Car Interior Design

[Casey]

So sometimes I forget just how tasteful our cars' interiors are.  Then I sit inside a similar era Jaguar and just have to have a laugh making fun of it all.

Here's another great example of the absolute rubbish that somebody had the audacity to call "interior design", circa 1985:

[ziper1221]

  I like it, but it would be even better with stainless for the paneling

[oversize]

Those square dials are horrible!  Blah!!   

[JasonP]

Well, you gotta give them credit for trying.

It is amazing how few permutations there are when it comes to dashboards and instrument panels. The constraints are serious - driver awareness and safety. But it just seems that very few have found a way to be "different" or break outside the box of the same 'ol same 'ol.



What more can we do? The more functionality we offer the driver, the more they have to "learn" the system, like a fighter pilot. But then look at even this one - everything is in the same place it always was.

I have seen very few interiors that impress me. And I guess the ones that most did impress me are from the very old cars. Simplicity is a sign of sophistication, I think.

[Big_Richard]

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[Casey]

squares, rectangles and straight lines were high fashion in the 1980's. That dash board would of been considered cutting edge back then

"but officer, i didn't know what speed i was doing, the needle in my square speedometer doesn't reach the numbers in the corners"

If Mercedes would have made square speedometers they would have made sure that it reached up into the corners just like a W124 windshield wiper.

[ZCarFan]

yeah, the old square Ford dashes.  Ick.

Now the W116 dash is tasteful and very functional but I am still partial to the 1st generation Riviera.  Oh, don't forget the Datsun Z for one of the most memorable mass-produced dashes.  (translation for rest of the world -- "Zed" or something like that)

[gf]

the head up display i think lexus did in the early 90s was pretty clever- a friend said it sucked cause sometimes it would just stop working and cost a lot to fix.