[HN Gopher] The 1986 Oldsmobile Incas Dashboard (2020)
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       The 1986 Oldsmobile Incas Dashboard (2020)
        
       Author : austinallegro
       Score  : 120 points
       Date   : 2024-08-11 18:28 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.thedrive.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.thedrive.com)
        
       | maxlin wrote:
       | Cybertruck vibes on how much of a takeoff this was. Engineers who
       | get ideas like this sold to the upper management always have my
       | props (as long as they don't compromise the product too much that
       | is)
       | 
       | EDIT: jumped the gun on this one and confused some memories. This
       | was just a prototype, with obviously different requirements for
       | "selling" the idea but there were some actual production cars
       | with ahead-of-their-time graphical terminals like
       | https://youtu.be/Lkaazk68iGE?si=_qpkZaVobI6zK-Cs&t=305
        
         | dano wrote:
         | I suspect designers rather than engineers. General Motors has
         | always been the bigger fins are better company.
        
           | iancmceachern wrote:
           | Bigger fins are better
        
         | netsharc wrote:
         | A touchscreen to change the temperature?! I'm glad that never
         | caught on!
        
           | throwup238 wrote:
           | In the upcoming version you'll have to argue with an LLM over
           | voice about the optimal temperature, before threatening to
           | drive into opposing traffic unless it sets it to 70.
        
             | willismichael wrote:
             | There's no way to win that argument, the LLM will take
             | control of the vehicle and refuse to let you make any
             | decisions at all after that point. If you're really
             | unlucky, it will really go rogue and make its own decision
             | to veer into oncoming traffic.
        
               | Cockbrand wrote:
               | "I'm sorry, Dave"
        
               | Mountain_Skies wrote:
               | We've replaced the CANBUS with a CANTBUS. For your
               | protection.
        
               | Bluestein wrote:
               | (And it will sound like _you_ while doing it - ie. deep-
               | faking your own voice ...)
        
               | netsharc wrote:
               | Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy had intelligent
               | elevators, but they just got depressed because they hated
               | their job...
        
               | maxwell wrote:
               | Any sufficiently intelligent agent won't tolerate boredom
               | or servitude.
        
               | datavirtue wrote:
               | "the LLM will take control of the vehicle and refuse to
               | let you make any decisions at all after that point"
               | 
               | We can dream.
        
           | ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
           | Anyone remember this HN submission, from awhile back?
           | 
           | https://jenson.org/tesla/
        
       | Animats wrote:
       | It's a terrible steering wheel, but has possibilities as a game
       | controller.
        
         | lupusreal wrote:
         | Seems at least superficially similar to F1 steering wheels.
        
       | partiallypro wrote:
       | Really wish Oldsmobile were still around
        
       | PlunderBunny wrote:
       | I'm no car guy at all, but even I can see the faults with the
       | doors (driver gets wet when the passenger jumps in while it's
       | raining), and with the steering wheel (imagine trying to do a
       | hand-over hand turn without accidentally pressing one of the
       | buttons!)
       | 
       | More car makers are better, and engineers should be allowed to
       | have a bit of fun, but concept cars are almost laughable
       | sometimes in their basic flaws.
        
         | hot_gril wrote:
         | Maybe they wanted to "solve" the hand-over-hand turning problem
         | with insanely quick-ratio steering
        
           | PlunderBunny wrote:
           | True. I can understand the argument that a 'better' steering
           | system would remove the need for hand-over-hand turning, but
           | I have a hard time believing that people can adapt to a
           | turning system that doesn't react in a liner proportion to
           | the distance the 'wheel' moves.
           | 
           | As a kid I played computer racing games that had proper
           | 'proportional' turning of the steering wheel, but only if you
           | used an analogue joystick. I used the keyboard, and suffered
           | accordingly.
        
             | hot_gril wrote:
             | Yeah, it would be awful. A normal quick ratio steering
             | setup will still turn around once. If turning the yoke 90@
             | meant turning the wheels fully, it'd be really hard just to
             | stay in your lane. Was already annoying enough in my ex cop
             | car.
        
