Ergonomics, also called human factors, is the science of design and arrangement to maximise the efficiency, ease, and safety of people’s interaction with things. It was a young concept, as shown by this word/phrase frequency-of-use plot, in 1962…
…when a Chrysler man by the name of Betti wrote this paper, which you can have as an 8-page PDF by clicking this first page of it:
This new idea of ergonomics had been percolating amongst those charged with designing what we now call the HMI, the human-machine interface, or the UI, user interface: the controls and displays by which the driver interacts with the car. Controls are adapters to convert the needs and desires of the human operator to the behaviour of the machine, while displays are adapters to translate the needs and conditions of the machine into human-readable form.
The paper is nominally about instrument panels; around that time, Chrysler were paying a lot of attention to IP design. Shortly earlier they’d brought forth the whizzbang AstraDome, with its electroluminescent lighting—very effective, but complex, power-hungry, and expensive:
Greg Gjerdingen image on Flickr
The great big semicircular speedometer looks reasonably easy to read, but less so the other gauges; they’re kind of crowded together, one atop another. Maybe a little difficult to tell at a quick glance which one is trying to convey what message. And look: three same-size, same-shape sets of five same-size, same-shape pushbuttons—not such good ergonomics, maybe. Still, that electroluminescent lighting offered unusually good, clear legibility after dark, and that is good ergonomics.
Betti gives a wide-ranging analysis of the factors at play in IP design: short versus tall drivers’ view of the instruments through the steering wheel; distracting reflections of the lit gauges on the windshield at night; various ways of illuminating the displays; manufacturability, all of it. And it wasn’t just lip service; IPs like the ’62 Plymouth item at the top of this post were widely praised for their fast, easy, accurate legibility, though the gotta-just-gotta ’63 update marred it with a goofy typeface, much less readily legible and better suited to a box of kids’ cereal:
Other defacements, too; the ’62 separate fuel and temperature gauges were demolished and a crammed-together combo item crudely hacked into the middle of the panel; I imagine Mr. Betti and his engineering team were overruled by Marketing. Here’s that ’62 panel again, with the ’63 below for before/after comparison:
Some other models provided ’62 Plymouthlike generally sensible IP layout; others didn’t. The ’60-’61 Valiant panel, for example—nothing the matter with the big round speedometer, but the other three gauges were arranged like slices of pie in a same-size circle. Hiss! Wrong way to do it; it wrecks the consistency of indication. Instead of all gauges indicating “more” as they swing clockwise to point increasingly to the right, now the speedometer does that, but one gauge swings counterclockwise to the right for “more”, one gauge swings clockwise upward for “more”, and one swings anticlockwise upward for “more”. And that chrome faceplate is a glare monster—bad ergonomics:
I’m using Chrysler examples here because of my familiarity, and that’s where the paper came from, but everyone’s got their cheers and jeers for this or that control or display in whatever which make, model, and year of vehicle can be named…right?
(The ’62 Plymouth panel depicted twice in this post has been very craftily modified. See it?)
Now: my favourite part of this paper is nothing to do with how best to light the gauges, or the constraints of the “window” created by various-height drivers’ view angles through the steering wheel, or any of that. It’s about the expected direction of movement for controls, as illustrated in Figure 8 here, from page 4:
Everything in this diagram makes fine sense. But Betti uses one of my favourite examples to make a point about why it’s sometimes best to violate the convention:
An example of this is the instrument cluster lighting rheostat. The American motoring public has become accustomed to turning the rheostat control to the right to decrease rather than increase the lighting intensity. Any attempt to rectify this now would only create confusion.
True and correct: for decades, the IP illumination rheostat was built into the headlamp switch, which was almost always a push-pull-rotate design. The dashboard lights were dimmed by turning the headlight knob clockwise; brightened by turning it anticlockwise (and the dome light lit by turning it anticlockwise past maximum dash brightness, through a detent). That violates this convention…
…and this one…
Lloyd Alter image
…and, most relevant of all, this one…
…but it comports with this one! Why?:
Probably just easiest to build the switch that way in what, the 1930s or ’40s when the pull-push-turn light switch came in. I doubt if many people ever squawked that the nigh-on universal design of the car light switch involved turning a knob the “wrong” way to adjust the dashboard lights, unless they were water-powered. Probably very few people ever gave it a moment’s thought. That’s one thing about controls designed for good ergonomics: they don’t require much reckoning out. They might be intuitive because—as Betti describes—they’re designed such that they “ask” to be used the way they’re meant to be used, or (as in the light switch) they’ve been configured a certain way for so long that everybody’s got it in muscle-memory.
I don’t want to veer into a get-the-hell-offa-my-lawn-damn-kids territory of ranting that everything was better (it wasn’t) in the good (they weren’t) old days, but there’s a great deal of truth to that old advice about not fixing stuff that ain’t broke. GM disregarded that when they designed and promptly proliferated a completely new light switch: a split-rocker item introduced around 1985. Push one half of the rocker for the parking and tail lights, or the other half to add the headlamps, and turn a separate thumbwheel—the “right” way, now—to adjust the dashboard lights.
This wasn’t a terrible design; it worked okeh and wasn’t hard to figure out. But I don’t think it was any better than the previous pull-push-turn switch. At least not in any operational way; I’d bet a good dinner GM changed to this switch because it was 2¢ cheaper to make.
Other designs came from other parts of the world. European automakers used rotary-knob light switches—really just a reorientation of the pull knob: same three positions (off, park + tail lights, headlamps), just with a different operational motion, and still adhering to the overspanning principle: operate the control a little bit (first detent) to get a little result (small lights on); operate the control more in the same direction (second detent) to get a big result (headlamps on); return the control to its un-operated condition to turn everything off. Fine.
Japanese makers put the rotary switch on the end of the turn signal stalk. I personally don’t like this, but neither do I hate it overly much. I’m not a big fan of cramming a bunch of controls onto the turn signal stalk, but I save my fire and brimstone on the matter for GM (turn signals, wipers, screenwasher, cruise control, and I’m sure I’m leaving some out) and Ford (push the end of the turn signal stalk to honk the horn? Go drunk, Ford; you’re home).
Then there’s the question of how the driver should choose the headlight beam. A kickswitch on the floorpan was just about the only way it was done, at least in America, for a very long time. Not really good ergonomics, especially with a handshift transmission, though I guess there wasn’t all that much overlap between situations where you’d be shifting a lot of gears and those when you’d be switching a lot of beams. But still, with a kickswitch there was no easy way to flash the headlamps to signal other drivers. You had to grab the headlight switch and operate it on and off, or kick the switch a few times if the lights were already on. Migrating this control to the turn signal stalk was a terrific idea; much better ergonomics.
But just what should the driver do to select the beam? In many European cars, and for awhile virtually all American ones, you pulled the stalk rearward to flash the lights or switch between low and high beam. Whether the accompanying noise was a plasticky “SHTICKa!” from the switch itself at the top of the steering column in your Chev or Ford or Dodge or Jeep; or a muted “Clecka” from a bistable relay under the hood of your Volvo, that’s how the control was operated.
In Japanese cars, though, you pushed the stalk forward for high beam, pulled it rearward for low beam, and pulled it further rearward to flash the lights. I kind of hate that this has become the near-universal standard—again, probably because it’s cheaper to build what amounts to a toggle switch than it is to build one with a bistable latch mechanism. They work, but it’s way too easy to inadvertently knock the stalk into the high beam position and then drive around dazzling everyone else on the road with your high beams. And if that’s addressed by giving the switch a longer throw, then the stalk’s out of easy reach to operate its other modes (like, um, the turn signals) when the high beams are on.
If we apply the expected-direction-of-movement principle, the Japanese approach gets a better grade: you push forward to get more light, or pull back to get less light. So regardless of what the beancounters have decided, which way is better; more ergonomically correct: the one that’s not confusing because that’s how most of them work (pull/pull), or the one that’s not confusing because it follows the forward-for-more/back-for-less principle (push/pull)? They’re probably about equivalent, with comparable benefit and drawback lists. Having one design as the more-or-less standard is probably for the better; the previous mix of both meant we had to fumble and fiddlefutz with an unfamiliar car until muscle memory was retrained.
