Have to agree on that one.
I don’t think anyone is claiming that 20 mph spacing is a crisis (if we’re only allowed to complain about life threatening problems, this board will be pretty limited). But it is bad design, only needed because every-day grocery getters are saddled with 160 mph speedometers.
My preference? 100 mph speedometers plus large digital redouts with unlimited range.
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I don’t know if they still do it, but the Mini Cooper I test drove several years ago had the speedometer in the middle of the dash and the tachometer was where the speedometer usually sits
The day we bought the Corolla I initially test drove a 2009 Yaris, which also had the speedometer, fuel gauge, ect. in the center of the dash above the radio. I didn’t get off the lot with it. That was a deal breaker. I didn’t want to get used to that. I’ve seen Scions that had the same arrangement.
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Yaris is cheap, I think they placed the gauges in the middle so the same dash pad could be used for both right- and left-hand drive.
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Yeah, that’s what I always suspected. A gal I used to work with said she got out of a couple of speeding tickets by blaming the speedometer in the Yaris she drove at the time.
Many, many years ago I had a 1967 Opel Kadett. I was a really fun car to drove, but gutless… I was driving up to Flagstaff, Arizona and traveling up Route 17 and the climb up the Mogollon Rim is a steep climb that left the Kadett screaming to do 35 MPH in second gear. Even old pickups pulling farm equipment on trailers were passing me. The engine was only 1,100 cc. Opel also had an upgraded model, with a bigger engine with duel carbs. I decided to rebuild mine, but with modifications.
The year was 1973 or so and I rebuilt it in the base hobby shop (I was in the Air Force (2-striper) and stationed at Luke AFB in Arizona). I decided to keep the basic block (3-main Waa-Hoo (lol)…) but shave .090 off the head. I also ported, polished, and cc’d the head. I got an upgraded Crane Cam (don’t remember the cut…), had 25% of the weight machined off the flywheel, and got the Duel carb manifold from the Opel Manta. Had a friend fabricate me a version of a header and installed all new exhaust.
When I was done and had broken in the engine nicely, I took the trip up to Flagstaff again and I drove up the Mogollon Rim climb at 90 MPH in 4th gear… She really could pull her weight now…
But the real point of this was, when I was waiting for the machine work to be done, while I was installing the new clutch cable I discovered that that the underside of the dash on the passenger side was a duplicate of the driver’s side.
What I mean is the dash was the exact same size as the glovebox; the underside of the dash under the glove box had all the brackets and hangers to install the brake petal and clutch petal assembly. The backside of the dash had all the punch outs pre-cut for the master cylinder and steering assembly.
I went down to the local Opel dealer and spoke to the mechanics and found a mechanic who knew exactly what I was talking about. The Kadet was built to be easily configured as either a right or left hand drive and there was no major differences except changing the clutch cable, speedometer cable, and the brake lines. The throttle linkage just installed by flipping it over on the firewall.
And best of all, the rack and pinion steering assembly only had to be unbolted and flipped over. And best of all, I could do it all myself and I did!!!
That’s right, my little '67 Opel Kadett was now a right-hand drive and the next best thing was Arizona was a No-Inspection state… Hell, there were folks who removed the entire body assembly from their cars to create dune buggies and did not even have real seats installed, some even installed lazy-boy recliners for seats. It was truly a “wild-west” back then…
But I digress, it turned out that the notoriety of a right hand drive was not worth the pain it was to drive. The road perspective is all screwed up and if you try to pass, you have to pull out way too far to see around the vehicle ahead to see if it’s safe to pass. My wife hated it and I changed it back after two months. But I still had that marvelous little engine that put out a lot more power and much better gas mileage (not that it mattered as gas was seldom over a quarter a gallon.
So, the moral of this posting is find yourself an old Opel Kadett and create something special…
PS: I still have the special head and manifold bolt sockets. The head and manifold bolts were a type of Torx design, but with sharp points versus the rounded lobes…
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I like them. Sort of indicates you have a new car. Which is nice.
You haven’t driven a Daihatsu Charade. It makes the Metro look good, and fortunately it isn’t available in the US. I rented one on a weekend trip to Monkey Island while on a business trip to Japan. It was a slow tin box with ill fitting interior panels that rattled. On a current model year car no less. The speed limit was 35 kph and you really couldn’t go much faster than that, and that made the performance acceptable.
