read that schools are not only not teaching cursive writing, they are also not teaching how to tell time, i.e., read an analog clock/watch.
Incredible. Just incredible.
All the schools around here still have analog clocks in the classrooms, even if they’re not teaching it the kids will figure it out. I know I spent a lot of days in grade school looking at the clock.
I hate cursive. Good riddance.
Same out where I am. So I my teaching cursive to my eight year old. I started kindergarten in a Catholic school in 1958. By the time I reached third grade you had to write in cursive using a fountain pen. You know the things that would leak ink all over. In late fourth grade Sister whoever gave me an F in handwriting. I was really upset about that. I don’t get bad grades.
Spent the summer improving on that and also did some painting by numbers and model building. By the time fifth grade started my dexterity was excellent and I never got less than an A in handwriting.
All that has paid off as my dexterity is still excellent to handle and deal with things 1mm big using my fingers. My signature is absolutely forgery proof as each letter is clearly readable as my longish name flows out in my cursive script. Yesterday a 21 year old cashier went about how beautiful the signature was. Being a doctor patients always ask what went wrong with my writing since they can read it for once. So my son will learn under his groans.
Analog. Digital has always seemed to me to be a gimmick. Flash over function.
And, unless I’m mistaken, a big expense to fix or replace when the cluster or gauge goes bad.
If it needs to be analog, give me a German car. Love VW’s clusters (below a SEAT Leon), and the center display can show most info including speed…
…But my favorite one it’s the solution Volvo is getting on the new 90s and new XC60 (which btw looks awesome). Audi got it first but I find Volvo’s font nicer looking (don’t get me wrong, I like Audi a lot too)
It displays speed in digital and analog, and you pretty much don’t need to look at the center display for anything.
OT, but about the new Volvo’s: I never thought Volvo would be competing head to head with the Germans again. Really happy to see them on the front line again
My ’87 Celica had a full set of analog gauges which I quite liked, but I sure could have used a 1-bit digital oil pressure indicator aka ‘idiot light’ when the oil filter came loose and it suddenly dumped its oil. A red light might have caught my attention a few seconds before I heard the engine sounding wrong, looked at the zeroed gauge and quickly hit the key. Too late to avoid a total rebuild.
Gauges are good but we can’t be looking at them all the time. So I believe a combination of analog needles with digital readouts in the faces and red lights for serious problems would be the best of all worlds.
I like the loud buzzer that goes off along with the flashing oil pressure lamp in my mk2 Jetta. As far as instruments in general I like analog, as long as the speedo is in 10 MPH increments.
Although the one time the oil pressure warning buzzer and lamp went off it turned out to be a bad oil pressure sensor. Not having a gauge means you don’t know if it’s a false alarm.
Digital. I’d love to see antique ancient boring static analog gauges go the way of the dodo, the carburetor, and points ignition-they have no place in modern motoring. Their time has passed. And, I maintain, the only reason they cling around like nasty smearings on the toilet bowl after a flush is because of misplaced nostalgia and unwillingness to contemplate something new.
Seriously, with an analog cluster, you’re stuck with whatever the designers thought was best. In newer cars (like my recently departed 2014 Fiesta ST), the speedometer reads to speeds not even the car itself can reach, let alone speeds a motorist will ever reach. My FiST’s speedometer read to 160 miles per hour! What use is that? The fastest speed limit in the United States is 85 miles per hour. That means that literally half the range on that gauge is worthless. If I had unlimited road and no fear of police and no traffic, that car flat-out could only go about 140 miles per hour. So, the gauge literally had a useless section built into it for nothing more than the illusion of sportiness or something.
And gas gauges, a.k.a. the most inaccurate gauges ever devised by man? Garbage. I’ve never seen a vehicle in which the marking for Full actually represented Full. Likewise, I’ve never seen a vehicle in which the marking for Empty represented Empty. Gas gauges are but a vague notion of whether you should find a gas station and rarely give pertinent information about the volume of fuel in the tank. I mean, they could replace the gas gauge with a light that indicates it’s time to find a station and it would be just as useful.
