The instrument cluster is a critical piece of equipment in every roadgoing vehicle, and a lot of the time you’ll find it full of basic dials or just an uninspired screen. But it doesn’t have to be that way. An instrument cluster and the speedometer within it can be works of mechanical art. What’s the most beautiful speedometer of all time?
The internet was abuzz yesterday with news about the Bugatti Tourbillon and its hilarious 1,775 horsepower. Admittedly, I wasn’t feeling Bugatti fever like everyone else. At first glance, the Tourbillon just seemed like any other Bugatti. That was until I took a look at the interior. The magnificent trim and the weird steering wheel drew me in at first. Then I saw the instrument cluster.
Did Bugatti need to make a cluster that looks like a fine mechanical watch? Of course not, but golly, I cannot stop looking at this thing in the topshot. I want it on my motorcycles and in my Smart Fortwos. This Autopian Asks is also inspired by a similar question being asked over at Opposite-Lock. I highly recommend joining Oppo if you like great car forums!
This question is hard for me to answer. On one hand, I’m a sucker for the digital gauges of the 1980s. There are lots of them out there, but I’ll highlight the cluster from the 1984 Chevrolet Corvette C4 above. A futuristic wedge needs a futuristic cluster to go with it.
But I wouldn’t call that cluster beautiful. Don’t worry, we’ll get to that in a brief moment. Another favorite cluster of mine is the one I installed in my 2012 Smart Fortwo. Yes, ragefaces are so old and out-of-date, but they were still a thing when I made the backing. How fast am I going? Obama!
The answer to most beautiful is a toss-up for me. The first-generation Dodge Charger has quite possibly my favorite instrument cluster of all time. Okay, take a look at these things. They’re sitting in these futuristic, space-age pods:
That’s cool all by itself, but these are electroluminescent gauges, so they have a fantastic pop when they light up I’m not much of a Charger woman, but I’d buy one just for that fantastic interior.
Second to that, I love the look of the instrument clusters and dashboards from pre-World War II cars. Just check out the cluster from a 1939 Packard Twelve:
Alright, enough of what I like. Tell me what are the most beautiful instrument clusters of all time. Do you like ’em digital or old-school analog?
’58 Edsel.
https://stat.overdrive.in/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/20-As-are-its-instruments.jpg
I’m a huge fan of Volvo and Saab displays of the 90s, that clean, sleek Scandinavian design is great at telling you what you need to know when you need to know and not cluttering things up.
Absolutely, very clean designs. Especially love that you could switch to night panel and go dark. Used that all the time going nocal/socal. Really eased the eye strain.
Just noticed I didn’t state that this was a Saab 9-3, one of the best cars I have ever owned.
I am a big fan of the classic 911 five gauge layout, before Porsche made them overlapping.
I do not like the Bugatti Tourbillon gauges. There is actually a move away from skeletonized watch faces in the high-end watches that supposedly inspire this car, because they are considered illegible and a bit tacky.
Also, it is a bit silly to have exposed gears and synthetic ruby bearings in a gauge cluster that is almost certainly fully electronic with no mechanical connection to anything it measures.
If you look closely the Bugatti gauges are not purely analog, and are instead what would be called in the watch world ana-digi.
Mid-century Chryslers. Around ’63 – ’68 or so. “Astrodome?”
Center tach is a must, it’s more fun to watch the RPMs rise and fall than what speed you are going.
My RX-8 doesn’t have a gauge-style speedo, it has a center tach with a numerical display in the lower left that indicates speed (up-to triple digits.) I like to know what my precise speed is.
The 1960 Buick had a mirror. The gauges were in the dash and reflected up and out. You could adjust the mirror for best personal viewing. Shout out to that great steering wheel, one of my alltime faves.
https://barnfinds.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/1960-Buick-dash.jpg
That’s pretty ingenious
Easy, the TAG-designed Lexus IS speedo, followed by the first-gen NSX (and all the Hondas of that era, with their elegant simplicity, and the rev needle that would go one notch lower than the speedo’s needle at rest when the engine is off, and then at the same level as the speedo at rest when idling. Which the Corvette of the same era also did).
And – you can laugh – my last gen pre-Olivier Boulay Mitsubishi Diamante’s cluster (with NOT the white gauges) had it beautiful too.
And the Escort Cosworth’s too.
Actually the more one things of it – any speedo that is not today’s BMW’s.
One of my favorite details to look at at car shows is the dash and in particular the speedometer cluster. There are some gorgeious ones out there. I have hundreds of pictures of them from my visits.
I just realized about a week ago that the cover/hood over the speedometer of at least one year of the original Thunderbird has a clear cover! The speedometer numbers are on a clear material so one sees through the numbers to the background. Cool!
