Cars Blog April Archive

• Originally, a dashboard was the upturned front of a horse-drawn chariot or wagon, which protected the driver from mud and debris thrown up by the horse's hooves
• A dash is a control panel located under the windscreen of an automobile. It contains indicators, dials, controls and displays to assist operation of the vehicle
• Custom-built coupe race cars often simply have a piece of sheet metal that forms the dash. Whenever a new gauge needs to be added, a hole for the gauge is drilled in the appropriate location.
• Open wheel race cars have no space for a dash, so the instrument cluster is integrated into the center of the steering wheel.
• Items located on the dashboard first included the steering wheel and the instrument cluster, which by now contains gauges such as a speedometer, tachometer, odometer, and fuel gauge. Later came heating controls, lighting controls, and audio controls
• Instrument fashion: In the 1940s through the 1960s, American car manufacturers and their imitators designed unusually shaped instruments on a dashboard laden with chrome and transparent plastic. They could be less readable but were often thought to be more stylish. Sunlight could cause a bright glare on the chrome, particularly for a convertible