comments

1. Deron Bauman on September 30th, 2011 at 5:45 pm

   Center mounted on the console between the seats?

2. Rick Neece on September 30th, 2011 at 5:53 pm

   Looking down to read would take my eyes off the road. Seems crazy. These days I can hardly take my eyes off the road to change the radio channel without some shit happening on the road in front of me.

3. Rick Neece on September 30th, 2011 at 5:54 pm

   I also don’t read or text while driving. Am I old?

4. Joel Bernstein on September 30th, 2011 at 5:55 pm

   Center of the dash, like the speedometer in the Mini Coupe you posted.

5. Deron Bauman on September 30th, 2011 at 6:05 pm

   Yeah, that’s a bad idea.

6. Joel Bernstein on September 30th, 2011 at 6:24 pm

   I was kind of hoping someone would have a brilliant justification for it, beyond ‘it looks different, and the car designers were sadistic douches’

7. Michael Grant Smith on September 30th, 2011 at 8:45 pm

   The original reason: it was a low-cost engineering and production solution to developing vehicles intended for sale in both left-hand drive and right-hand drive markets.

   “Hey, look — we moved the steering wheel and pedals, and we’re done!”

   Current reason: there is no reason.

   They’re dangerous. They can make you take your eyes off your smartphone.

8. Joel Bernstein on October 1st, 2011 at 12:18 am

   But that still doesn’t really make any sense, why would the speedometer be harder to relocate than the steering wheel, pedals, and all the other gauges?

9. Michael Grant Smith on October 1st, 2011 at 8:02 am

   The original Mini interior was pretty Spartan. Everything gauge-wise, such as it was, was in the middle. Some elements of the car were examples of British engineering genius; other areas were crafted like hay wagons. The Mini was intended to be an “everyman’s” world car, so they tried to keep it as simple (=cheap) as possible. “Export or die” was the UK auto industry’s Post-War mantra.

   My 1968 Triumph TR250, as you can see from this image taken during its restoration, was designed to have a logical, mirror-image layout. The symmetrical sections in front of the firewall could be punched and drilled for the steering column and brake and clutch cylinders, depending on the intended market. The three pedals reside in a sort of open box or module that bolts easily underneath either of those flat horizontal surface. The battery sits dead center in the low spot — which eventually rusts out. Many classics whose original home was Arizona or California (you can almost hear these cars rust) have been sold to British and Japanese collectors. It’s a relatively easy conversion.

   Although Triumph had its clever moments, they also came up with bone-headed ideas like locating the independent rear suspension axle shafts ABOVE the frame instead of below it. This results in suspension travel of about almost no distance at all. The parts rebound off of hard rubber bumpers and the resulting driving experience, especially during hard cornering, makes you pee yourself a little.

   To love these old cars is to also admire the folly and fuss of their quirky, flawed spirit.

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