The car I used back on the base island was a Vitz, aka Yaris. It was a big step above the Daihatsu. Both are Toyota products. I actually learned to like the Vitz, despite being small and slow. The max speed was a towering 50 kph there.
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I have driven them, local dealer sold them a few years before I worked there. I have a service manual for the 1989 Charade, 80 HP, curb weight 1875 - 1995 lbs. no worse than a Honda Civic.
I guess it depends on what you’re used to. At one time, I owned a 1977 Corolla with a 1.2 liter engine that was rated at 63hp @ 5800rpm and a 5 speed manual. Obviously it was no hotrod but it was peppy enough most of the time with adequate power for highway driving and I thought it was lots of fun to drive.
That is true, but let’s not forget that what most people consider to be “adequate” performance has changed over the years. When I drove my father’s Slant Six Plymouth, I considered its performance to be adequate, but I’m sure that if I drove one today I would consider it to be absolutely anemic. Zero to 60 times have consistently gotten quicker over the past few decades, along with braking ability and–in many cases–handling/roadholding.
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I drove a slant 6 Plymouth as a company car back in the early 80’s. To be fair, it wasn’t a full size car (not a Valiant either, don’t remember the model) and while it wouldn’t be state of the art today (it wasn’t then either) it wasn’t that bad. Not saying I’d prefer it over a modern vehicle but not a complete dog either.
Our Ford and Merc at least had the long speedometer, easy to read. I actually can’t remember what the Chevs or Plymouths had. Seems like at some point into the 70’s or later they started doing the round speedometers. Absolutely can’t remember what any of my cars in the past had. Maybe they needed the apace for the tach or something.
No bud, just no.
Back in the day, there was more real estate available for the speedometer because there were few other instruments. Most cars had only that and a gas gauge, with the rest being “idiot lights.” Chrysler products had a temperature gauge but that was about it. One Chevrolet dad owned had separate lights for “hot” and “cold” but it was an exception.
I guess I haven driven the Charade either. The car was a rental in 2015MY. It had to be the Sirion, the replacement for the Charade. At that time, the Sirion would not have competed with the Civic.
My father’s '55 Plymouth had a full compliment of gauges, but because the oil pressure gauge was all the way to the right on the dashboard, it was essentially useless to someone while he was driving.
So, at the age of 8 or so, it became my job to monitor the oil pressure gauge and read it out to my father periodically.
I guess that this assignment kept me out of trouble when we were in the car. 
Then, his '59 Plymouth relied on idiot lights for everything except the gas level. I’m not positive, but I think that his '63 Plymouth had an ammeter and a temp gauge, but there was definitely an idiot light for oil pressure.
His '66 Galaxie 500 was the first car I saw with a blue light for “cold” engine, in addition to the red one for overheating. The gas gauge was the only instrument that accompanied the speedometer.
I’m having a hard time recalling the gauges on my '71 Charger, but I think that it may have had some gauges in addition to the gas gauge.
When I bought my Chevy Citation, I specified the “police package” (yes, believe it or not, it was available on that model, even with the 4-cylinder engine), and that got me full instrumentation as well as a better-handling suspension.
Edited to add that every car that came after my Citation had the usual modern idiot lights instead of gauges. And, in case anyone doesn’t recall the '55 Plymouth dashboard that I mentioned earlier, here it is. The other gauge on the right side of the dashboard (ammeter??) was visible to the driver if he took his eyes off the road for far too long, but the oil pressure gauge on the far right (next to the radio speaker grill) was just too far away to be useful to the driver.
When we ordered our 86 Park Ave, the gauge package only came with the electronic display for $2000. I bought a $20 gauge cluster to install instead. Up until then, you could order the package for maybe a hundred or so dollars which I always did. Came with volt meter, temp, and oil pressure gauges.
Yes, bud, just, yes… Honda S2000, digital speedo, analog bar graph tach, '84 up Corvette, digital and bar graph for both tach and speedo, digital for all the rest of the gauges, temps and pressures. Useful data.
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