The automotive kingdom has a history of confounding gauges. Pontiac had a g-meter that would only display a reading after you’ve stopped, Mercury had a lying oil pressure gauge, and low-spec old Toyotas have dials with no needles or units. However, Mini took things to a new extreme with the Openometer, a combination analog and digital gauge found exclusively on R57 Mini cabriolets.
In the latter half of the aughts, manufacturers went all-in on gimmick features. Ford played around with accent lighting, Dodge gave some of its cars a DUI compartment, and Mini cooked up a way to encourage owners of the R57 Mini cabriolet to keep the top open as much as possible. Officially called either the Openometer or the Always Open meter, this giant optional gauge displayed how much time the cabriolet top was down, up to a maximum of six hours and 59 minutes. In addition to the cycling analog gauge, time gets added to a running timer on the tachometer’s digital display that displays top-down time for the life of the car and an expanded top-down trip meter, both of which can be seen in the video below.
The giant part of the Always Open meter uses a single minute hand a six little LEDs to keep track of the hours. Drop the top, and a signal sent to the module controlling the gauge would start the timer. Once the minute hand swung through its first rotation, the first LED would light up, and so on. It was a strange thing to have bolted to your steering column, but such was the vibe back then. Hell, Volkswagen had a flower holder in its New Beetle.
On the one hand, I’ve always thought that the space reserved for the Openometer could’ve been used for more useful gauges, given how stingy Mini was at the time. For instance, an oil temperature gauge, or really any temperature gauge would’ve been quite nice. Alternatively, Cooper S owners might’ve wanted a giant boost gauge where the Openometer sits to monitor how far they’re dipping into the sweet treat of forced induction. Hey, the soup can-sized boost gauge in the Fiat 500 Abarth was glorious, why not have one in a Mini?
On the other hand, I can’t fault the Openometer’s sense of fun. A cabriolet is made for top-down motoring, so if you own one, you should be going top-down whenever feasible. People who drive cabriolets with the tops up on nice days deserve to be shamed for their aversion to fun. I’m not saying stone them to death, but an afternoon in the internet forum stockades ought to do some good. The Openometer is a way for enthusiastic cabriolet owners to lord over others about how much fun they’re having.
While the Openometer was largely a flash in the pan, I wish more automakers would introduce ways to brag. Why doesn’t Jeep have a separate odometer for distance traveled with the diffs locked? Why doesn’t Honda have a running clock of time spent in VTEC? Whether you buy a cabriolet or an off-roader or a sport compact car, you should make it a priority to use it as it’s intended. I’m sure some argument about safety and regulations might attempt to get in the way, but that hasn’t stopped BMW from fitting the new M3 and M4 with an M Drift Analyzer. In short, give me all the metrics, no matter how bullshit. From wheel articulation to time spent with the top down, metrics can help gamify driving. They’re cases of using technology to make driving more fun, something I reckon we can all appreciate.
(Photo credits: Mini, eBay)
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My favorite odd measure is the Porsche over-rev, or “money shift” meter. Too bad it doesn’t have any sort of display and you need a scan tool to read it.
(It tells how many times the engine has fired while close to or over the redline.)
Contrary to your implication, drinking a cold one in the car is not inherently a DUI. In, fact it’s not even illegal in Mississippi.
Also, my Hyundai Elantra GT has a vent in the glove compartment for the same purpose of keeping drinks cold, although nothing to secure them. It’s typically used for soda, but occasionally has been nice to keep a beer cold on a hot day for when I’ve arrived at my destination. Just don’t forget to close the vent in the winter and leave chocolates in there.
My 2013 MINI has the glove box vent as well.
I believe I had that:
“Happy Walters
2 months ago
“Most people are unattractive and, quite correctly, afraid to show their faces in public. A few people are VERY attractive, and willing to show off how cool they look while driving. We own Targas and Cabs.”
My favorite near pointless vehicle feedback readout remains the Power/Economy gauge in a high school buddy’s old Pontiac Grandville. It would rest comfortably on “Economy” while idling, but nudge that gas pedal the tiniest bit and WHOMP!, all the way over to “Power” it went.
I remember those! In my country they started using them around the time of a gas shortage,probably the early eighties.
