Rolls-Royce enjoys one of the loftiest and grandest reputations in the entire automotive world, and while it’s well-earned, it’s not really unassailable. While they like to remind us that they “inspire greatness” it’s fun to remember that, at times, they’ve inspired some half-assery, too. This 1975 Rolls-Royce Camargue brochure has a nice reminder of that, with this picture of a dashboard that, while certainly cool in a number of ways, hardly feels luxurious or the best of anything in the world. The ergonomics look like they were designed by a brain in a jar of brain-stay-alive-juice and who was told about how humans work over the phone. This is the dash of a wildly expensive and exclusive luxury car? It looks like some VW kit car dashes that friends of my friends’ dads were building in their backyards.
I mean, it’s not just me, right? Those gauges look like they may have come off a Cessna or something, and I respect the exposed screwheads and all that, but on one of the most expensive luxury cars in the world at that time? It looks like gauges and switches just picked out of a catalog, screwed into a big vertical slab of wood. Hell, a Pinto in this era at least had a custom-molded dash with better integrated instruments and controls.
I mean, they had Pininfarina design this thing! Why’d they phone in the dash?
Sure, a lot of people thought the Camargue was ugly, but I think it’s pretty handsome and dapper from the outside. Oh, and get this – this car had, it’s claimed, the first dual-zone climate controls, which is impressive. But why did they do it like this:
See what’s going on there? Upper and lower zones. Not driver/passenger or front/rear, but upper and lower, for all of you who have always wanted to freeze your feet and cook your face, or vice-versa. Who wanted it set up this way? I’ve read this dual climate system took Rolls-Royce eight years to develop. What? Why? No one spoke up during all this time and said, hey, do people really want different climates for their upper and lower halves?
I don’t get it. Hey, who wants to look at the idiot lights?
Again, kinda crappy for such a fancy car. All jammed together, like rows of candy-colored teeth, no real organization, and rounded corners on the outer lights that don’t correspond to the bezel shape? Great work fellas. Excellence my ass. Plus, I like the use of the superfluous word “failure” on some of these. STOPLAMP FAILURE, PARTIAL BRAKE FAILURE, like a red warning light flashing for these might somehow be confused with, what, a SUCCESS warning? Does this mean the MASTER CYLINDER light just illuminates if a master cylinder is found to be present and accounted for?
Also, green for LOW FUEL? We have the usual red=bad, yellow=warning color coding expected, a conceit that means, the world over, that green=go, all good. So is that lamp saying, hey, we’re almost out of fuel! Let’s do this thing! Woooooo!
Get off your high horse, Rolls-Royce.
Those seats though..
It’s so much better
When everyone is in
Are you in?
It’s so much easier
When seafoam green is in fashion
Starred for the reference to one of my favorite Incubus songs.
Starred for getting the reference.
Fantastic song.
I agree 100%. What a waste.
Yeah, that’s not their best effort. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen dashes at least as nice in homebuilt kit cars – take a good quality sheet of flat burlwood and just screw your parts pin plastic gauges and switches to it in whichever spot is easiest
I think the most glaring thing in a RR interior to me was the AC Delco radio they used in the late 80’s, which mostly just solidified that if you wanted a big comfortable barge, you probably weren’t missing much by getting a good B-body.
https://cdn.dealeraccelerate.com/motorcar/1/841/14710/1920×1440/1988-rolls-royce-silver-spur
I’m thinking boat-not plane as the inspiration for the instrument cluster. Think 1990’s 17′ Boston Whaler.
Curious that the fuel gauge and the ammeter are front and center. Sure, it makes some sense with the fuel gauge (shouldn’t it say ‘petrol’ unless this is actually a U.S.-spec model?) given the gas-guzzling nature of such cars, but an ammeter? (Insert any tired old jokes about Joseph Lucas as the Prince of Darkness & British beer being warm because of Lucas refrigerators & all that.)
And the clock is surprisingly miniscule for such an ostensibly ostentatious car. Looks to be on par with the smol VDO clocks as found in split-screen VW buses & oval-window Beetles…
My first thought was Piper Cub. Then I saw Cessna. Now I’m thinking Mooney, way classier.
I’m sure the green low fuel warning light is for the best because I imagine a number of those other lights are probably constantly lit so you’re probably going to want to know if the one important light that’s keeping you rolling comes on…. Well, partial brake failure probably keeps you rolling as well.
“the world over, that green=go, all good”
Not entirely true; in the electric power world ‘green = Off / Safe, red = powered / danger’.
I vote for low fuel being a warning (yellow or maybe amber).
Agree the overall design is terrible
I think the green low fuel warning is intended to signify that there is fuel in the tank – this is an affirmative light, since after 5 minutes of driving at 30mph (and 17gpm) the tank would be empty and the light would go off, informing you that you had nothing but fumes left, on which to navigate to the nearest petrol station.
“Just a little place I like to call You’ll See”
Nothing exudes classiness more than an 8-track in your Rolls Royce.
Rolls seems to have difficulty differentiating between exclude and exude.
Not one, but two low pressure warning lights!
Yeah, upper pressure and lower pressure of course
Do love the dedicated aerial button. Very handy to be able to hide the antenna if you’re somehow, god forbid, forced to park the car in a public parking space.