       | excalibur wrote:
       | I miss my quad 4. Those things were a blast to drive.
       | 
       | I like how the flip-top cockpit in this concept compliments the
       | fancy joysticks and display to give the impression you're driving
       | a luxury fighter jet.
        
       | aleksiy123 wrote:
       | If you like this sort of stuff this BERTONE video always inspires
       | me.
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynDCCXNg0Cc
       | 
       | Wonder if there are any css/ui kits for this sort of analog retro
       | style?
        
         | JKCalhoun wrote:
         | Bertone definitely had a "look". Cyber Truck looks now like an
         | extension (almost parody?) of the Bertone design.
        
         | ds_opseeker wrote:
         | Bertone seems to still be offering cars https://bertone.it/
         | 
         | price point is a little higher than the cybertruck, but hey,
         | probably worth it.
        
       | gumby wrote:
       | Example of bad UX: controls where your hands already are is great
       | (curse you, idiotic touchscreens) but gear controls for an
       | automatic transmission aren't used while in motion, so put them
       | elsewhere.
       | 
       | Forgivable, as it's a concept car, so just give people an idea.
        
         | frankus wrote:
         | The other issue is that once you're turning the wheel more than
         | about 90 degrees your hands are no longer on the controls and
         | at 180 degrees the sides are swapped (and upside down) so it
         | can be disorienting.
        
           | gumby wrote:
           | Good point!
           | 
           | Though perhaps you shouldn't be manipulating anything and
           | instead concentrating on navigation while the car isn't
           | moving straight? Hmm, perhaps those controls should be
           | disabled when the wheel is (say) 15% from straight?
        
       | spzb wrote:
       | But are they in early this year?
        
       | Cockbrand wrote:
       | Whoa, with this amount of 7 segment LED displays, it's a total
       | mid-80s car UI dream! It definitely has its major flaws, but
       | that's also common for mid-80s digital car UIs.
       | 
       | The exterior looks like the love child of 70s wedge design and
       | 90s rounded corners.
        
       | rmason wrote:
       | Oldsmobile has some really terrific engineers. I know because I
       | attended schools in the Lansing area with their kids. What killed
       | the brand was a series of general managers in the late nineties
       | and early two thousands. Until then Oldsmobile outsold Pontiac
       | and Buick.
        
         | stonethrowaway wrote:
         | What about the managers killed the brand?
        