In the late 1960s there was interest in trying to bridge the gap between low beam (not enough seeing distance) and high beam (too much glare) with a “mid beam” or “turnpike beam”. The beam pattern itself was easily specified, and a variety of mid-beam lamps were designed and built, to good safety effect; eventually I’ll do an article about it. What sank the mid-beam was the unresolved question of how to control it: a three-detent push-push/pull-pull? A separate mid-beam on/off switch which would modify the behaviour of the regular high/low beam switch? Something else? Many were tried, but selecting from among three beams is a more complex task than simply toggling between two, and none of the control designs led drivers to reliably, quickly, and accurately select the intended beam.
It’s not just lights. Consider automatic transmission controls. First, what kind should it be? For many years, almost always a lever—the pushbuttons were comprehensively addressed by J P Cavanaugh here.
So, a lever. But how should it operate? GM and a few other makers (Studebaker, above) widely used a P—N-D-L-R quadrant, a booby-trap design which caused crashes, injuries, and deaths as well described and illustrated in this book by Oscar Banker , who has a legitimate claim to the title “Father of the Automatic Transmission”. He tirelessly railed—with rigorous data on his side—against automatic shift quadrants with adjacent reverse and forward drive positions. For it, he got mocked and scorned by officials, and shunned by SAE.
In the absence of Federal vehicle safety standards, the General Services Administration drew up their own list of standard equipment required on cars purchased by the government starting with the 1966 models. The list included front and rear seatbelts, nonglare windshield wiper arms, windshield washers, a driver’s sideview mirror, reversing lamps, and automatic transmission controls with no forward and reverse position immediately adjacent. The GSA requirements had the effect of making those items standard equipment even for cars not bought by the government (automakers weren’t about to make government and non-government versions of their cars), which is why things like backup lights and sideview mirrors and screenwashers moved off many models’ option list for ’66 and became basic equipment. Even GM, having previously issued smug dictates on the subject—they were the market leader, so the rest of the industry was just going to have to go along with the GM way—were forced to adopt the safer P—R-N-D-L.
When Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard № 102 came in a few years later, it stipulated that a neutral position shall be located between forward drive and reverse drive positions, re-sealing the fate of GM’s unsafe design. And that stayed fixed for a goodly collection of decades, but not permanently. Once automatic transmissions changed from hydromechanical to electronic operation, the control no longer had to be a lever. FMVSS № 102 doesn’t specify a lever, either; it just says there has to be a neutral between forward and reverse drive positions.
So automakers began to experiment with different kinds of –shifters– transmission range selectors. Rotary knobs and such. Ford thought they’d give pushbuttons another go (the Edsel’s were a mess of solenoids, wires and switches that didn’t stay working and didn’t stay fixed). In early 2015, the Lincoln MKC had to be recalled because its transmission pushbuttons were a 3D IMAX presentation of bad ergonomics. Drivers meaning to push one of the transmission buttons were instead hitting the nearby engine stop/start button—itself a piece of bad ergonomics. On a scale of 1 to 10, wherein 1 is nobody could have foreseen this and 10 is as predictable as chilly weather atop Mt. Everest, this HMI fumble ranks 79 or so.
Before recall…
…and after.
Chrysler fouled up similarly when they put the rear-defog and traction control defeat buttons—shape, contour, surface finish, and small size all the same—right next to each other on the Dodge Charger (I think it was the Charger). That was festive when I had such a car as a rental in Michigan in wintertime. The defog tripped off every 10 minutes or whatever, and I couldn’t safely take my eyes off the icy road, so I every time I had to gamble I was restarting the defogger and not killing the traction control. Whee!
Back to automakers’ dalliance with novel transmission controls: Chrysler’s “monostable” selectors, which the driver tips forward or up for reverse and rearward or down (however many times) for forward ranges, with neutral in between and the lever returning to its central position once the driver removes their hand. Oh, and Park is on a separate button. Yishk! At least 266 crashes; 68 injuries, and one death due to an unintuitive, confusing control. And just look at this ultimate driving meshugga:
Quick, throw it in Park—I dare you!
With the transmission control, the stakes are a lot higher than missing a change between high and low beam. Perhaps FMVSS № 102 should have been more specific and exclusive; perhaps it still should.
Other bog-standard controls have come in for ergonomic rethinks, too. There were experiments in deleting the steering wheel in the mid-’60s—click the next pic for a 1965 Popular Science article (and Popular Mechanics’ piece, the same month and year, is here); a year later there were reports suggesting this idea almost reached production by at least Ford and Chrysler.
Around the same time there was an idea to replace the separate accelerator and brake pedal with a sort of treadle, transversely pivoted at its centre so the driver would rock it forward to accelerate and rearward to brake. The rationale is obvious: no more time wasted lifting off the Go, moving the foot over, and pushing the Stop. The problem is equally obvious: there’s a great deal of ergonomic value in removing the foot entirely from the Go in order to apply the Stop. Sure, there are ways of defeating this inbuilt safeguard (left-foot braking), and there are edge cases (Audi 5000 pedal placement) and what if frogs lived in toilet bowls and had teeth and claws? But I can easily imagine a much greater likelihood of driver panic and tense-up leading to applying maximum Go instead of maximum Stop with a single treadle. For the most part, it’s ergonomically better to have separate Go and Stop.
Probably the most confusing control I’ve ever faced in a rental car was a button labelled in plain English, but pushing it seemed to do nothing. Eventually I got on the internet and figured it out.
A bidirectional automatic cat folder! Push the button, and a cat somewhere in the world gets folded.
I don’t need a gauge for speedo, especially in this day why not just some large clear numbers. Also I don’t need a tach on a car with an automatic shift. I’d be fine like F1 with just some leds that turn from green to red.
Oh and why are still emulating analog gauges with digital?
Cost. It’s cheaper to produce an LCD screen with an analog facade than it is to make a true analog cluster complete with up to 6 moving parts.
My guess goes like this:
Because it’s easier to use peripheral vision to detect the orientation and clock position of a pointer than to read numbers. Because if the numbers are big enough to fix that, you’re not the only one who can read them—so can the nice police officer looking in your car from the next lane. Because constantly-changing digits (40…41, 42…41, 40, 41, 40, 41, 40…39, 40, 41, 40, 39, 40…) are distracting, while a pointer tends to damp out trivial changes like this.
But it turns out my guess is wrong. In Human Factors and Gauge Design: A Literature Review, one of the cool things we learn is that you’re right, numerical readouts make better speedometers.
I agree completely about tachometers as a silly, pointless distraction in automatic cars. Most manuals, too, unless one has a tin ear.
Your premise was mine, exactly. I’ve always thought that the pointer-style speedometer was inherently intuitive, and that it took the brain a extra step, and thus additional time, to translate the number to something more intuitive.
I’m still not convinced this is not the case – although the link does cite a number of studies, and presumably the author didn’t have an axe to grind either way.
In any case, thank you for another excellent article – very informative, and great fun to read. The cat fold was icing on the cake.
Interesting. I barely ever look at the analog speedo in my Golf. The digital display gives a more accurate measurement at a glance.
As for a tachometer, in my car it would very easy to go 50 km/h, or higher, in second gear and never hear a thing.
I’d quibble a bit. The digital display gives a more precise measurement, in that it’s calibrated in 1-km/h increments, rather than 5 or 10 or whatever the analog dial has. But its accuracy is a separate question. Digital display says 31 km/h. Are you actually going…31? 30? 28? 33? That’s the matter of accuracy.
Mr Peet (my Grade 10 Chemistry teacher):
“People, what’s the difference between ‘accurate’ and ‘precise’?”
Students: ???
Mr Peet: “A cow has 6.217 legs. I have just made a precise statement; I have not made an accurate statement.”
“The digital display gives a more accurate measurement at a glance.”
The keywords here are, “at a glance.”
I’ve never owned a car with a digital readout for speed, but yesterday I was borrowing my neighbor’s Volvo for a few errands, and I found the digital speedo was a revelation. I usually just drive the speed that feels comfortable to me, using the speedo as a tool to keep my speed to a level that won’t attract the attention of the local gendarmarie. I found the digital readout to be much more useful in this respect (never mind the speed-limit nanny that kept warning me I was doing 57 mph on a 50-mph highway – yeah? I know that already, and in my experience the local cops are cool with it).