And don’t get me started on temperature, oil pressure, and voltage “gauges” that move to a default spot and remain there no matter what actual condition the vehicle’s experiencing! A curious party messed around to figure out what the default point meant on a Honda Element’s temperature gauge. Turned out that everything from 170 degrees F to 220 degrees F was literally the exact same point on the gauge. If the gauge moved, it was already too late. Could have done the same job with a light at that point.
Digital and modern LED stuff allows configurability. In the newer (higher-spec, at least) Fords, one can configure the IP to display some, all, or none of the auxiliary gauges and information about what music is playing or other information. This is good. They still insist upon sticking a big ol’ needle in the middle to sweep a range of numbers, but they’re getting better.
And the argument that one can figure speed at a glance with a gauge? Sorry, but if you can’t quickly read “68” and relate that to the current conditions in which you’re driving, I’m not convinced you’re meant to be driving an automobile at all.
Digital allows for better, more attractive, more configurable, more customizable, more precise, and more rapid display of information. And, how many companies have had issues with analog clusters going bad? GM had issues with needles going nuts in the early 2000s. Honda had to recall, erm issue a TSB (07-087) for Elements circa 2007 for needles falling off. I myself had to rebuild the cluster in my 1995 F-150 because the gauge faces detached from the backing and jammed the needles in place.
So yeah, I’m really really over the whole analog gauge thing, especially since they’re all the same circular presentation. At least in the old days they tried to design things that looked good too.
Analog gauges are easier and faster to read…this is not a theory, this has been proven by research in the aerospace industry. Many modern airliners use digital displays…they are generally configured as analog gauges for ease of use.
Your 160 speedometer might be so the same cluster can be used for metric dashboards…160km/h is about 100MPH.
Analog gauges are easier and faster to read… If you’re looking for rate of change. If you’re looking for an absolute number, that does not remain true. There are very few situations in an automobile in which you’re looking at rate of change. If you’re accelerating, you need to know whether you’ve accelerated past the limit, and that’s it. Your fuel, temperature, voltage, and oil pressure are not changing at a rate that requires more than a number and an indication of if it’s within acceptable limits. The only gauge that rate of change is more useful than absolute value is RPM.
All that said, it is easier to put a target on an analog sweep, ala the 55 callouts U.S. market speedometers had during the national speed limit days or the “NORMAL” range Ford used to put on their auxiliary gauges.
But, we can very easily, thanks to modern technology, make a display that shows us a graph, or a bar, or a change in color, or a big number readout, and we can do it better than any analog gauge. Hell, modern higher-spec Fords show the tachometer (if you’ve selected that display on the left LED screen) digitally-no physical needle, and no need to have it forever displayed if you don’t care what RPM your automatically-shifted vehicle is operating at.
Also, the Fiesta ST’s speedometer has the same sweep regardless of market. Only the primary/secondary numbering changes, so the metric version reads to 260 km/h in a car that can’t do much more than 220.
Again, some of us have manual transmissions and are bad at doing math in our heads, so gauges displaying rate-of-change information remain vitally important.
Or how about how race cars do it, lights come on insequence and change from green to yellow to red, shift! On my Lotus I can listen to the engine and shift by sound.
+1!
When I was young, my parents drove a 1985 Chevy Cavalier Type-10 with a four-speed manual. That car had two gauges: Speed and Fuel. There was an orange light with an up-arrow and the word “SHIFT” that illuminated to indicate it was time to shift.
Likewise, my Fiesta ST had, in addition to the tachometer, an up-arrow light in the center display that would illuminate if the car believed an upshift was warranted.
If the tachometer had stopped functioning in my FiST (six-speed manual), I still could have driven that car just fine. Mom drove that Cavalier for 99,930 brilliantly trouble-free miles before totaling it in a winter storm (and actually tried to convince the insurance to fix it instead of totaling it!).
