It’s not that often you can see, in a polished, finished product designed for public consumption, evidence of a designer genuinely thrown for a loop — exasperated, and, perhaps even giving up. When this happens, while some may see it as a design failure or flaw, I prefer to think of it as more as a peek behind the cold perfection we’ve come to expect from consumer goods. It’s a glimpse into a thought process and the peculiar set of restrictions that designer was working with, and under. It’s also a sobering reminder that, for reasons I still can’t quite fathom, dashboards caused (especially American) designers of the ’70s and ’80s all kinds of trouble. All kinds.
Am I being a little cruel? A little unfair? Maybe. But then I remember things like the hilarious crappery of 1980s Dodge Ram truck dashboards or what I want to talk about today, which is how when cars that started out with column-shifted automatic transmissions got floor-shifted versions, either manual or automatic, what to do with the little bit of dash space devoted to showing if you’re in P, R, N, D, or L really gave designers fits.
Let’s just look at some of the solutions they came up with to solve this challenge! And, in case you’re not sure what I mean, here’s what I’m talking about:
When the shifter moves to the floor, again, manual or automatic, it doesn’t matter, the mechanical linkage that moved the pointer over the PRNDL indicator is gone, so that little panel needs to get filled with something.
Chrysler took advantage of the extra area to helpfully remind you which wheels of your car were doing the work. Well, they just did this on their front wheel drive cars; I can’t think of any RWD cars that got a REAR WHEEL DRIVE panel on the dash.
Maybe this would be handy if you needed a reminder for what wheels to put snow chains on?
Chrysler really leaned into the FWD reminder on this panel, as it shows up on a lot of floor-shifted models, including, in truncated form, on the Dodge Caravan:
They didn’t have as much room to work with here, but the designers still felt it was important to let you know that the front wheels were doing the work! That’s the kind of information you want ready to go when you look at your instruments!
Let’s see what approaches GM took:
GM tried a few approaches: blank, silver circles in some Buicks, a reminder of what kind of car you’re in in Pontiacs, and a nice, tidy rectangle in Oldsmobiles. For whatever reason, the Pontiac badge one doesn’t seem too bad, given everything.
Honestly, this is a tricky problem! If you’re stuck with the little panel, what can you do? Ford tried a whole bunch of ideas. Here’s how they dealt with it for the Mercury Maurader with a four-on-the-floor:
Three little sparkles! All inside a nice silver frame! I suppose they could have tried a plug of the same textured black plastic, but they didn’t! Just making it disappear wasn’t an option. But they weren’t done:
I really love this one, from a 1969 Ford LTD. This whole dashboard is pretty incredible, with this instrument cluster that wraps around the steering wheel, and even incorporates the radio far to the left, insuring that the driver and only the driver gets to decide what music everyone listens to. Music or maybe A Prairie Home Companion blasted a full volume until everyone is shrieking, howling mess, begging for mercy.
Oh, and if you were too cheap to spring for a clock, you had, at the far right, a really great example of a Nothing Gauge, calibrated to 12 points of nothingness. But, let’s not forget why we’re here, it’s for the PRNDL replacement panel right there in the center, which proudly wears a crown.
Ford has always enjoyed regal and heraldic imagery for some reason, so I’m not too surprised to see a crown here. This royal motif continued on the floor-shifted Fairmonts and Zephyrs, too:
Here we have a whole crest, complete with crown and shield, encircled by a wreath! That’s what you need to see on your dash, front and center, the crest of the Royal House Of Henry, inspiring you to carry on!
Ford didn’t just deal in sparkles and heraldry for their PRNDL-fillers. On ’80s-era F150s they took a more geometric approach:
Yes, they replaced the PRNDL indicator with a rectangle gauge! Now you can, at a glance, check the status of your rectangle! It was even illuminated, so your rectangle’s condition could be clearly noted even in the dark of night!
Also, there’s another great Nothing Gauge there in that upper image. It definitely feels ecclesiastical, somehow, like a bible entering hyperspace or a wall sculpture on the side of a modernist Lutheran church.
I’m sort of mocking here, but the truth is I’m not sure I’d have really been able to come up with anything better; it’s an awkward space to deal with, and it has to be there, because no one is springing for an entirely new injection-molded instrument cluster here. I’m sort of surprised no company thought to put a FUEL FILLER –> message in there or something else useful. Mail trucks always had a LOOK BEFORE BACKING decal on their dashes; that wouldn’t be a bad message to have, right?
I like the idea of still trying to do the same job as before by saying something like CHECK GEAR LEVER ON FLOOR or if it’s a manual 1-2-3-4- BUT IN AN H or something like that.
Honestly, now that I think more about this, maybe sparkles or crowns really aren’t so bad?
(Thanks to The Bishop for sourcing images!)