I reckon your experience, Canuckle, is universal. The bigger analogue job just sort-of gets no attention after very little time, not sure why.
Also, if one lives in a communist dictatorship like Australia, where you WILL get booked for 5km/h (3.1mph) over, the specificity of the digital number monopolizes your attention out of necessity. (Thus it’s counter-productive over-enforcement in my view, but that’s a whole lot of other topic).
Perhaps if you have ever lived in a communist dictatorship (as I have) you wouldn’t say such things about your country.
This was my fault, really; I made a snarky remark at the end of this post the other day, wherein I skewered one bit of American craziness (sticking with 1950s turn signals) by oblique reference to another recent bit of American craziness (this). I wasn’t really trying to suggest vehicle turn signal colour specifications are a reliable proxy for the amount of freedom a country’s residents have. I don’t reckon JB was seriously calling Australia a communist dictatorship because of speed limit enforcement; I think he might’ve just picked up and run with my tongue-in-cheek snark; sorry the whole thing rang a sour note for you.
It was a passing quip referencing the moronic yelling from right-wing US media – and intellectual luminary Ron De Santis – during our covid lockdown measures wherein such things were said (and I yet again apologize abjectly to America, and the UK, for the existence of Rupert Murdoch, the truly evil Australian whose power-drunkeness has driven so much world lunacy).
That said, the speed enforcement here is so draconian that no American would ever put up with it, and I don’t reckon too many Canadians would either. We really have been slowly boiled like the frog on this one, and by the time it’s down to this micro-level of punishment, it shows that it arises mainly from the individual States here having little means of raising monies rather than from safety concerns.
Just a thought but maybe Australians shouldn’t be so quick to comment on political news coverage in a country halfway around the world, even if it is the United States. Maybe Australians should limit their comments to Australian politics. Or better yet leave politics out of a discussion of automobile ergonomics.
Entirely agreed. The lead-up to here tumbled out exactly as Daniel describes, ending with my quip, that – understandably, likely without him knowing the background – caused the comment from Canuckle, and I gave my honest reply to him explaining my reference: a bunch of truly idiotic things really were said about this country, with perhaps the silliest of all coming from the Florida Governor.
That all explained, it’s still an awfully long way from a discussion about the ideal location of dashboard controls, which hardly ever include knobs and levers with geo-political functions.
My ’98 Olds ’88 has a 3800 V6 and 4-speed auto, and this is how I use the tach a to keep the car in a reasonable power band. It is programmed to upshift very early into .71 OD 4th, which probably works in the plains of Kansas, but not in the hilly Northeast. The 3400 lb. Car wants to operate at 1500 rpm where there is barely 60 hp on tap, and it will easily lug unless upshifted. I use the tach as a confirmation and predictor to what I feel and hear the engine saying through my body. At 2500 rpm it produces 100 of its peak 205 hp and doesn’t drink excessively without producing more motion. Leaving it in 3rd, I get the same mileage on my daily commute as when I set it in Drive, without the histrionics.
…sorry: “downshifted”, not “upshifted”.
I get the “no tach with an auto trans” theory, BUT if only to verify at the most base level a transmission issue it kind of works great. A lagging shift, a double shift, a no shift – pretty much every malfunction can be more or less “verified” with a tachometer. Right? Right.
This is a great read. Interesting and funny.
Now I’d like you to picture me as Howard Beale in all his trench coat/rained-on glory as I blurt out the following:
Im stunned by the BMW shift-dial/button/toggley-woggly/joyshtick brouhaha.
What a nightmare just to look at much less operate.
-And it’s all full of fake aluminum and (I assume) fake carbon fiber/fibre/don’t care chock full of tiny words and symbols and shiny parts and dull parts all forced together in a cocophany of visual noise.
Does it light up in 10 different colors and emit showers of sparks as well?
WTF all day to that.
Please just give me a shift lever and let me go home to my family.
Amen! (though driving a pushbutton Mopar is good for the mental health—scientific fact)
I loved our pushbutton Mopars. Much easier to put the car into the gear you want, and manually upshift/downshift. Our bodies can’t communicate well with arcing column shifters.
I would love to try one of those some day!
The 62 Plymouth dash – I see it! The ammeter replaced by a voltmeter. And wow, that font used on the 63, it looks like it belongs in Disney’s Frontierland or in one of those 60’s restaurants that went for 1890s nostalgia.
I lived the old GM/modern GM shift quadrant problem. After chalking up all of my driving experience on modern quadrants, I got a 63 Cadillac with the old Hydra-Matic and its PNDDR pattern. I adapted, except that I would shift every modern car to low when I wanted to back up. I always chalked that up to GM starting with that pattern in the 40s and not changing until they were pushed.
One other issue I gripe about is the ignition key. The typical US design that put the key on the steering column was a bad design for ergonomics. Turning a key in that position is far harder than twisting one straight ahead. Ford was especially bad because of the long twist needed to start the car – I usually twisted to “on” and then got a new grip to turn it further to “start”, or else it wanted to twist my wrist farther than it wanted to go. Not all dash keys were well placed, but many were. Some newer vehicles have reverted to a dash key (to the extent keys are still used) and the action is much more pleasant.
Yep, you spotted one of the ’62 Plymouth IP mods. Can you find the others?
You’re bang on about the ’63 typeface—hitch yer horse and wet yer whistle at the ’63 Plymouth Saloon!
You’re also quite right about ignition keys. A key in the dash is less awkward to operate than one in the side of the steering column. But there are degrees here. I never found the Saginaw columns (GM + the other automakers who bought from GM) unduly difficult, nor the Acustar columns in ’90-up Chrysler products. But yeah, the Fords seemed to require an unreasonably long twist, a nuisance particularly on the ’70s models built so sloppily you had to reach over with the left hand and lift/jiggle the shift stick to make the neutral safety switch do its job, while twisting the key with the right hand. And then there was my 1971 Volvo 164, which had a terrible side-of-column ignition switch, clocked such that the Lock position had the key face-on, not edge-on, to the driver’s head. Insert key, rotate to On, re-grip key, awkwardly twist to Start. Yechk!
I have tried understanding the attraction of pushbutton start/stop, and I have repeatedly failed. It’s bad ergonomics; it poses at least two significant safety hazards: no intuitive way to shut down the engine immediately, and too easy to leave the engine running after parking the car in the garage.
Keep the fob proximity sensor and replace the pushbutton by a rotary switch with Accessory-Off-On-Start positions to eliminate the first problem, but the second one remains—and a rotary switch wouldn’t be all cool and nifty and video-gamey, so obvs it’s a nonstarter, as it were.
Is the other modification the use of numbers on the temperature gauge? The ’63 uses “C” and “H.”
Nice article, Daniel…
That’s another one of them; keep looking…
(Thank you!)
Oh, and besides that stupid pushbutton start idea my wife’s Mazda 3 automatic cannot be moved out of PARK unless the car is started. If I want to roll the car forward 10 feet in the street to clear my driveway I have to start the car in order to move it. No neutral then push. No doubt you will tell me it is a safety precaution but annoys the heck out of me nonetheless. Give me a stick shift any day.
Ugh. That wouldn’t bother me very often, but when it did, it would bother me a lot.
My much-hated Accord refuses to acknowledge the trunk release button on any key fob if there’s a key in the ignition. Pull over to let off a passenger who needs something out the trunk? Oh, no, mm-mm, gotta shut off the engine and remove the key, then push the button. It’s an unnecessary nuisance; there’s already a time delay on the trunk button—it has to be held down for a full second before the lid pops—so there’s really no way it could be jostled to accidentally open the trunk while driving.
Yes, there’s the trunk release lever outboard of the driver’s seat, but I’ve got that locked so if someone breaks in they’ll have a harder time getting into the trunk. To use it, I’d have to…turn off the ignition and take out the key. Pwned.
Is it the oil pressure light to the left of the oil pressure gauge?
You just stepped right over it. Back up a little.
What looks like an ultra-short indicator lever, under the gauge?
Naw, you’re getting way colder. (I think this p’ticular ’62 Plymouth has an aftermarket tilt steering column, aside from the list of IP modifications)
Ah…Plymouths didn’t have an oil pressure gauge; they just had the light.
Oops! I notice that someone covered that below.