Yes, the extra information is nice, but it’s not necessary or really even that important. The Ford display (Mr. X’s 2013 Taurus had it, and his 2017 Fusion has it as well) has configurable screens on either side of a fixed analog swept speedometer. The tachometer displayed in the left screen, when selected, looks like an analog sweep gauge, but also has additional graphics to help make the reading more legible. It literally does the job of an analog gauge better than an analog gauge, and the driver can configure that screen to display things like fuel economy readouts and other useful information.
Seriously, the amount of information we need from a car while driving is minimal. We need to know how fast we’re going, whether we need to shift or not (if driving a manual), whether we need more fuel, and whether any vital system is operating in a critical range. Literally one number readout and a few lights would tell us everything we need to know in a car.
Personally, I like more information, and I think screens offer a host of customization options and configurability that analog gauges can never dream of. I mean, if I decide I want the backlighting to be blue in my truck, the only way to achieve that would be to rip out the IP (which is a royal PITA by the way!), swap the bulbs for ones colored the right way that will counteract the screening on the gauge faces, and reinstall everything. With a screen? Select a menu option. Done.
Ford for awhile on the hybrids had a vine display that would leaf out more as you drove more efficiently. Could never hope to do that with a needle gauge.
I guess I’m old fashioned and would rather have one solid configuration the designers intended. You give me freedom to adjust every little inconsequential setting at the touch of a button I’ll be spending an hour a day setting it up to fit my mood at the time, power seats are bad enough.
For the record Ford also made/makes color configurable full analog instrument clusters too, so that technology certainly exists. I remember their leafy display on hybrid Fusions. I thought it was pretty cheesy. An analog gauge can easily tell you how efficient you’re being without resorting to a hippie guilt inducing animation.
As someone born possibly at the pinnacle(1988?) of the first wave of digital gauges, among other things, so I can’t help but roll my eyes when I hear “ancient” and “Nastalgia” uttered about analog as if the future is here with digital… again, nearly 30 years later. At my age I’m nostalgic about some of those 80s digital gauges.
The funny thing is(was) the cars back then clinging to analog were the forward thinkers, the BMWs and Mercedes, Lexus, etc. and they all made the big three’s digital high tech interiors seem out of touch, just another cynical gimmick for automakers to make an inferior product appealing. It’s no surprise to me at all in our tech worshiping, app saturated present that digital has made a comeback, but none of the pluses and minuses between digital and analog have shifted at all.
The configurable displays frankly remind me of the original PlayStation 1 and 2 Gran Turismo games in in first person view, with generic drawn on gauges superimposed onto the screen. I hated that view, I wanted to see the real dashes of the cars but obviously that may have been beyond the game designer’s abilities at the time. Perhaps, yet again, current car designers played those games and were nostalgic about that view, and are now putting them in the mini TV screens masquerading around as instrument clusters today. At least the 80s displays were honest to goodness digital everything, these new clusters with drawings of analog gauges just look tacky and busy.
The digital gauges then *were* the future. Trouble was, Ford’s initial roll-out of them was into the Lincoln Continental Mark VI, and GM’s was into a Cadillac; they put them into cars where the client audience got scared by them and cars that the left-coasters who thought they were superior to us provincial rubes from parts unknown wouldn’t be caught dead in because us provincial rubes thought they were great.
I mean, look at what GM did with the Riviera’s touchscreen from 1986-1989. They had a ton of functionality and were practically sci-fi when they were new (I had a 1989 Riviera at the end of its life, and even in 2005 it was amazing how much stuff the touchscreen could do!).
Digital gauges from the ’80s were the future. The buyers back then decided to abandon the future. You call digital gauges from then a cynical gimmick. I call using the same ol’ horizontal gauges with a couple lights and a hard-to-read gas gauge cynical. I call circle dial after circle dial, with all them getting obscured in part by the steering wheel, cynical. We can represent everything with a screen and better than the originals could ever hope to, yet we still apparently aren’t ready to let go of our needles despite having had smartphones for over a decade now.