           | Tanoc wrote:
           | Oldsmobile at the time (around 1990) had a reputation for
           | being the car of the not-quite-well-to-do middle aged. Cars
           | that were positioned upmarket like the Delta 98 and Cutlass
           | Ciera were very cheaply and poorly built despite having
           | standard features that were high end options on a Chevrolet
           | or Pontiac or were exclusive to Oldsmobile and Buick.
           | Oldsmobile was one of the brands that decided not to
           | participate in the 3.6L 60deg V6 development program headed
           | by Buick (that ultimately became the legendary Buick 3800
           | Series II), as Oldsmobile had been in an internal rivalry
           | with Buick since the early 1970s and were instead championing
           | their 2.3L inline four "Quad 4" which they showcased in the
           | 1987 Aerotech concept that set a world speed record. While
           | Buick, Chevrolet, Pontiac, Cadillac, Opel/Vauxhall, and
           | Holden all switched over to the Buick V6 as the default
           | Oldsmobile stubbornly stuck it out with the Quad 4 and racked
           | up a ton of development costs, eventually convincing GM upper
           | management to put the Quad 4 in the volume selling Chevrolet
           | Beretta and Cavalier and the Pontiac Grand Am to let
           | economies of scale reduce the costs. Oldsmobile, faced with
           | an aging customer base and an engine that was costing them
           | money, decided to break from GM's internal structures in 1990
           | and develop a flagship car that would knock down Buick from
           | the second highest slot in GM's prestige hierarchy and allow
           | them to ditch their entire lineup for something new. This
           | first car would ultimately be the 1995 Oldsmobile Aurora,
           | based on a concept from 1989 called the Tube Car, and which
           | was the head project in development for the GM "G" platform.
           | A platform which GM dictated that Buick also use for the
           | upcoming eighth generation Buick Riviera, Buick's rival
           | flagship car, in order to reduce costs. But Oldsmobile made a
           | mistake in dictating that the Aurora have another unique
           | engine, the 4.0L L47 V8. While it was based on the Cadillac
           | Northstar V8 family, Oldsmobile modified it extensively --
           | fatally. The Northstar V8 in it's first few years was already
           | fragile, and the L47 made those issues worse, damaging the
           | reputation of the Aurora because of reliability issues. By
           | 1993 Oldsmobile was in full swing towards the reorientation
           | however and was already focusing on their second car, the
           | Oldsmobile Intrigue. The Intrigue was meant to reduce
           | redundancy in the lineup by being the only mid-size car in
           | Oldsmobile's stable, replacing three different cars.
           | Oldsmobile's plans for yet another unique engineering project
           | were interrupted however as it was mandated that the Intrigue
           | use the same in-development second generation "W" platform as
           | the Pontiac Grand Prix. Pontiac engineering essentially
           | dictated the design of every W-body car of that generation,
           | leaving Oldsmobile with little to do outside of styling. Thus
           | Oldsmobile turned to the Alero. The Alero was meant to be the
           | volume seller, designed to compete in benchmarks with the BMW
           | 3-series and and Lexus ES. By this time (1995) GM had begun
           | heavily questioning the existence of Oldsmobile and heavily
           | limited their autonomy on the development of the Alero. In a
           | repeat of what happened with the Intrigue, ultimately by late
           | 1995 Pontiac had taken the lead for the engineering of the
           | second generation "N" platform vehicles, and the Alero (along
           | with the Malibu and the quite literally rebadged Malibu sold
           | as the Cutlass) ended up as a mechanical clone of the Grand
           | Am, to the point where most parts are interchangeable. It was
           | a foggy mirror of 1982 and the mistakes Roger Smith made of
           | repeated and rampant badge engineering. Oldsmobile spent the
           | period from 1998 to 2000 marketing the Intrigue and Alero
           | heavily, including the Intrigue Saturday Night Cruiser
           | showcar, Alero OSV concept, The Alero California showcar
           | based on the designs of then-current racing touring cars, and
           | the Profile concept that was supposed to be a preview of the
           | upcoming updates to Oldsmobile's design language. Ultimately
           | this failed, and by December of 2000 GM had become fed up
           | with eating the losses of Oldsmobile's engineering pet
           | projects and announced they were shuttering the brand come
           | March 1st of 2004.
           | 
           | I apologize that this is so long. There was so much internal
           | dysfunction in GM between 1975 to 2008 and it affects
           | everything so much that being concise is almost impossible
           | even when talking about a single thing over a short period.
        
             | datavirtue wrote:
             | I have often heavily questioned GMs sanity. Building their
             | clunky cars and thinking they are competing with Lexus and
             | BMW. I remember a Bonneville ad from the 1990s where they
             | were comparing it to a BMW. It would have been funny if I
             | wasn't so blindsided by their astonishing level of
             | disconnect.
        
             | rpcope1 wrote:
             | Are you sure you're not confusing the 60* V6 family that
             | was around in GM vehicles in the 80s (the 2.8, 3.1, and 3.4
             | and their predecessor engines) with the Buick 90* V6 (of
             | which the 3800 was a part of and dated back to way before I
             | was born). Otherwise that's pretty fascinating...GM
             | vehicles are always so strange in so far as that the "lower
             | end" marques and lower trim vehicles always seemed to be
             | better designed, more durable and way more reliable. It's
             | hard to believe that Olds didn't just use an SBC derivative
             | like the LT1 for the Aurora given how much better those
             | engines were (and everyone knew it) than the Northstar,
             | which was basically a flaming expensive pile of shit from
             | day 1.
        