Yup, but there’s still another mod nobody’s mentioned yet, so…keep looking!
I’ma guess that that oil pressure gauge is installed in a place where a dash clock originally resided. I remember that Ma Mopar wasn’t too liberal with oil pressure gauges in those days, as evidenced by some of the other instrument clusters you pictured.
Mopar did smash one out of the park with their updated B Series vans in 1994 (though I don’t know if it continued all the way through their demise in 2003): an oil pressure gauge with an inbuilt warning light in the gauge face. You have a non-binary readout of oil pressure (some actual numbers on the gauge face would be nice), and a screaming red warning light to immediately pull your attention to the exact thing that is critical. Much better than GM’s little orange “Check Gages [sic]” light, which was a suggestion that appeared somewhere on the outer periphery of the instrument cluster. Fun fact: One of my first jobs as a professional mechanic was replacing a bad oil pump on a 3.9 V6 in a full size 1994 Dodge van. I’m willing to bet that the gauge/warning light duo coulda played a part in making that just an oil pump replacement and not an engine replacement. Sure, a decently visible warning light probably woulda done the same thing, but having the gauge there too satisfies my desire to know “how much”.
Edit: Opps! Looks like somebody already mentioned the clock/oil pressure gauge swap.
Oil pressure gauge replacing clock: yep, that’s well checked off the list, but there’s still another mod not yet mentioned.
Oh, hey, yeah, that’s a terrific design on the ’94 B-van oil pressure “gage”. As a member of the SAE Lighting Systems Group, I objected to this spelling during the 5-year review of one or another document. Got shouted down: That’s how NASA spells it, so we’re not changing it.
Sadly, the B-van gauge/light did not carry over: 1998 got a new interior (I’m not sure a single part ahead of the B pillar carried over), with gauges that looked like they were taken from the Ram pickup parts bin (which they likely were).
Notably, the B-vans used essentially the same dash and interior from 1978 to 1997. I drove a 1981 (B-150 cargo, six/904/3.23) and a 1995 (15-pax, 318/46RH/4.10)..the most notable difference was the wiper switch on the turn signal stalk (81 was on the dash), high-back seats, I recall 100MPH speedometer with 6-digit odometer (81 was 85MPH and went back to zero at 100K), actually HAVING an oil pressure gauge (81 had a light), and the “OD OFF” switch…which was in the spot vacated by the 81’s wiper/washer switch. They changed very little inside, though I think the vent windows were fixed in place for 1996-7.
Actually, I’m cool with the pushbutton ignition switch (and the proximity door locks), as it allows me to leave the key (or fob) safely in my pocket at all times. The pushbutton has never bothered me. Your suggestion of a twist switch in place of the button reminds me of 50s GM design, in which the ignition switch had a “Lock” position in addition to the “Off” position. In the “Lock” position, you had to insert the key to start the car. In the “Off” position, you just got in, turned the switch without the key, and went on your way. Fun fact (unknown to anyone who has never known one of these cars): while underway you could pull the key out of the ignition if you had to unlock the glove box (remember when glove boxes had actual locks?).
Ah, so a couple-few decades later when the Briggs & Stratton ignition locks in ’70s-’90s GM cars stopped retaining the ignition key, that was a snazzy retro feature, not a bug!
As I’ve said before pushing the on-off switch to turn off the car is intuitive, if you’ve spent any time using a car with it, even for us cranky old people. For the younger set being all nifty and video-gamey makes it more intuitive to those.
Being a push button is also not the reason that it is easy to leave the car running in the garage. That is due to Hybrids and auto stop/start functions where you don’t hear the engine running but it may restart.
That is easily fixed with good design that beeps at you if you open the driver’s door with the car on and honks the horn and flashes the lights if you open the door, get out with the fob and then close the door and if you ignore that then shutting off the car if it is left w/o the key inside for too long, typically 30 minutes.
You’ll see that most of those deaths related to carbon monoxide are from Toyota models who didn’t implement all of those precautions until the 2020 model year, long after it became standard on some other brands.
Then of course there are some places where there are laws that require CO detectors in living spaces. Which can prevents deaths from malfunctioning heating equipment in addition to leaving the car running in the garage.
I agree on the ignition key. On my 2010 Ford, the ignition slot is on the steering column. I still have to look, twelve years later, to get the key in the ignition without scratching all the surrounding plastic. I do recall cars I had before, (1974 Dodge) where there were additional brackets if you will, that not only guided you where the key goes, but also gave you extra grippage surface to turn the key.
As for turning the key in the ignition, I do it with my forefinger behind the key and the thumb on top, but I know other people who used to put their thumb behind the key when turning it forward. (They must be the ones who also place their hand UNDER the steering wheel to make a left or right turn).
As for the keyless Start/Stop button, it is nice that it’s in the dash, and visible, but it is not really necessary. You can forget to turn off the ignition when exiting the car, and leave the thing running. Nice idea in search of a problem.
Nicely done, JP – you beat me to it.
It seems to me that when American car companies did provide a gauge for the electrical system, in the 1960s it tended to be an ammeter, although later on GM, particularly, went to voltmeters.
The Chrysler gear selector. I rented an Audi one time with a similar ‘issue’. Park…. nope. PARK!!!…. nope.
About the only gear selector problem I thought needed addressed got solved in my new 2022 Miata – there’s now a little display on the dash showing what gear the transmission’s in. Oh sure, I could look away or feel around for what gear I’m in, but I’d wished for this since my 2000 Prelude.
Finally, back when Mitsubishi actually made desirable cars in the 1990s, what great IP’s they had. Plate-sized Speedo and Tach. Compare that to what Honda was doing at the time with the Gen 4 Prelude’s dash.
It ought to be possible to know what gear you’re in by glancing at the shifter—or, even better, detect its position by hand without looking. A dash readout is a band-aid that sorta works, but didn’t stop me driving a hundred freeway miles in D3 instead of D[5] in my ’07 Accord one night.
As a Mopar fan you probably know that through the 1950’s Chrysler products had rotary switches for most things, unlike the other Big Three. In that period a consistent look was more valued than function. The cigarette lighter for example looked just like all the twist controls. Knobs or other kinds of switches for different things in US cars might be all identical looking and in a row, including maybe the parking brake release or hood release. ’58-’63 Lincolns (had a 40+ year old ’62) had a row of such knobs. One did ALL the heater/AC functions, with what it was doing shown on a radio station type display. A whole lot of twisting was involved.
In the 50’s a number of cars had back and forth slider controls on an often more or less horizontal surface – a reference to airplane controls that a lot of guys had seen in the army/air corp/air force or in movies. And airliner/Jet Age cool.
Can’t find the modification of the ’62 Plymouth what Brits call binnacle (from ship terminology). But a ChryCo without transmission pushbuttons over on the left doesn’t count anyway. I had a ’63 (and a ’56, both years later). On the ’63 the ignition on the right and buttons and Park lever on the left were actually pretty ergonomic -both hands doing things at about the same time. The Park lever also pushed the Neutral button down. The facelift of the panel on the ’63 was clearly to give more visual dimension – sort of butch it up. I always thought of the typeface was like on Wild West saloons and other cowboy movie signs. The dash pad over on the right side was also reconfigured to give a more “normal” look.
Next: discuss GM trying to be French or something with various types of controls on the sides of the binnacle around 1990, including on the Corvette. No one said anything, and then when AMC went to pod buttons on the Premier every writer freaked out at the weirdness.
Now of course with electonics everything is possible and there is no way of knowing what all the controls do on an unfamiliar car or what they can do. And touch screen controls are worse. It’s great that the auto headlights and auto dimmer on my Subaru work so perfectly, but one inadvertent bump on the turn signal lever can turn it all to crap. Symptom: the climate knobs lighting turns off.
Oh, the original clock on the 1962 was replaced by an oil pressure gage craftily made to look original. I think early 60’s Chrysler products only had one warning light (oil) instead of two so they could label the charge/discharge gage as “Alternator” and you could see it charging at idle. They were first with alternators. Later on if there is a charging gage it turned into a voltmeter, which is better for seeing a failing battery.
By the way I thought I would look at the speedo needle instead of the number displayed on my Subaru. I don’t. And – why white pointers instead of red? Probably another reason I pay more attention to the number instead.