I mean, should we still have the gear indication be a physical needle drug along a track by a cable connected to the gear lever too?
Smartphones need to fit in your pocket, instrument clusters can have the depth of a CRT screen and still fit inside a dashboard. There’s zero need to compact or revolutionize instrumentation, since nothing from a user interface perspective differs between old and modern car to merit a “this is the future” kind of switchover, at least as long as driven vehicles exist. And like I said earlier, outside sources can make them illegible, so it’s not exactly futuristic to me when a futuristic lens coating and ye olde sun prevent is preventing my making out of it.
I did call digital gauges from them then cynical, but I call digital gauges from everyone now cheap. At least I can admit the R&D was probably significant for 80s automakers with the new technology, but now a days it just seems like a way to present a former physical 3D interface on a 2D display to customers via a cheap universal LCD screen. I don’t know about you but I like seeing cars in person more than I do on my smartphone screen, and I feel the same way about gauges and their needles.
It is cheap! with all the low cost tech today, it’s less expensive to implement an all Digital panel than a true analog one. Good Mechanical watches are more expensive than good Digital watches for the same reason.
I would actually also argue the point that BMW/Mercedes/Lexus were the forward thinkers. Yes, they enjoyed (and still enjoy) great reputations, and they had captured the public imagination. Looking at the choices the various companies made, though, GM easily comes out as the most forward-thinking and forward-looking company of the lot. Trouble was that GM misjudged the future and made a number of dramatic missteps in their rush to get there ahead of everyone else. The move to front-drive, big moves toward full automation, the GM-10 program, Fiero the two-seater commuter car, the dustbuster vans, the V-8-6-4-all very forward-thinking. They made a lot of decisions based on a vision for the future that never came to be and they rushed to get there.
Mercedes? They reskinned and refined their well-engineered bits and laughed all the way to the bank. They made their money by sticking with what they had and waiting for the future to show up.
The future isn’t set, it’s a mindset. GM and co may have marketed this technology as the future but under the hoods were iron dukes and other hoary pushrods engines leagues behind the other automakers who were “sticking with what they had”. FWD was a big leap, and a major change in what the average automobile would be from then on, but it’s hardly digital technology marching toward the future, just a mainstream Americanized adoption of decades old technologies in other markets out of desperate necessity. Digital instrumentation was merely a way to entice customers with flash rather than carry on, leaving customers to notice the actual product has otherwise lost much of the identity(and sometimes dependability) their cars once had due to the very expensive rush job to stay ahead.
I like analog better. My one full-time digital experience was with my former ’93 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham, which had green digital displays, including of fuel, etc. I found it distracting to drive with; also, the car develop some electronic issues and every once in a while the odometer would go nuts and flash back and forth between the one hundred XX thousand something miles the car actually had to some crazy number like 787,224.
The one thing I did like was the bar-by-bar fuel gauge, it was dead accurate and gave a clear idea of the amount in the car.
I am considerably less fond of the bright colored digital “gauges” used in many cars now. Makes you feel like you’re playing a video game and really too much going on.
Overall I prefer the vintage analog but in particular the bigger TV/horizontal speedos with fairly big gauge and idiot light displays as both my former ’87 Ford LTD Crown Victoria and current ’75 Olds 98 have. (I think the 0-100 10 mph/increment speedo is almost ideal…for that car at least). I find such displays non distracting and really easy to read at a glance or out of the corner of my eye. Smaller and/or more crowded analog displays are somewhat less effective.
I don’t care if it’s analog or digital as long as it is correct. I find it especially annoying when manufacturers deliberately set theirs much faster than the actual speed on purpose. My personal theory as to why is that they do this to rip off the owner in regards to warranty coverage. “Opps, you’re at 37,000 miles so it’s not covered. Sorry”
I’m especially looking at YOU, Ford Motor Company, for making me think I’m going 65 when it’s really 61 or 62 as measured repeatedly by stopwatch/mile markers. Both F-150 trucks I owned did this.