Instead of making economical cars that could compete with imports,we got those useless gauges
I agree whole heartedly!
My son loves all the digital “gauges” in our Outback. There is one for slope/grade. It is comically inaccurate, but it’s fun watching a little avatar wagon tilt back and forth as we drive up and down hills. Our driveway has a very steep part, and we have seen it go up to 17% (though it seems to show a different number each time).
Anyone remember the Tapley Meter ?
Road & Track used to publish the performance of cars in lbs / ton as shown by the Tapley Meter.
Even more obscure: the Tapley/Ferodo Brake Efficiency Indicator. It was a box that mounted on or under the dashboard that showed, via a colored band visible in small windows, “percent brake efficiency” used during a stop.
Of course, if you often watched the meter while stopping, you probably eventually collided with something ahead, so the market for these was quite limited.
It does amaze me how unwilling people seem to be to use their brakes. Often in a sudden highway slow-down I see panic steers towards the shoulder. And these are often in heavy traffic when no one was moving that fast. Steering and braking at the same time is a bad plan -just walk on the brakes!
I can’t stand the BMW Mini design language, it’s awful.
I once wired up the dashboard clock faulty on my VW T4, so it reseted the time to 00:00 every time I started the car, so I got a “hours spent driving in a old 5 speed diesel minibus” meter instead.. 😉
I think you misspelled glorious.
My BRZ has the same thing. It shows Gs in 2 axis along with brake and throttle percentages but the second the car moves a centimeter it switches to a different display.
Yeah, the filling them with petroleum distillates and re-vulcanizing the tires, both post-haste!, can be a drag.
Vehicles that haul or tow a lot of weight should have a kinetic energy gauge. The ability to measure its own mass would have to be incorporated into the suspension system somehow … I feel like it could be done.
First time you stop it calibrates.
Figuring out the mass shouldn’t be to difficult, all you would need is a torque meter, a speedometer, and a clock. Oh, and a way of measuring the grade.
All except the torque meter is standard on any car with a rudimentary nav system.
A friend who built his own cruise control back in 1980 ( you would dial in the speed you wanted and when engaged it would accelerate flat out until it reached that speed. In a Dodge station wagon with a 440 it was quite entertaining. ) built a series of torque meters. The first was just a piece of coat hanger attached to the engine that stuck out of a hole in the hood that showed how far the engine had twisted the motor mounts
I’m sure that there is something cheap an simple now to do the job.
MINI had so many gimmicks. I like that they put some creativity into making the driving experience different but I turned most of them off on my F56. For instance:
The list goes on…
“Damn you, Fishie!” became a running joke on one of the Mini launches. We couldn’t keep Fishie in the bowl.
I come across these fairly frequently at work and they always make me giggle a little. It’s just such a perfect nugget of silliness sitting there on the dash and yeah, a more useful gauge would have been better, but that wasn’t really the mindset of the era. But I’ve also seen the repair prices on Mini tops and yeah, no thanks. Just to *start,* diagnostics on a Mini top are $400ish
Since I don’t have the navigation option in my 19 Miata, if I switch over to what would otherwise be the nav screen, it shows a compass and altimeter.
Four wheel drive Toyotas from the 80’s also had altimeters, along with incline gauges. I remember being completely fascinated with the ones in my father’s 4WD Tercel as a child.
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/N-YAAOSwoLliqPvy/s-l1600.jpg
Yeah, because it won’t go back up 😛
Was this also available on the convertible version of the JAM 808?
I believe there was a rain gauge in the passenger footwell of early JAM 808 drophead coupés, to track how much water had leaked in through the laughably poor window seals. Of course, drain plugs weren’t available until late in the series 2 production, so only a half dozen were ever delivered from the factory with that option.
The asymmetrical canvas top was quite eye-catching and technologically advanced for its time, but water-resistance was somewhat compromised. As a result, the plaid velour covered, recycled cardboard bench seat was lost to mold after the first rainstorm or car wash. There are rumors that an illegally exported example of this rare configuration is preserved under a tarp in an abandoned barn somewhere in western Bulgaria, but it hasn’t been seen for decades. Only the grainy photos taken in the late 80s are known, offering a tantalizing glimpse of the automotive luxury that well-to-do Jasonians enjoyed on those rare sunny days.