Yep, that’s another of the modifications. Still one more to go!
Pretty sure Chrysler were using ammeters rather than “AMP” lights on most of their cars well before the 1960 Valiant became the first car on the American market with an alternator as standard equipment.
Plymouths, for example: until 1956 they had four gages. In 1956 the charging (they had various names – Amperes, Battery – but charging to the right and discharging to the left) and oil pressure gages were replaced with warning lights, I think a few years after Ford and Chevy. Same thing until the second year of the unit body in 1961, when a charging gage labeled Alternator appeared, but not an oil pressure gage. This was also the year they switched to alternators. Valiants had an alternator from introduction in 1960, and the same thing – Alternator gage and oil warning light.
The Honeywell thermostat (a Henry Dreyfuss design) actually both defies and upholds the clockwise=more convention, depending on whether it’s winter (turn clockwise for more heat) or summer (turn anti-clockwise for more air conditioning).
Clockwise to raise the temperature; anticlockwise to lower it, regardless of season. That’s a full uphold. I also don’t describe volume controls as defying the convention because I turn them anticlockwise for more quiet, or the dimmer in my dining room as noncompliant because I turn it clockwise for less dark. It’s all according to where your boogaloo situation stands, you understand.
Here’s an interesting one: North American domestic and commercial light switches usually get tipped up for on, down for off. There are exceptions; 3- and 4-way switches mean any of them could point up or down for on or off, depending on the status of the other switch(es) on the circuit, but if there’s just one switch, it’s usually up/on and down/off. In many other parts of the world, the opposite is true: you tip the wall switch down for on, up for off. The opposite convention feels unintuitive and wrong to travellers.
Enjoyed your article on one of my favorite topics, Daniel. I bought a new ’81 Saab just to look at that lovely face, er, dash, every day.
But since la673 raises Henry Dreyfuss – ergonomics may have been new to the auto industry c.1960, but Dreyfuss had been making money with the concept (I believe he called it “human factors”) since before WWII.
Most obvious are his universal desk telephones #302 and 500 for ATT, but he also had designed things like vacuum cleaners and alarm clocks – popular and widely acclaimed – by the end of the thirties. The round thermostat debuted in 1953, but Honeywell was by then an existing Dreyfuss client; I’m confident he considered “direction of twist” when designing it 😉
Again, I enjoyed the piece. Don’t get me started on the Plymouth speedos with the wagonwheel type…
Oh, and I had one of those Dreyfuss-designed Hoover vacuums, a two-piece (cannister) unit with a main part and a separate brush and hose that attaches to it. The main part was this space-age spherical thing that exhausted the air it sucked up through the bottom, causing the vac to float an inch above ground like a hovercraft. This made it super-easy to drag around the house – it felt almost weightless with no wheels touching the floor. Only problem arose when you were done vacuuming – it would then fall to the ground, and you’d have to carry it back to its storage place rather than having it roll across the floor on wheels like other vacuums.
You know, I’ve always looked askance at that spherical hovering vacuum cleaner. Seems to me levitating the vacuum with its own exhaust is going to create backpressure, which will have to reduce the throughflow. And the down-discharge exhaust is going to stir up all the dust in the vicinity, so an hour after you’ve left the room it’ll’ve settled back onto the floor you just vacuumed.
We had one and it got relegated to garage duty. I learned the hard way that you sweep the garage out before you vacuumed the cars – that Constellation would kick up the dust and blow it everywhere.
Thanks, CJA. Drefuss was highly talented, for sure. I have a lot of respect for (good) designers, in large part because I’m married to one. A lot of people have no idea how much work a proper design job is, of anything, nor how much designwork goes into virtually everything not made by nature.
> Clockwise to raise the temperature; anticlockwise to lower it, regardless of season. That’s a full uphold.
I guess it depends on how you look at it. Looked merely at as adjusting temperature (which of course is the ultimate end result that would make someone adjust the thermostat) it upholds convention. But looked at in terms of what it’s actually doing – firing up one device if you need it cooler and another device to make it warmer, it’s defying convention for the former, especially since with most thermostats you need to flip a switch to determine which HVAC device is in play. That’s different IMO than a light dimmer or volume knob, where turning it anticlockwise won’t fire up ‘darkness bulbs’ and twisting the volume knob won’t activate a noise-cancellation circuit in order to make it quieter.
This time of year around here, I often have the heat on a bit at nighttime when it gets cold, only to have to briefly turn on the A/C in the hot afternoons, requiring the thermostat’s heat/off/cool switch to be flipped, which may be why I think of thermostats in that bifurcated way.
I think you just inadvertently justified the “backwards” dashboard rheostat: turning it clockwise adds resistance!
Modern thermostats have an auto mode where it does what is needed to keep the temp at the desired setting, If the temp is too low it turns on the heat and if it is too high it turns on the AC. Of course they also have a manual mode where you can lock out one or the other.
Yes, in the UK light switches are all rockers, no tongues, and the down direction is on. For more confusion there is a switch on wall outlets. Phone charger won’t work? Check the switch.
My apartment has Decora light switches – rockers like in the UK but big. They’ve been around for decades, only cost a little more, and are way better than the tongues both for looks and function. I’ve never changed the upside down one in the bedroom. I just think of England.
Here’s an outlet for UK plugs (BS-1363, 13 amp), built to North American “Decora” dimensions. If this image makes your mind stop working, check the plug fuse!
That type of combo rocker switch/outlet is available in North American spec too, in either 15 or 20 amp (the latter with the rarely used sideways-T receptacle for 20A devices). Some of these have toggle switches instead, or have two buttons for tripping and resetting if there’s a ground fault. And at least one brand uses a vertical rather than horizontal switch which I find more intuitive and used when I needed to upgrade my bathroom to meet current electrical code.
Dimmer switches were invented in 1959 and first sold in 1961 by the founder of Lutron Corp. which now make a huge array of dimmers. The first one was the round punch-on, punch-off, turn clockwise to dim the lights arrangement. It used a thyristor rather than a rheostat to dim the lights, which was much smaller and more efficient. Dash lighting dimmers followed his clockwise-dims-the-lights arrangement.
I’ve always only ever seen these set up as a way of having an outlet and a light switch in a single-gang box, never as the switch controlling the outlet. On the BS-1363 item I showed, the switch controls the outlet.
Those switches nearly put me in the nut house. The first ones I saw were in a hotel. And EVERY time someone in the room went to the fridge, the bloody lights went off. Hitting the switch by the door fixed it. Turns out that there was another switch for the light…next to the (locked) connecting door to the next room. Behind the coat rack. Next to the fridge.
What was happening: when the person bent down to use the fridge, they would brush the coats on the rack. When they stood up, one coat would be pulled back slightly, then swing against the wall, JUST enough to hit the switch.
Chevrolet had a similar concept in 1954–they called it “Cybernetics”. (Wish I could find a better image).
The 1958 Edsel dashboard and controls were supposedly designed by an aeronautical engineer to be as “user-friendly” as possible.
One of the things I like about my 2005 Jaguar S-Type is the fact that the gauges and controls are relatively simple and straight-forward for a somewhat modern, high-end car. (No touch-screen, for one thing.)
Here’s a sharper image:
I would posit that a vehicle dash should only include the information that one needs to
know in an easy to comprehend format. In a modern vehicle that really includes very few
things, and of course can automatically change based on current conditions. The recent
vehicles I have been in seem to all provide so much more than is desirable in presentations
that are less than optimized.
Agree!
The ’63-4 Chrysler dash was another example of ergonomic clarity, with echoes back to Exner’s earlier dream cars.
Yes indeed. Pity this one hasn’t got the squircular steering wheel, since we’re in the neighbourhood, but the colour is in accord with Scripture!
That photo brings up another ergonomic intrigue: why were US automatic cars eventually fitted with brake pedals wider enough to sleep on?
I mean, in RHD, one could imagine a role for it, since it’s all-but big enough to make driving a communal affair if one had a passenger – “Hell, damn thing’s half on my side, why yes, I’ll help out with braking” – which could have its uses in circumstances where one was legless (both literally or figuratively), but in LHD, there are no further legs to help out.
I should add that when Europeans begrudgingly began to fit automatics, they always seemed to use the manual brake pedal, which to the unaccustomed mind looks even smaller than it actually is, but somehow rude and naked.