Speedos are always set to read fast or in the weird countries where lawyers abound you could sue the manufacturer for your speed infringement notices.
U.S. law allows speedometers to read a bit fast, but if they are at all slow from the factory it’s a big deal. Then again, I’m not convinced the mile markers are always right on, either. I’ve seen a lot of “1 Mile” signs that are like 2.3 miles away. What’s the GPS say?
I have had cars with both and really have no real preference from a driver/operator perspective. Aesthetically, I prefer analog on most cars, however I like the accuracy of the digital information.
My ’88 T-Bird was my first car with a digital cluster, and I liked it, but was pleased when I was back to an analog cluster with my ’97 T-Bird.
My ’97 Grand Prix GTP was analog (and red at night), but I found myself using the heads up display which was a digital readout of my speed right there on the windshield. You didn’t have to take your eyes off the road for that one.
Back to Analog for my 2007 “Retro-Stang”… as pictured below, it draws its inspiration from the 1967 Mustang. I love the look, and the fact you have ‘the big six’ (to borrow an aviation term)…
Now today’s fancy clusters are all digital, whether they display analog or not. My new Civic kinda presents the best of both. The speed is presented as a digital readout, while in the background you get a cool analog tach giving you that engine speed at a quick glance. And contrary to what some posters said above about a tachometer being useless in a car with an automatic transmission, I disagree. Especially with the CVT I have in my Honda. I like knowing the engine speed thank you very much. ? ~ Rick
I think some of you analog fans aren’t thinking enough about how digital could work. Tie the speedo to GPS, then as you exceed the limits, it would turn yellow then orange then red. If the numbers were 2″ high I don’t think you could miss it. Also if it was really digital, you could change colors to what ever you want. Move the display around to suit your liking. There is so much more you could do with your display it’s really unlimited.
Agree on the GPS speed display. As much as I love the look of my Mustang’s analog gauges, when I am driving it, quite often, I refer to the GARMIN’s speed indicator which is up on the windshield, held in the center by a suction cup… much like the HUD in my old Grand Prix, I can check my speed without taking my eyes off the road.
If you use the WAZE app, the speed is displayed in the lower left corner, and will light up in red if you are over the limit (see the screenshot below). My GARMIN does the same thing (the speed display turns red when you’re over the limit), but the Apple Car Play in my Honda doesn’t do that with its GPS functionality.
Definitely digital, as while I’ve only driven analog-gauged vehicles so far, the precision of digital is far more appealing.
I’m not a pilot, but I’ve heard that it is easier to learn on analog instruments and then transition to a glass cockpit than it is to do the reverse. The mind is able to interpret what it is being presented with better with the analog instruments.
I actually like that digital dash in the C4 Vette.
I actually prefer digital gauges to analog. The ability to quickly glance at the speed the car is going is great (especially when I live in an area with a lot of money grab speed traps.
I had to drive my 1995 Deville for a while and got used to the digital speedometer. The Devilled did not have a tach function but I was able to go into the setting menu and enter the setting code for a 95 Eldo and I got a digital tach readout.
That’s pretty cool! I didn’t know that was doable. ?
Well…it would depend on when you asked me. When my grandmother bought a new ’80 Continental Mark VI Signature Series sedan with the digital dash/message center (and it also had the Keyless Entry System), it was like the future was finally here in some small way. Especially when it ran through it’s systems check! I later had an ’86 Thunderbird elan with the digital dash, and liked it to.
But…the bloom has been off the rose for a while. I like analog gauges for the quick reference points to better understand the current status of engine temperature, fuel remaining, etc.
91 Chevy Blazer. Digital, legible, intuitive. Readable at a glance. Analog gauges aren’t modern. Does your cell phone have an analog clock as standard?
Mine doesn’t, but it does have a flathead straight 6 with a carburetor. And it’s only two years old! Thanks Samsung! ?