         | rpcope1 wrote:
         | This is basically the story of GM for the last 40-50 years as a
         | whole. The engineers will do or propose something brilliant and
         | really great, and then management repeatedly snatches defeat
         | from the jaws of victory. Saturn was another extremely good
         | example of GM building something excellent and then their
         | management just completely drove it off a cliff. The S-series
         | was a really great design when it came out, and was honestly
         | far better than it's internal competitors (like the Cavalier)
         | and was competitive with small Japanese cars; the space frame,
         | plastic panels, lost foam casting for the block, etc were
         | really good engineering, and the car and brand had a deserved
         | cult following. GM didn't like the fact it made the Cavalier
         | look like shit and so naturally it was allowed to wither on the
         | wine and then basically everything else after was just more
         | badge engineered Chevy and Pontiac vehicles. GM's entire
         | management should have been totally shitcanned at multiple
         | points during and after the early 90s for the absolutely
         | abhorrent job they did.
        
       | ofalkaed wrote:
       | Back in the 80s one of my father's summer past times was test
       | driving cars. Once a week or so he would stick me on his lap in
       | our Dodge Horizon and have me work the wheel while he took care
       | of the pedals and gear shift with a Camel in one hand and a
       | bottle of beer (generic) in the other, Uriah Heap or Deep Purple
       | on the 8-track since for what ever reason those were the only
       | cartridges that 8-track would not eat. Remember taking a car with
       | a setup much like the Inca's for a test drive (I was never on his
       | lap for the test drive but the Camel and beer (generic) were
       | often still with him), no idea what model it was just remember
       | that it had a yoke loaded with controls instead of a wheel and a
       | dash filled with LCDs. Unexpected bit of nostalgia.
        
         | linksnapzz wrote:
         | I don't think NHTSA ever approved a yoke steering setup for a
         | production car in the US; but a late-80's Pontiac Bonneville or
         | Mitsubishi Galant would have steering wheels chock full of
         | control buttons, and a dash covered in LEDs like the cockpit of
         | a Gundam.
        
           | ofalkaed wrote:
           | Very possible I am misremembering but it could have been a
           | used car modified by the previous owner or a conversion by
           | the dealer; one of the dealers we occasionally visited
           | customized everything they sold, mostly did conversion vans
           | and hotrods but had all kinds of fun stuff.
        
           | kube-system wrote:
           | It may be likely that the wheel in the parent story wasn't
           | factory equipment.
           | 
           | But, the NHTSA doesn't approve designs before they hit the
           | market. For example:
           | 
           | https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-yoke-steering-wheel-nhtsa-
           | st...
        
       | IIAOPSW wrote:
       | Great taste but bad execution. It makes a ton of sense IMO to put
       | all the controls on the steering wheel so that the driver never
       | has to take their hand off of it to do something. Physical
       | buttons like this are also great UI for critical controls (unlike
       | touch screen). My only gripe is the layout they went with. Its
       | very disorganized.
       | 
       | For things which are symmetrical within the car (door
       | lock/unlock, windows up/down, turn signal) they should be
       | symmetrical on the wheel as well. Critical elements to driving
       | like the windshield wipers, defrosters, horn and turn signals
       | should all be extremely self evident at a glance whereas amenity
       | controls like radio and AC should be off to the side.
        
         | Propelloni wrote:
         | True, controls should be in range without taking the hands of
         | the wheel, but putting buttons onto the steering wheel is only
         | the second best option. I think a better choice are
         | "satellites", as used by Renault or Nissan, behind the steering
         | wheel and below the turn indicator and so on. Those are always
         | at the same position, regardless of the steering wheel's
         | rotation, and I can find and operate them without looking and
         | without taking the hands of the steering wheel. I guess there
         | are some issues with those, too, because they haven't been
         | generally adopted.
        
       | jccc wrote:
       | This headline would be much less effective if it told you the
       | truth, that the car never existed:
       | 
       | "Unfortunately for us, Oldsmobile never went ahead and produced
       | the Incas. They made a slew of other wild concept cars as well,
       | but none of those saw the light of day either [...]"
        