It was quite common for drivers of automatics to use the two-foot method: right on the gas pedal, left on the brake. I think it was even taught as a normal alternative to the one pedal method, in the early days of the automatic. The little lady never had to lift her foot and move it!
Obviously that method commonly led to higher brake wear and fuel consumption, and was increasingly discouraged in the 70s,, but I used to see quite a few folks using it.
FWIW, I sometimes used it myself in my early driving days; it opened the door to some rather unusual outputs from simultaneous inputs on both pedals. Smoke and noise were two of them.
Still employed abroad, judging from the number of NYC taxi and Uber drivers who employ it to nauseating effect.
Definitely not the way we were taught to drive in the early 1980s…
Paul’s explained it; now here’s Gus Wilson to provide colour commentary about it.
I don’t know if SAAB (“born from jets”) pioneered the idea, but sometime in the 80s or 90s they offered a driver-selectable night mode which only illuminated the speedometer unless there was something else you *really* needed to know. I thought that was brilliant, and it would be very easy to emulate with modern “video game” IPs. The few cars I’ve driven with such screens always seem to provide me with way too much information to easily parse. To be fair, though, all were rental cars, and other modes might be selectable.
On the topic of shifters… I came of age in the PRNDL era, so it’s all I knew. I find the column-mounted lever in my ’02 Silverado brings me back to the cars of my youth – it’s sort of the “comfort food” of automobiledom for me.
Agree on all counts. The screen-encrusted interiors we’re all now told we want make a real and serious safety threat by degrading the driver’s night vision. And column shifters for automatics make a lot of ergonomic sense.
I miss column shifted automatics. So much easier to use.
I had a BMW 2002 in 1969 – seems the turn signal stalk was on the right side of the steering wheel. Later, a Peugeot 505 (V6) had a push the turn signal/light stalk inward for the horn function. Once caught it in the hem of my trench coat and snapped it off.
For a brief while, I had a Citroen ID19 – loved that single spoke steering wheel. Way back in my early days, I devoured the auto magazines. A phrase that always impressed my was describing “controls falling readily to hand”. Could have been LJK Setright.
Well that was fun, I don’t know if I can ever turn up the lights before turning the hose on without thinking about this.
At work we had a BMW for a pool car for a bit, whenever someone took it for the first time we would watch to see how long it took for them to get it into a gear. Usually several minutes, and some people had to come back in to ask for help. Unbelievable…
Many years ago while driving 70MPH at night on the highway, I wanted to turn off my car’s windshield wipers but I turned off the headlights instead.
Why? Because the unlit column-mounted switch that controlled the headlights in my 2001 PT Cruiser controlled the wipers in my wife’s 1996 Grand Caravan (also a Chrysler product).
That certainly was exciting.
EXACTLY!
I used to be able to jump into any 70s car and pretty much start off driving day or night. Today, if I jump into a car I have never driven, I have to stop, examine the layout, maybe pull out the manual and read up on all the different switches especially stalks. Nothing was intuitive to me anymore. When I first drove my wife’s Mazda 3 I could get in during the day, push the brake, hit start, shift into D and drive. Beyond that I had to spend sometime reading the manual for the plethora of warning lights all over the dash and for the lights and wipers. The only saving grace is that the Mazda still used the three rotary knobs for climate control. That alone should never be tampered with.
Daniel, I am always happy to see one of your articles to enjoy with my Sunday morning coffee.
IP design has always been of great interest to me. Cars of the past had myriad of designs and I recall how the video game dashboards of the 1980s were supposed to take over design. I suppose LCD panels sporting “conventional” gauge is the ultimate outcome.
Messing with the design of an automatic transmission selector is not a good idea in my opinion. I have driven my buddy’s BMW X5 a few times, and the shift system is not intuitive at all. It is obviously done because it costs a few cents less. Give me a simple PRNDL lever like all Asian cars have.
My personal bugbear is electric parking brakes. The mechanical parking brake mechanism is complex and requires maintenance to keep working, especially in salty areas. The electric park brake is cheaper but I want a direct mechanical connection with the rear wheels.
When I bought my Golf, I had actually planned to buy a Jetta. The salesman, just a kid,was touting the electric park break as a safety feature!
Speaking of park brakes, since I live in what can be very hilly country, I have always applied the park brake before leaving the car.
I’m not too keen on electric parking brakes, myself, TYVM.
The big issue with the mechanical parking brakes is most drivers(at least in the flat midwest) don’t feel the need to apply them when the automatic transmission has a pea sized pawl to keep the car from moving in park, and consequently the disuse of the parking brake allows corrosion to take hold and freeze up the exposed cables and mechanism underneath the car. When used more frequently (as one would by necessity with a manual transmission) they tend to operate just fine for the lifetime of the vehicle, maybe with a periodic adjustment here and there.
I don’t like electronic parking brakes either, but I wonder if the rationale behind them was to make it a more enticing easy effort than pulling up or pushing on a high resistance lever or pedal to get drivers to use the damn things. Then again I still have yet to know anyone who uses them in their new cars.
Many of the electronic parking brakes (as in my truck) engage automatically. In fact that is one of the settings that can be changed using the screen and its almost infinite amount of possible vehicular adjustments to add to a different discussion.
So put the gear lever in park, the default is that the parking brake comes on automatically. Put it in reverse or drive and it disengages automatically. With one caveat – if you are not belted in while putting it in gear, you have to disengage the brake manually via the button. I don’t mind any of that at all, but it can be changed via the screen if it were to. And no, once in gear with the brake on, even if you then latch the seatbelt, you still have to manually push the button to release the brake, I guess it’s a good reminder to belt in before trying to move. Some cars you can simply step on the gas and it will release it, I haven’t actually tried that in mine, I assume it probably does so as well but in general don’t like the acceleration surge that accompanies that maneuver in other vehicles.
So in summary, with electronic parking brakes more of them are likely engaged where you live than the old way without anyone having to expend any effort whatsoever.
The automatic P-brake logic you describe sounds correct to me.
Holden (RIP) fitted an electronic parking brake to top-of-the range Commodores. We got one as a rental car once, and had awful troubles trying to figure it out.
Another modern reversion to the oldest is controls on the steering hub. In the 20s most cars had at least the horn and lights on the hub. Some had horn, lights, and spark, and Oakland added ignition for a four-switch panel. In the 30s everything moved off the column and hub to the dashboard, then the column shift started a migration back to the column in ’39.
Now we’re back to the 20s.
The 62 Plymouth seems to draw from the 1950 British power plant study which is the foundation of good gauge design. While working out optimum size, shape etc. for generating stations they determined a 1 1/2-2″ diameter circular gauge with a 270 degree sweep and white on black markings was the most legible and recommended setting needle travel and if necessary “clocking” the gauge so a normal reading had the needle at 12 o’clock. This explains race car panels with gauges at seemingly odd angles so they could be checked at a glance by recognizing the pattern.
Those gearshifts are an abomination and completely ignore the easily comprehensible PRNDL, so how did they pass FMVSS or CE? The original Porsche PDK had a straightforward 4 way selector (no Park position) with forward and back for up and down and IIRC left for neutral and right for reverse after releasing a lockout.
I have heard of that 1950 British study, and seen pull quotes from it, but haven’t ever read the whole thing. I’ll hafta go fishing and see if I can find it.
As described in the post, they meet FMVSS № 102 because forward and reverse driving ranges are separated by neutral, and that’s the extent of what the standard requires. Same with UN Regulation 121, which is what the rest of the world outside the North American regulatory island uses. CE doesn’t apply to any of this; it’s not a system of vehicle regulations.
That Porsche PDK setup sounds less bad (at least) than the ones I carped about in the post, but to me it doesn’t sound better than P—R-N-D-L.
“Oh yes, that’s a pernundel. My husband has a pernundel on his car, too.”
That’s pernandle to Lisa Douglas. It’s the prindle to everyone else, except for those inscrutable dweebs who pronounce it by calling out the letters, as in “the pee arr enn dee ell”.
(I guess I’ve got the fever for the flavour of a prindle.)
Loved the article, some great points and an enjoyable read.
However, I chuckled at this line:
” I guess there wasn’t all that much overlap between situations where you’d be shifting a lot of gears and those when you’d be switching a lot of beams.”