I love the ones with a vintage script and non linear speedometer markings. Wood trim is awesome!
When someone has modern-but-supposedly-vintage-looking instruments, I just walk away.
Citroen CX
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/8b/3f/bd/8b3fbd36b35e3ec642a078a619d12e88.jpg
My favourite dashboard is the Mazda R100, but second favourite is the 1963 Plymouth Valiant dashboard (used on the AP5 and AP6 Valiant models in Australia) where the gauges appear so randomly placed that it looks like the gauges and warning lights were thrown at the dash and fitted where they landed. The crowning touch is the pushbutton shifter that sits beside the dash cluster on automatic AP5 cars.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Chrysler_Valiant_AP5_Regal_%2816049893730%29.jpg
My favorite speedometer was probably used in multiple early 80s Ford products. The numbers stopped at 85MPH because of a law at the time. The hash marks kept going.
I don’t know if it qualifies as aesthetically beautiful, but early 80s Subaru gauges were the first ones that made me think, “Now that’s how gauges should be done.” Two equal-sized, circular main gauges with clear markings and amber backlighting (including the needles).
Remember that during this time, a lot of mainstream cars didn’t even have tachometers, or else they were part of an upgrade package. And then the lighting in most gauges was either a dated green or plain white. Subaru gauges were so modern and functional, that for a few years they made most other mainstream cars’ instruments look dated.
By the time my mother bought a new GL wagon in 1987, Subaru had switched to smaller hemispherical gauges with white backlighting. To me it was both less functional and much less attractive than the gauge cluster that it replaced.
Someone else mentioned 1980s BMW gauges, and while they were indeed extremely functional, they leaned just a bit too far away from aesthetics for my taste. They did have nice, clear markings, but at night the instruments were front-lit with red bulbs. Great for night vision, but it sort of created a wall of red that looked a little oppressive to me.
I’m hella biased, but the three gauge cluster from the VW Type 3 is my favorite.
Seconded, and my ’67 squreback agrees.
I like the MG TF with its octagonal instrumentation.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=mgtf+octagon+speedometer+&t=iphone&iax=images&ia=images&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fs3.amazonaws.com%2Fimages.hagerty.com%2Fvehicle%2Fweb%2F4561_8.jpg
i also like the green tinted gauges on early Porsche 911s and the Speedo & tach on Pagoda SLs and other Mercedes Benz cars of that vintage.
Any speedometer in an older car with colored metal dashboard looks ok.
I’ve always like the Altezza / IS300 dash. Very much in the spirit of chronographs.
https://i.redd.it/v669nzlfvtl51.jpg
wow, that’s significantly different than what it looks like in my 2002 USDM model
That was groundbreaking.
80’s GM with the needle that sweeps across the dashboard for like a mile, only to achieve 85mph. ALL of them as a group.
The Chrysler LHS. Chrome ringed with an elegant font, and the entire face was backlit with the soft green light.
2C3HC56GXXH506151-1626297918137196.jpg (1062×795) (autohelperbot.com)
Full Dash
44295 (720×433) (allpar.com)
Spyker C8!! i’d post a pic but i don’t think you can do that yet.
Let’s not forget the electroluminescent 1960-62 Chrysler ‘Astrodome’ instrument panel.
Pre-996 Porsche 911.
It (and the entire gauge suite – they’re all separate pods) exemplifies a wonderful Teutonic focus on function over everything else.
The stark white unstylized numbers on the matte black field with an orange-red pointer all just screams “sportscar” in the mind of anyone born in the latter half of the 20th century.
If truth is beauty, the simple purposefulness of it speaks for itself.
Mid 60s Volvo P1800 (already mentioned)
Series 1 Jag E-type
64/65 Mustang, non rally pac, horizontal speedometer
Hmm, upon further thought, the most beautiful speedometer is an accurate and fully working speedometer.
(Yes, I have driven far too many vehicles with temperamental or outright non-functioning speedometers, no need to ask, ha.)
The most beautiful speedometer is the one in your first car.
I agree, but my ’86 Plymouth Voyager with a manual transmission and no tachometer was not exactly the pinnacle of design 😀
Just curious, is there a reason no one has posted an image of the cluster they like? Not allowed? Seems like it would be super convenient if folks could just post the image right in the comments.
Just my 2 cents. I’ll shut up now 🙂
Most people have been getting around it by using the hyperlink button.
For example
I love the Jaeger gauges and dash layout in the Bugatti Type 57. I also really like the simplicity of the gauges Mercedes-Benz used in the 300SL and many of their other cars from the 50s to the 70s. Interestingly this new Bugatti uses a very similar typeface to the one Mercedes used — I think some variant of DIN 1451.