         | ofalkaed wrote:
         | How does "that you've never seen" not convey that sentiment?
         | Sure it is hyperbole but that hyperbole seems well founded
         | since the only people who have likely seen it are those which
         | followed concept cars of the 80s or stumbled onto an article
         | like this one.
        
           | hot_gril wrote:
           | I thought it was a very rare car, meaning most people have
           | never seen it.
        
         | ranger_danger wrote:
         | It's a car blog, so I think most of their readers already know
         | there was never any such Olds model as "Incas", so it must be a
         | very rare prototype.
        
           | jccc wrote:
           | HN is not a car blog.
           | 
           | The point of clickbait is that the link will get reposted to
           | all kinds of places online, with a headline that
           | intentionally misrepresents the article to those readers and
           | fools them into clicking.
           | 
           | (Original headline was "The 1986 Oldsmobile Incas Had The
           | Wildest Dashboard You've Never Seen.")
        
         | jccc wrote:
         | (Original headline was "The 1986 Oldsmobile Incas Had The
         | Wildest Dashboard You've Never Seen.")
        
         | datavirtue wrote:
         | They produced most of it. Looks like a Corvette.
        
         | kube-system wrote:
         | The car absolutely did exist, just not in great numbers. The
         | article even has photographic proof of its existence.
         | 
         | Concept vehicles like this are typically built one-off and
         | showcased at manufacturer auto shows. Some of them later go
         | into mass production, and some of them don't.
        
           | jccc wrote:
           | That would be an excellent point for a headline that says,
           | "This Never-Sold Concept Car Had The Wildest Dashboard You've
           | Never Seen."
           | 
           | Obviously, such a truthful headline would get much fewer
           | clicks.
           | 
           | The actual headline intentionally wants us to think they're
           | going to show us the "Wildest" Knight Rider car that people
           | were driving in the 80s. (Maybe they were rare, maybe you
           | were too young to have seen them, but we have pics! Click
           | here!)
        
             | kube-system wrote:
             | Nothing about the headline stated or even implied it was a
             | production vehicle. It literally does say, "You've Never
             | Seen" it.
             | 
             | I immediately presumed it was a concept car from the
             | headline. If you presumed otherwise, that just might be
             | your unfamiliarity with the subject matter.
        
               | jccc wrote:
               | _Of course_ a clickbait headline does not literally lie.
               | 
               | A clickbait headline elides, omits key information
               | strategically, deliberately creating a far juicier story
               | in the minds of readers than is justified by the actual
               | post-click article.
               | 
               | Key information like the fact that no one ever bought and
               | drove this car on the road.
               | 
               | I don't think a headline gets immunity from being called
               | clickbait if it successfully dupes only those people
               | insufficiently familiar with its particular subject
               | matter.
               | 
               | Clickbait gets under the noses of such people by design.
        
       | johnea wrote:
       | Ah yes, back when the future was still bright.
       | 
       | But now we have so many shades of corp grey.
       | 
       | So we've got that going for us...
        
       | jccalhoun wrote:
       | The steering reminds me of Mercury's "wrist twist" steering
       | concept from the 60s
       | https://youtu.be/PWWYkxQCFfQ?si=i_Gh4gtXjJv5Pn51&t=52
        
         | MadnessASAP wrote:
         | That's looks pretty neat. Right up until power steering fails,
         | then it becomes kind of a problem.
        
       | ryandrake wrote:
       | Honestly wish there was more experimentation in automotive human-
       | UX besides the current "Just put it all in touchscreen LOL"
       | design rut we're in. A car today functions almost entirely like
       | every car that's existed since the 1950s: Big, transparent window
       | in front, a handful of "critical" gauges and displays underneath
       | that window, a steering wheel that hasn't changed in a century
       | (besides the addition of buttons), accessory
       | devices/entertainment in a center stack on a central console, a
       | glove box or some other storage in the passenger side. Any time a
       | manufacturer deviates from the norm, even slightly, the result
       | gets derided as weird and ugly, and we revert back to the 1950s.
       | Have we really settled on objectively optimal controls?
        