Having driven a manual transmission 1974 Chevy for the past couple years, there has been more than once when I was pulling up to an intersection inadvertently with high beams on (out in the country between my house and my parent’s, usually), only to unexpectedly meet another car turning towards me, with my foot firmly on the clutch pedal. I felt like a jackass, and have since taken to preemptively dimming my lights as I approach a situation where I’m going to be working the 3rd pedal, and I believe there is the possibility of meeting a car unexpectedly.
I don’t mean to sound critical or anything, just noting my personal experience with using a floor dimmer + manual transmission combination.
That’s a really good example of why the kickswitch is ergonomically inferior to a fingertip switch. In the case you describe, it forces you to use low beams when you should have high beams on, in case you might need the low beams and be temporarily unable to grab them.
Exactly! I remember thinking that had I been in my newer Ford car (also manual transmission), I’d have been able to react, even in the process of shifting with my other hand, with the stalk-mounted switch.
I love driving old vehicles (I chose the old pickup lol), but they can really make you appreciate modern advancements and innovations, even seemingly minor ones. They also give someone my age (will be 40 this month) an appreciation for what life was like when they were state-of-the-art.
In my case, I actually prefer the foot operated dimmer switch in my ’68 Fury VIP to the stalk mounted version in all my other vehicles.When my seat is adjusted for my best driving position, my left foot naturally sits right at the dimmer switch. For some reason, I have a talent for turning on the wipers while also using the stalk mounted dimmer switch which is rather embarrassing on my part.
While I love the 67-68 Fury instrument panels, the only thing I don’t like is the reach around behind the wheel to activate the dimmer switch. The earlier Fury completely blows away my ’79 St. Regis in ease of reading the gauges. There is surprisingly little contrast between the numbers and the background so when it’s not quite dark outside or a grey day, the dash lights are not strong enough to do any good until it’s completely dark. This may be partially a problem with my being colourblind. New bulbs and a new headlight switch with the brightness adjusted for the IP was of little to no help.
Oops, that’s reach around to activate the wiper switch!
Great article about an underappreciated topic, Daniel. My guess for another mod you made to the 1962 Plymouth IP: Oil pressure gauge instead of a stock clock. (Apologies if someone beat me to the punch on this.)
Yup, that’s another mod checked off the list! Keep looking…
My 2018 Honda is the first manual I have had without a push/lever/dogleg requirement to shift into reverse, which is close to 6th gear on the shifter. It took me months to build up the courage to shift up into 6th for fear I would push it into reverse and leave my transmission out on the highway. Turns out the engineers did a pretty good job of designing out that possibility.
How’d they do it? A detent or something?
Probably. My Challenger wouldn’t allow the shifter to go far enough to the right (right and forward, past 5th) to engage reverse unless the car was stopped. My Shelby Charger (left and up) required the shifter to be pushed down. 5-speed Caravans used the same design, but with a ring that had to be lifted. My 2009 Hyundai Accent (left and up) also has a collar that has to be pulled up-it disengages a physical block on the shift lever (under the boot), which seems to be surprisingly large.
Ah, the AstraDome! I first saw one of these in 1980, on a beautifully restored 1960 Chrysler 300. I found it strangely fascinating, unembarrassed, proud even, of itself in its garishness. Them Mercury boys goin’ up in space? Can’t be any fancier than my dashboard.
I think I found it even more interesting than the 413 under the hood, with its dual carburetors and crazy intake manifolds running across the top of the engine. (It’s been awhile but as I recall, the longer intake runners provided a big kick at 2800 RPM – something about a happy confluence of reverberating intake air providing a ram effect. With the standard intake runner lengths, that ram effect occurred well over 5000 RPM, which was much less practical for everyday driving.)
But back to the AstraDome – I saw it again in my mind’s eye about 25 years ago when reading Stephen Hunter’s gripping novel Black Light, which deals with a mid-’50s sniper trying out a new-fangled night scope, and seeing greeny-yellow images as though they were in an aquarium. Somehow the AstraDome has the same vibe for me.
Both the ’62 and ’63 Plymouth dashboards are very appealing – the asymmetry works for me.
I actually prefer the way the ’63 has the two gauges (fuel and coolant temperature) sharing one circular space, but am so put off by the awful font that I would have to cast a vote for the ’62.
Daniel, your point is very well made that the ’60/61 Valiant dash offends with the inconsistency in the way the needles swing to indicate “more”. GRRRR!
Your comment about the toothed frogs in toilets was quite wonderful. No matter how good an idea is, there will always be a naysayer who will criticize it. That usually says more about the person than the idea.
Australia and New Zealand are a mess of European, Japanese (international market), Korean, Australian and (in New Zealand’s case) JDM cars.
As a result, when switching between different cars, the inducator and windscreen wiper stalks always seem to be the other way around to what I was expecting. Trying to turn left at the traffic lights…, SCREEEECHH, damn wipers!!!
The indicator stalk is on the left on my 1994 Ford Falcon on my girlfriend’s 2018 Civic, but was on the right in a 2003 Holden Astra (rebadged Opel) and the Alfa 147 I just recently drove. The list goes on…
Moreso, I drove a new Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van recently. The previous model had just the old familiar lever for shifting the automatic tranny, located in the bottom of the centre part of the dashboard, as is usual with this kind of vans. On the new one, however, the shifter is just a stalk on the steering column, kinda similar in its size, location and appearance to an indicator stalk. And its located on the right, exactly where the indicators on my Falcon are. Every time i was trying to turn left at the traffic lights with the Sprinter: indicator on, press accelerator, no traction… wtf? Oh, right, its on Neutral again!
I really like the setup on my ’04 LeSabre. It had a regular round analog speedometer in the dash & a digital HUD on the windshield. Best of both worlds.
The only drawback is that occasionally the wrong sun angle will wash out the HUD and I assume the projector and special glass coating is considerably more expensive than an LCD screen.
Nobody has mentioned the “‘Tuff Wheel’ steering wheel on the 1962 Plymouth yet, so I call dibs!
I’m reading this and about halfway in I’m thinking my friend Daniel had to be the author. Yep, without a doubt. I think only he can get more into arcane detail than myself.
Gauges. Unless it’s Speedo and Tach, side by side, Speedo should be smack dab in the center. Partly practical, partly just visuals. Font does play a part as illustrated by the year by year Chrysler products shown early on, that second one is awful to look at. As much as I like detail, I bet idiot lights save more engines than gauges. People ignore gauges, even those of us who want them. Lights get your attention to a problem now, like low oil pressure or an alt that stopped charging. Both would be ideal.
Ignition key/lock. I’m fine with it on the steering column, but it should be a funnel shape so the key goes in easily, and tilted towards you a bit so you just put the key in at a natural wrist angle. I’m mostly in BMWs for decades, but currently also have a Infiniti QX4 (read Nissan Pathfinder with leather seats and plastic stuck on the doors, though I refer to it as my Datsun) anyway, the Nissan has the key entry angle at an odd one, with just kind of a slot in a flat face, so you need to match angle and exact location. Seems like others I’ve driven have it at one or both of my preferred choices, and I will give points to Ford, at least some of them have a couple of big ears you can crank on instead of the key itself.
Heater/AC controls. I suppose a thousand buttons must be cheaper as much as they like them now, but 2 knobs and 3 levers is as good as it gets. Knob for temp and blower, you can have either or both notched and or digital, or purely analog, or a combo. But turn a knob to control heat, or the blower, but you shouldn’t have to push it a dozen times to get to max. Air. One lever for air at your feet, one for air at your face, and one for air at the windshield, ie defrost. If I want it hot, I crank the knob all the way to the right. If I want the windblown look I do the same.
Where was the clock on a Valiant or Dart? Don’t think I ever saw one..
On the driver’s wrist.
What a shame, given that the electromechanical car clocks of the day worked so well. They always kept time accurately, and lasted the life of the car. (Ho ho, it is to laugh.)
Right? Actually there was a clock offered by Chrysler Canada for the 1960 Valiant. It lived at the top of the steering column, replacing the horn ring centre emblem. It was exceedingly scarce even back then, and now is seen just about never. I’ve never seen one, myself, but the Australian who bought my ’62 Lancer has all the info sheets, if I remember correctly, and might even have found one of the clocks.