My MB has one. And the motor assembly for the antenna is so incredibly over engineered and overbuilt it’s pretty funny.
Am I the only one who read ‘freeze your feet and cock…’? In times past there used to be a lot of complaints in the British motoring press about cars which fed heated air to the face vents instead of ambient temperature (unheated) air when the heater was on. To the extent that some continental makes modified their system for the U.K. market so that the face vents bypassed the heater. This was pre a/c. I guess the zonal split was a way of giving the Brits what they wanted in an air conditioned world.
Makes sense. You don’t want hot air in your face. It makes you sleepy.
You never want hot air in your face, even when you’re cold.
Winter = heat on floor + windshield
Summer = ac on dash vents
Am I the only one who read ‘freeze your feet and cock…’?
Dear God, I hope so…..
Seriously the dual zone, adjustable temp air for your face (independent of the heater) has been a thing for BMWs at least back to 1992(?) with the E 36 model.
As for the problem with the Rolls dash, I could forgive everything if was chrome, and I mean CHROME applied half an inch thick.
Where’s the goddamn CHROME? I pay this much for a car and all they give me is some black spray-painted gauge faces? That thing looks like a Ford dash that Lee Iacocca is pretending belongs in a Rolls Royce.
Hey! Did anybody take a close look at the badges on this “Rolls Royce”…..?
pet peeve, shiny bits on the dash.
glare right near your eyes when the sun is low on the horizon?
No hanks, tom.
Dale – it’s Rolls… you should be in the back seat – glare is your driver’s problem, not yours.
Viva la crotch vent!
People do want different temperatures in the upper and lower halves of the car. Snugly warm in the lower half to be comfortable, but fresh in the upper half so you don’t get drowsy.
Yes, but … DUAL RADIOS.
It’s very odd, but R-R continued to use separate radios and tape players well into the cassette era. All while plenty of integrated radio/tape units were available. I’ve never thought of a valid justification for this.
I doubt this is why Rolls did it but I find it easier to replace the bit that broke (let’s say the radio) than replacing the integrated unit when the cassette deck was still fine.
It reminds me of a multi function printer I had for a short while that wouldn’t scan because the cyan ink had run out.
This is designed for the drunk crew at Crewe to slap together while not spilling their pint of bitter. “Hold me beer, old chap!”
I think you nailed it, they were going for the feel of piloting your private plane or yacht. What Rolls buyers think of when they hear “driver’s car.”
That steering wheel also looks like it came straight off a Chevette.
I wouldn’t have expected to find a Chevette reference here… Yes, I had a’79 Chevette Scooter, the cheapest trim level available. The steering wheel really was that plain…
Trying to figure out that license plate – “1800TU”
I boot you?
1 Bootie to you?
I boo at you?
UK Licence plates used to signify where the vehicle was first registered, TU was the code for Chester, about 24 miles from Crewe, where the car was built. Thus this plate was originally affixed to the 1800th car in Cheshire, which was, surprise, a Bentley.
I thought they just ran out of space and couldn’t fit the whole toll-free number….
I Hate You
I ate Cheerios too.
I’ve just always thought steering wheels in old Rollses looked very bland. It was more interesting in our old cheap 1980 Fiat Ritmo 60L! (Same layout, but brown..)
I sure do like cool steering wheels, especially white ones, of which I own 4, with matching cars.
The Camargue must have been really easy to americanize at least, with the giant Volvo bumpers, black frame surround on headlights, and the wraparound side indicators.
All those lights and not a single one for Grey Poupon?
You’re complaining about a mismatch in shapes on the warning light cluster when there’s the jarring mismatch between the headlight bezels’ rounded corners and turn signals’ crisp corners, alongside that iconic grille shape that was just begging to be echoed by them?
How is that pronounced? Cam argue? Cam Mark? Ca Marguay?
It’s a secret Rolls-Royce only shares with their elite customers.
Seriously, though, Google tells me that it is pronounced kuh·maag
Unless you’re ‘Murican, then it’s ka·maar.
(I assume Rolls Royce uses the British pronunciation of the French region, but I could be wrong, and they might use something entirely different..)
I always herd it as car-ma-gyoo.
I’m going to go ahead and bastardize this to either Karma Goo or Car Magoo, which kind of makes sense, since he was a wealthy character who definitely did things he did not have the eyesight for, such as drive his Rolls Royce Car Magoo.
I always pronounced it “motherfugly”.
Karmagarrrr
The lights should be pretty because they will be on a lot.
Y’know Torch, I think you may be onto something here. In today’s world full of negativity and screen proliferation, perhaps more positive messages are in order.
Upon startup, maybe your drive would be a little more pleasant if, before you set off, a rundown of all functioning systems were displayed. In an array of soothing colors as well.
Master cylinder – present and accounted for!
Climate control – working for you!
Seat belts – they’re doing their best!
And so forth.
STOPLAMP FAILURE becomes “Those filthy lower classes behind you had better watch out,” with a little image of the elephant gun with which your driver is doubtlessly armed.
Conversely, PARTIAL BRAKE FAILURE becomes p = mv, the equation for how many peasants will be mowed down by this vehicle.
My 2023 Mercedes E450 has a green “READY” symbol on the dash when you start the car (and when it’s running). And all it means is “the car is running.”