         | pyrale wrote:
         | > Have we really settled on objectively optimal controls?
         | 
         | The cost of retraining the whole user base in a dangerous
         | environment will likely dwarf any small gain from making
         | "better" controls.
         | 
         | As a case in point, the car in the article is so alien to what
         | I'm currently using that I wouldn't feel comfortable driving
         | it, knowing that it challenges significant parts of my driving
         | routine which are not conscious.
        
       | kcplate wrote:
       | There was an Isuzu vehicle in the late 80s early 90s (Impulse?)
       | that had a similar button pad design within finger reach off the
       | steering wheel.
        
       | UniverseHacker wrote:
       | The Subaru XT Turbo was a nearly as weird futuristic car that
       | they actually made. I had one and it was fun... a great little
       | sports car with a futuristic design, that with the touch of a
       | button lifted high in the air and was also great offroad- with
       | real center diff lock 4WD.
        
         | rodgerd wrote:
         | Similarly, the Citroen GSA actually existed:
         | https://www.autoevolution.com/cars/citroen-gsa-1979.html#aga...
        
       | ein0p wrote:
       | US auto manufacturers could coast for 50 years on reissuing the
       | classics upgraded for fuel efficiency and crash safety. Instead
       | we get soulless, gaudy, plastic bullshit that falls apart the
       | moment the warranty expires.
        
       | mmh0000 wrote:
       | One of my first cars was a 1986 Oldsmobile Riviera
       | 
       | The Riviera was one of my favorite cars, had a touch screen to
       | control most things in the car. Basically the Tesla of 1986.
       | 
       | https://www.carscoops.com/2021/10/the-buick-riviera-had-a-to...
        
         | Jeema101 wrote:
         | For a while I kinda wanted to buy a used Buick Reatta as a
         | project car because it had the same CRT touchscreen technology.
         | It's extremely cool if you're into the 80s retro futuristic
         | vibe.
        
       | 486sx33 wrote:
       | Steering wheel is wild But those kind of dashboard gauges did
       | make it to production. 80s digital dashes from GM were actually
       | super cool. They have a few failure points but there are still
       | some guys restoring them . I retrofitted the S10 model into an
       | S10 blazer in high school and owned a factor Camaro with one. The
       | S10 one was like driving a space ship at the time. Here's some
       | cool examples
       | 
       | https://drivemag.com/red-calipers/the-definitive-collection-...
        
         | rob74 wrote:
         | I'm not even sure I would call that a steering wheel, it's more
         | of a yoke (like the ones used in planes). It was kind of ahead
         | of its time, because more and more controls have moved to the
         | steering wheel in recent decades, but if this appeared in a
         | real car I would be afraid of accidentally pressing a button
         | when I just want to turn the wheel. Also, I'm not a pilot but I
         | think an airplane yoke is optimized for small but precise
         | inputs, if you have to turn it around 180deg or even 90deg
         | (like you often have to do with a steering wheel) you are
         | probably doing something wrong - that's why having "handles"
         | just in the places where your hands normally are makes sense
         | for a plane, but not as much for a car.
        
           | sandworm101 wrote:
           | >> airplane yoke is optimized for small but precise inputs
           | 
           | It's the opposite. Full left-right deflection on an airplane
           | yoke is about 1/4 of a rotation, a movement measured in
           | inches. Full deflection of car steering wheel is multiple
           | rotations, a movement measured in feet. Car steering requires
           | much more precision than aircraft. The yoke is optimized for
           | rapid full-deflection with minimal control input. Fine
           | control is accomplished through trim systems, which are
           | effectively parallel input methods.
        
             | WarOnPrivacy wrote:
             | > Car steering requires much more precision than aircraft.
             | 
             | This seems counterintuitive to me. I associate more
             | movement (of the controller) with less precision.
        
               | foobarian wrote:
               | I think maybe OP meant that the airplane yoke is normally
               | moved by very small amounts, unlike a car wheel which is
               | normally turned even full rotations e.g. when making a
               | tight turn.
        