Tut and tut.
It is yet another indictment upon the mournful deficiencies of modern literacy that current interior designers have clearly been been unaware what the word “ergonomics” meant, and, lacking a dictionary (or perhaps even knowledge of what one of those might be) have asked the great God itself, Siri. Siri, as is so oft her ill-bred lot, has mistaken it for “ergo gnomics” – the “therefores of things enigmatic or ambiguous and difficult to understand.”
Enlightened thus with glorious Knowledge, they have sallied forth into their field and designed all the operative interfaces with slavish, nay, near-religious, devotion to the definition that Knowledge had given them.
You have seen the results. You can judge for yourself, though if you judge it all to be good, you cannot judge for yourself.
I would say that they speak for themselves, but after several years, I have never located the button for voice control. Or, indeed, the “on” button, which is why I am trading it in.
Ah, for the Olden Days of Old in Times Past. When, like people, things knew their place, especially on the dashboard.
I reckon Citroen did the most interesting dashboard stuff of recent times, with the 2004-on C4. The wheel rotated around the hub, and quite a few functions were left unmissably in the field of view. I suspect budgetary considerations precluded more things being there, and for sure, the ventilation controls are bitty little buttons in the usual spot and none too clever. (actually, on the one below, you get quite intriguing little temp controls beneath right and left vents, just visible here and a not-bad idea). Still, feast your eyes upon the dash of the 7-seater C4, the Picasso (not entirely misnamed, it is not a raving beauty). Behold, just about everything, sort-of, and yes, that little weird wandy thing up top is the column shifter. It’s even got the speedo in the middle, as our writ in the Holy Scriptures of our Niedemeyer, who art in charge of editorial.
It IS a PSA product, and thus I could find more pics on how to rewire it all upon the inevitable breakage than photos of an intact one, but I still like it.
Great post, Mr Stern. Lots of entertainment, and even some Learning too.
Good Grief !!! Some one wrote a dissertation on “Speedometer and gage design”. Just what anyone wanted to do read 120+++ pages of research that goes back to Fred Flintstones stone wheel design cart. Why oh why can we not have speedos that read in easy to see for all analog numbers that are clearly marked. I agree with Dan Stern—the easier it is to read the better and safer the roads will be. I own 4 cars–3 newer ones where the speedo’s are marked 10,20,30,40 and a nebulous mark between the numbers. How often do I find my self going 40 when my mind thinks based on the numeric marks I am doing 35–force of habit from driving since 1961 with “normal speedos”. The reason why is my 4th car is older and the numeric numbers are written 10,20,30,40,50,60, with a small, easy to read mark 1/2 way between the numbers. With the old car I know just about exactly where 35 MPH is—no guessing and no speeding violations because I am doing 40 in a 30 like I would get in those 3 newer cars. This 1984 document that has all the interest of watching paint dry is very out of date in its findings. No one needs to know about the research from 1948 or the stats on a Polaris Submarine gage. Just give the driving public readable, sensible speedometers that are easy to read. Tach ?? Who needs one on a car with auto trans—do you all think that drivers are competing in the Indy 500 ??? My Honda Odyssey has a speedo that goes up to 160 mph. The only way that Odyssey will get up to 160 is to be dropped out of a C-141 jet transport from about 40,000 feet. Please auto makers I will pay the extra $10.00 for those extra numeric numbers so I don’t have to guess where 55 MPH is or get tickets for doing 60 mph in a 50 mph zone thinking I am doing 55 mph. Put away your soon to be 18″ screens with all those digital factoids of information that cost more than a new car did in 1960 when they need repair. Give us back our 10 mph incrementation our speedo’s.
Breathe, dude. Researchers gonna research, and we’re all better for it.
Still looking for the last mod… weren’t the Torque-Flite P(?)RNDL pushbuttons in the standard Plymouth dash binnacle/trapezoid? Apologies if this was excluded or previously noted… sometimes it’s the obvious, you know.
I think they’ve all been caught now, though I might’ve lost track of that and kept saying “keep looking” after they’d all been called out.
• Oil pressure gauge replacing clock
• Ammeter converted to voltmeter
• Engine temperature gauge now has numbers, not just “C” and “H”
You’re right about the absence of th pushbuttons and park lever, but that’s not a modification—it just means this car has a shifter elsewhere (originally it would’ve been a 3-on-the-tree, but the aftermarket steering column on this car means it’s probably some kind of floor thing).
Heh, heh – that would be “the obvious.” Thanks.
Thanks, this is a very interesting post. I am a bit slow in commenting because I have been out of town and I wanted to include a photo of the instruments in my Fiat.
As others have said here, I always thought that the best design for a speedometer was a large circular dial so that you only needed to see the angle of the needle to know the speed. However, both of our “modern” cars have a secondary digital speed display, and to my surprise I found that I end up looking at the digital one and ignoring the dial. Both also have tachs although they are automatics, so I never look at them.
Although I quite like the car, the display in our 2012 Fiat 500 is extremely poorly designed. The design of the whole car is an homage to the Nuova 500 including having only one circular display on the dash. This means it is extremely cramped, so to fit both the speedometer and the tach they are concentric, with the speedo on the outside and the tach inside, with all the other items in the center of the tach.
I would like to mention how colour blindness affects the effectiveness of instruments. Like 8 to 10% of males, I am red green colour blind. The actual effect is quite complicated and more subtle than just a difficulty in distinguishing between red and green. In general it is only a small inconvenience me, the main problems being telling when a banana is ripe and distinguishing between rare and well done steak. What most people do not realize is that red is not a bright colour for many colour blind people, including me. If my wife points out a cardinal sitting in a tree, I can tell it is red, but it does not stand out to me. For traffic lights, amber is the brightest, followed by red. At night I have trouble picking out the green lights from street lights. As you might expect I am a big fan of amber turn signals.
This comes into play in warning lights and in the case of the Fiat, the speedometer and tach. Their short needles glow in red, but it does not stand out to me and both are really hard to read. I almost can’t see the needles. Fortunately there is a digital display for the speed and I don’t care about the engine speed.
I’ve never had any problem with driving the 62-63 Valiant or Plymouth, and I have owned some of them for several decades and my son still drives a 63 Belvedere.
Nothing wrong with any of those dashboards, nor the one in my 85 Voyager or 89 TC by Maserati. If all other brands fell off the planet, I’d never miss any of them.
Who first thought of white or light grey speedo and instrument faces with rear-illuminated numbers? My first car with thst style was my 1995 Dodge Intrepid. It is fine in daytime or at night but as twilight falls, I have to constantly adjust the brightness or the illumination to maintain contrast and legibility between the gauge face and the numbers. The Intrepid’s siblings Chrysler Concorde and Eagle Vision had blackface instruments that were easy to read in all ambient light levels, but the Intrepid’s round speedo was better. Mt PT Cruiser also has the same white/light grey instrument faces.
I just reread this most excellent article again. Thanks again!
Re-reading this post makes me appreciate my ’02 Silverado even more. I will contend that the GMT800 trucks, introduced for MY1999, were the final time trucks were designed primarily to do truck things (as opposed to more modern trucks, which seem to be do-all family haulers as well as work trucks).
With the possible exception of the wiper switch and beam selector on the turn signal stalk (ugh), a driver from 1966 would be able to jump right into my ’02 Silverado and everything would make perfect sense. And that’s the way I like it. Now get off my lawn!
Along with the ’63-4 Chrysler dash I noted above, the ’62 Plymouth dash is one of my all-time favorites. Another unappreciated gem from an underappreciated car.
Love the backstory you’ve given us, Jim. Many interesting things going on at Chrysler in this period, including the Turbine cars and the first modern corporate identify program and dealership design standards in the industry.
Y’talking to me? (All my life, people have wanted to call me David. Don’t think I’ve ever had a Jim before, though!)
Saw an old Car Life article today (thx wildaboutcars – link below), and when I saw this dreadful optional 0-150 mph (Plymouth!) speedometer, immediately thought it needed to be reported to the gauge offenders files.
Found at http://wildaboutcarsonline.com/members/AardvarkPublisherAttachments/9990392728095/1968-02_CL_Hemi_vs_Magnum_440_1-7.pdf
Gah! What an awful mess.