So, at this moment, our own Mark Tucker, the man who cranks out Shitbox Showdown for your car-deciding pleasure every day, is in Tahiti. He may be on vacation? Or buying a crapload of adrenochrome from his adrenochrome guy? I’m not really sure, I wasn’t paying attention. What I do know is a bit of information that actually matters, and that bit of information is that he is driving a Peugeot 208. This is important because of a picture he sent us of the 208’s instrument cluster.
It’s a pretty normal-looking cluster, with an analog speedometer and tachometer flanking some non-dot-matrix digital gauges in the middle. That’s not the interesting part.
The interesting part is the way the needles on those two analog gauges move. Here, look at the picture he sent us:
Just to clarify, this is how the needles would move on this instrument cluster:
See that? The needles are counter-rotating, as opposed to moving in the same direction, like on most instrument clusters, say, like this 1980 Honda Accord, which has a remarkably clear and straightforward cluster:
So, when Mark showed this to us in Slack, it sparked a lot more visceral and intense reactions than I would have expected. I sort of think the motion might be cool, or interesting to watch; David, conversely, felt it was a nightmare, an abhorrent betrayal of everything positive and good.
Let’s just simulate the motion really quickly here. Here’s conventional, same-direction gauges:
Vroom, vroom! The tach and speedo needles are in synch, doing a little dance of engine and ground speed. Now, let’s see some counter-rotating needles:
This one is actually different than the Peugeot, with both needles going from inside-out as opposed to outside-in. Crap, do I have to make that gif now, too? Ugh, fiiiine:
So, I think these counter-rotating ones are fun to watch, or at least I don’t find them as morally repugnant as David does. Now, I can see an advantage to needles that move in the same direction being perhaps easier to watch and process at speed? But, despite my crude animations, the tach and speedo are not going to always be in sync or at the same pace, so how much does that actually matter? For the tach, you just need to be clear when you’re nearing the redline, really, and there are very likely some obvious audio cues that go with that.
I mean, some people must think these gauges are cool; after all, Aston Martin used them extensively in the early 2000s:
I’m sort of at a loss here: are these cool? Or is the more expected, synchronized approach just right? That’s why I’m coming to you, Autopians, the only people on this moist, gooey planet who have opinions that actually matter. So let’s take a poll!
Okay! Tell us what you think! And then maybe argue about it in the comments, because that’s fun. Try some ad hominem attacks! They’re a great time!
Less concerned about the direction and more about the design; but that said, all of the contra-rotating designs demonstrated are terrible – even that Aston Martin one qualifies as merely “not pretty” at best.
The direction of rotation of the gauge I’m ambivalent too. In a longitudinal engine installation I’d like the rev counter rotate in the same direction as the engine, but I’m not going to check. The speedo I normally only read to check it’s static position to see if/how illegal it is. In cars with a digital speedo I never look at the analog speedo (unless it’s a Porsche and then only to marvel at how wildly unhelpful the numbers are).
However, Peugeots are an abomination. I was brought up in the Church of Citroen.
There’s also the TVR S2 which has gauges that hang “upside down” so the sweep starts top right and goes around to top left: https://www.tradeclassics.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/1989-tvr-280s-green-interior-thumb-2.jpg
I really was asleep, damn it.
That typed, I think a clockwise speedometer and counterclockwise tach (or vice versa) work best on opposing arcs – the speedometer in the top half of a large round gauge and the tach on the bottom, or side-by-side in some wave formation. You’d get used to it, eventually.
This assumes an analog display, of course. The ideal setup is digital and numeric, using Arabic numerals for speed and Roman numerals for revs.
The solution is to go with the spirit level look speedo like in old Citroens.
They might look cool in a modern car when the gauges do their little ‘dance’ when you power up the car, but otherwise the rest of the time ABOMINATION!
Although my opinion may be questionable based on the psychological damage inflicted by the weird vacuum fluorescent bar graph style gauges that replaced the regular ancillary gauges in the Nissan Bluebird TRX I used to drive, or the tank-mounted LCD bar graph style fuel gauge on my Kawasaki GPZ750-A3.
I also have a huge collection of various VDO, Smiths and Stewart Warner gauges of all types for my project cars, and have yet to reconcile the issue of full-sweep mechanical vs. short sweep electrical, dual read gauges that split the face with two gauges side by side or one above, one below so the needles must sweep in opposite directions, plus all the variations of short sweep electrical gauges with the needle pivot low with the scale across the top, at the top with the scale at the bottom, or on the left with the scale on the right. Not to mention the oddities like hourmeters with an electrically driven mechanical odometer stye readout, or an oil level checker which looks like a gauge with a cigarette lighter knob in the middle, that when pulled out uses a calibrated spring and a hose down the dipstick hole to the correct oil level to reveal either a green or red collar around the base of the knob to show if your oil level is too low.