While we’re on the topic of goofy gauges, I always liked how the older Ford hybrids like the C Max and the Fusion showed a vine with leaves on it and the more efficiently you drove, the more leaves would grow on the vine. I have no hands on experience with this to know how it actually is but it always seemed neat in concept.
I saw one once, and it struck me as odd, seemingly encouraging people to watch the leaves slowly appear instead the road. Like subtly telling drivers you’re playing a videogame, instead of piloting a large vehicle.
Had a C-Max. If you used lots of brake regen, and stayed off hard starts, you could get a veritable greenhouse. Now, if you stomped on the loud pedal lots, your leaves fell off and the vine withered back
Better than the “You should have worn sunscreen on your baldspot” light that is standard on convertible Corvettes.
Joking…
I always thought these interiors looked cheap and more like a toy than a car. Like a 90’s CRAIG cd/tape/am/fm boombox.
Yup. And after renting a few on Turo…. they drive great, but I just can’t deal with that interior. Reminds me of an early 00’s pop album, clear heels, bubble gum 90s aesthetic. Barf.
I think they are awful, they really look like Little Tikes got to make a car.
Blumenvasen
To go the other way, I’ve always enjoyed how starting in the 20000s, tachometers went from something you’d previously have seen mostly on sport or European luxury cars to a mandatory gauge on every vehicle, even ones never offered with manuals.
I wonder how many everyday drivers (not you people!) actually understand what they’re for?
I distinctly remember my mom complaining about the tach in our 99 Malibu when we bought it new because it’s big and takes up so much space and how she doesn’t even really know what it’s for in the first place.
Had a girlfriend once with a late ’90s Mercury Tracer, the uplevel model (I think it was called the Trio b/c okay). It had this itty bitty but still real tach. In the car one day, I made an offhand comment about how I’d never seen anything like that and her response was “what are you talking about?!”. Conversation ensued, and to her credit, she guessed it had to do with the engine.
there was an interview with Denny Hulme (1967 F1 world champion) years ago where he told the story of one on his first cars was an MG (TF?) and he’d mistakenly thought the tach was the speedometer and so was driving way too fast – and made a career of it. the Bear was an interesting man, friends with, and drove for both Jack Brabham and Bruce McLaren. his leather gloves melted in a fire at 1970 indy 500 and just weeks later drove in a canam race with hands bandaged and couldn’t use his left hand at all so had to take right hand off wheel to shift gears…in a 1000+hp canam car!
It’s slightly annoying that the one on my Honda Fit is exactly where my left hand and steering wheel spoke are while steering through an onramp in VTEC.
Of course there is the problem if a cop saw the time spent in race mode on my Golf R I would never get out of a ticket
It’s a golf, don’t worry too much.
Love the idea of bizarre measures. On my PHEV why can’t it give me elapsed time/mileage since my last visit to a gas station? Or for a suburban SUV models, the “days since this vehicle last left pavement”. Or pickups “months since you last used this for anything other than commuting.”
My Outback counts how long the stop/start system has been engaged (which is depressing as you see just how long you’ve sat at traffic lights for) and how many liters of petrol you’ve save (which is equally depressing as it’s not much at all!)
I’ve always thought cars should have a total R (as in rpm) meter. Low miles and high Rs would mean the car has seen some rally type behavior or lots of idle time. Low Rs and high miles would be the one you would want.
Of course who wants to drive a car that no one has wanted to thrash
You have a point! It would be a good way to tell if this wrx was actually grandma’s car like they said.
And everybody’s sayin’ that there’s nobody meaner than
The little old lady from Pasadena
She drives real fast and she drives real hard
She’s the terror of Colorado boulevard
It’s the little old lady from Pasadena
This is super easy. Every time a plug fires, add one to a register counter. You’d never need more than a 32 bit number. I had this idea 20 years ago when I was designing my own fuel injection system (that I never finished, of course).
My truck tracks both engine hours and idle hours, which I suppose is a decent proxy for this.
Fleet Crown Vics had this too I think, always wanted to see it in action.