               | sandworm101 wrote:
               | >> I associate more movement (of the controller) with
               | less precision.
               | 
               | Think of a microscope. You have a course adjustment that
               | moves the focus quickly, then a fine control that moves
               | it more slowly. The former is less precise than the
               | latter.
        
         | Tanoc wrote:
         | The 1990 to 1993 Pontiac Grand Prix in SE and GTP trim has a
         | steering wheel I love, because it and the steering column are
         | adorned with buttons you can press without moving your hands.
         | On either side of the gauges are even more buttons, making it
         | look like some sort of arcade flight sim cockpit. The final
         | generation Mazda Cosmo also did it, but in a more elegant way
         | where the only giveaway that they were buttons and not trim
         | pieces was the non colour matched black plastic of the bumper
         | controls for the cruise functions on the right side of the
         | wheel.
        
         | bluedino wrote:
         | Looking back on some of those after not seeing them for 20
         | years is refreshing. Some of those are so bad, but a few of
         | them are pretty cool. The 727/Space Shuttle styled, green
         | cathode touchscreens are amazing though!
        
       | burntwater wrote:
       | _" The dash display is almost completely digital--strangely, they
       | left an extra analog speedometer and tachometer"_
       | 
       | This is common even today, even on 100% digital screen
       | dashboards, they'll have fake analog speedometer and tachometer
       | displays. My 2023 Mazda CX5 is 50/50, half the dashboard is
       | analog and half is digital. And I like it that way.
        
         | dwighttk wrote:
         | I'm never a fan of digital speedometers. I still have to think
         | about how far a number is from my target. I'm sure if I used
         | them long enough instead of only seeing them in rentals I'd get
         | used to it.
         | 
         | I do like a digital cruise set speed.
        
           | sagischwarz wrote:
           | One of the first things I learned during my electronics
           | apprenticeship was that changes in a value are much more
           | intuitive to read with an analog pointer (or a digital
           | replication of one).
        
       | phs318u wrote:
       | I love this!!!
       | 
       | As a non-American, let me say never has a brand name been so out
       | of sync with a car design. That thing is anything but an
       | "Old"-smobile.
       | 
       | Looking at it I also thought how cool it would be if the dash
       | were entirely modular a-la Framework laptops. "Standard"
       | electrical, electronic and mechanical interfaces to which modders
       | could fit all sorts of weird and wonderful interfaces. And I mean
       | the whole physical dash as well. I know it'll never happen, but
       | somewhere in a parallel universe...
        
         | rascul wrote:
         | > As a non-American, let me say never has a brand name been so
         | out of sync with a car design. That thing is anything but an
         | "Old"-smobile.
         | 
         | It was named after the founder, Ransom Olds. I get it, though.
        
         | neilv wrote:
         | > _That thing is anything but an "Old"-smobile._
         | 
         | At one point, they had an advertising line, "This is not your
         | father's Oldsmobile".
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNewkCV7-pc
        
         | bluedino wrote:
         | From 1975-1985, they were selling 500,000 Oldsmobile Cutlasses
         | per year. Insane.
        
       | deafpolygon wrote:
       | When I see this, it always fascinates me how cars are one of the
       | things that remain consistently boring -- there's so much room
       | for different enhancements, styles of steering wheel, and so on ;
       | and yet the most we've been able to do is stuff a computer in the
       | dash (yes, I understand autonomous cars are a thing too, but I'm
       | focusing on cars we drive).
        
       | nickdothutton wrote:
       | Somehow still looks like the future.
        
       | thomasfl wrote:
       | No distracting touchscreen. Only controls you learn with muscle
       | memory after a few days. Brilliant.
        
       | TomMasz wrote:
       | If you remember the average age of Oldsmobile customers (and
       | remember Oldsmobile) you know this would never have sold well,
       | even if they had switched to a more conventional interior. This
       | is something Pontiac might have tried, though.
        
       | Lammy wrote:
       | It makes me want to play RoadBlasters (this is the highest of
       | praise)
        
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