On a trip home to the UK maybe 30 or so years ago, as usual I rented a car from my uncle’s lease fleet, as usual a MkII Ford Fiesta. What was not usual was that the fuel tank was full, as his mechanics used to routinely siphon off the fuel from all returned leases.
I drove the 60 or so miles over to my brother’s place and, before the crack of dawn the next morning in the freezing cold (this was early January) we set off to East Anglia, he and his family in their car, me following in mine. On a completely empty stretch of motorway, the Fiesta died and my brother, attentive as ever, disappeared off into the distance. From previous experience I was pretty sure I was out of petrol, meaning that the fuel gauge in the almost brand-new Fiesta was broken.
After a passing police car called assistance for me, who put in enough fuel to get me to a service station, I filled ‘er up.
Imagine my surprise that the fuel gauge was now pointing to empty! Except, on closer examination, it wasn’t. It was an anti-clockwise gauge and I hadn’t noticed the positions of F and E and, being somewhat colourblind, hadn’t noticed the red warning stripe either.
Is that a trick question?
I would guess in most countries this is regulated. A gauge that reads backwards is a safety issue – the point is predictability. It should be quickly understood at a glance, and without having to stare at the units or process the unexpected direction of movement.
So not merely an abomination unto Nuggin (IYKYK), it is a literal safety problem.
*Nuggan.
Never had counter rotating before so that’d be fun for a try.
The real abomination is the removal of voltage and oil pressure. Or an idiot light instead of showing all for TMPS readings. I WANT MOAR GAUGES!
If I were to just be looking at them as a general indicator, I like the flow, but once the scales are included and I’m looking for a specific number, it’s an abomination.
They work, but only when the speedometer goes clockwise, the other way around is wrong.
According to Top Gear logic, Aston Martin did it, therefore it is cool.
I’m inclined to not like this but willing to reserve final judgment until I get some seat time in a car with them.
For the reason that clockwise movement indicates an increase in values/measurement I have to say I don’t like it.
I’m sure I’d get used to it but why try to make everyone accept that up is down?
I don’t have an angry reaction but it does bug me. That is some sort of nitpicky, OCD, designer shit.
I find myself thinking that a counter-clockwise tachometer would be okay, especially if the red area was very clear to see in my peripheral vision, but a counter-clockwise speedometer seems awful to me.
I felt the exact same looking at them.
To clarify: it’s a manual. The guy in front of us at the rental counter got all panicky because the agent tried to give him a manual, and “I SPECIFICALLY reserved an AUTOMATIC.” So when she asked me if I was okay with a manual, with him still in earshot, I replied with a loud, cheery “Yep!”
And it is gas. 1.2 liters of thrashy three-cylinder fury.
Turbo? How do you find the small steering wheel/driving position? Background: Had some Peugeots as rentals, the naturally more upright vans and crossovers are almost ok, lower 208/308 not. Hard so see the dials, unless the steering wheel is too low.
And the opposite movement is an abomination. If you can see it.
ND/Crackpipe…these are so horrible and should be outlawed…they don’t make any sense at all
In Australia, all the gauges turn backwards.
Jason left out the joke that led me to take the picture in the first place, that the tach goes the other way due to the coriolis effect.
Reminds me of the rotor and engine rpm gauges in some helicopters.
That said, the helicopters use the inside-out version, not the outside-in.
Inside-out could be easier to read at a glance as the needles are relatively close to each other (in ‘normal’ operation).
Outside-in is harder to read, unless one has the ability to look un-cross-eyed.
Maybe it’s just more inclusive. Semitic languages like Arabic and Hebrew are read right to left. Maybe ‘normal’ gauges look wrong to people who grew up as natives to those languages?
Nah, to account for that, all that would be needed would be for both needles to go backwards would be just both needles going counterclockwise. But they will still be going in the same direction.
Clocks go clockwise because that’s the way the Sun’s shadow goes on a sundial.
Instruments and gauges go clockwise because one – force of habit, and two – historically most instruments with dials were built by watchmakers / precision instruments makers.
Dials counter-rotating is needles going in opposite directions, which is simply counterintuitive, distracting, uninformative and ugly.
No inclusivity & writing systems here. Just plain tradition rooted in logic.
Unless said sundial is in the southern hemisphere