Of the two pictured Ford pickup panels, I had the top one in an ’83 F-150. Just the filler for the tach, since that was an extra-cost option not available on a base model, and nothing in the space for the automatic transmission indicator either, since mine was a manual. But not with a floor-mounted shifter — no, there was still a lever on the column for the 3-on-the-tree! So, column shift, but the wrong kind… Oops!
The simple solution to hiding the “Cheap Bastard” trim level was to strap a column-mounted tach in front of the blanks.
Oh, and that ’69 LTD dash with the big starburst blank on the top right has that because that trim level must not have included the conspicuous luxury of… A clock.
(To be fair, electric car clocks were actually a little pricey back then.) And to be fair, that’s one of Fords more ergonomic dashboards of that era. Most of the time, they cranked out big, wide, flat dashboards where you had to lean forward and over to reach some of the controls. GM tended to prefer the more wrap-around styles.
Dashboard confessional: I have no idea what a floor shifter is. I’m familiar with manuals/sequential manuals and shifters on the steering column or over the transmission tunnel and flappy paddles, but these other old, odd creatures haven’t ever come into my life that I know.
The best floor shifters for sure were manuals on work trucks, with the loooong shift lever and rubber accordion boots.
Oh, ok. If that’s what that means, then sure, totally. I was always fond of those, unless I was the one stuck sitting in the middle of the bench in Dad’s old Ram. Such great old truck smell though.
I think what Torch means by “floor shifters” here are the ones in the 80s that look like proto center console shifters.
Instead of the seamless dash/console pod thing we have now, they were separate elements – the dash, then space, then a little area with the shifter mounted largely by itself, or maybe with a little cubby or something.
This reminds me of when I learned about dashboard blanks, and used that knowledge to determine the caste of car by how many features were not included.
My 2010 Focus SE (pre-screen era) has a fair amount of blanks, including most awkwardly in the center-console row of buttons along the bottom.
But what I really like is if I look closely at the dash or entertainment center readout in direct light, I can see all sorts of stuff that I don’t have either b/c cheap or b/c features for another market.
Torch! Don’t forget your own soliloquy about the Chevy Celebrity tachometer which lived in the PRNDL window. https://www.theautopian.com/the-chevy-celebrity-eurosport-vr-proved-chevy-didnt-know-what-euro-meant/
Also, I vividly remember being a kid and totally confused why Pop’s three-on-the-tree GMC had a blank plate where Dad’s automatic Blazer had a PRNDL display. My preschool age brain thought it was very mean that someone covered up something in Pop’s truck. https://images.holley.com/x/005_davis_classic_instruments_c10.jpg
Great article with very useful information. Now I really want some stick-on crests for the blank buttons in my regal automobile. Maybe also a false gauge or two while we are at it.
I like that driver-focused radio. “You kids behave back there or Garrison Keillor is going to tell you just how damn cold it really is in Minnesota for the entire rest of the trip home”
Just shoot me now…
Something something Lake Wobegon…
I didn’t know that LTDs had such a driver-focused dashboard! Weird for a couch on wheels.
I used to own a 1987 Monte Carlo SS with a floor shifter and I always thought their solution was bizarre and interesting: The PRNDL is still in the dash and the needle still moves. Look closer and you’ll notice the entire column shifter mechanism is still there. When you move the floor shifter, you see the steering column spin with it. They just chopped off the part of the column that the column shifter attached to and left everything else. Somehow the floor shifter was moving a phantom column shifter the whole time.
I was going to come in here and comment, “Why didn’t they just keep the PRNDL indicator there?” And the answer of course is, “Because they were cheap bastards.” But I knew that SOME cars had done that. Why did I know that?
And then your post unlocked a core memory: My dad had an 85 Monte Carlo SS (first model year of that generation), which I was allowed to drive on many occasions, and it had the floor selector with the PRNDL indicator in the dash. Vindication!
As a postscript, my dad later got an 87 SS as an insurance settlement after his 85 was stolen right out of his driveway.
Some Australian Valiants did a similarly bizarre thing – for a short while, Chrysler Australia had switched to column shift as they thought customers were put off by the pushbuttons, but was still using older Torqueflite transmissions that were designed for pushbutton operation, with one cable for gear selection and the other for Park pawl engagement (in a pushbutton car, operated by a lever beside the pushbuttons that pulled its own cable to engage park and shift the buttons into Neutral and lock them from operating until the Park lever is disengaged).
So they used a column shifter that operated a cable, that ran across the firewall from the base of the RHD steering column to a special adapter box where the base of a LHD steering column would be. Inside the box the operation of that one cable was translated mechanically to operate the 2 separate cables needed for the pushbutton style Torqueflite. It only lasted a very short time, until the later single-cable Torqueflites came into use.
I feel like that was the case on mom’s 83 Cutlass as well.
A quick search shows that you could get a bench seat with column selector or buckets with a console. So they just used the same steering column setup and linkage and added the console shifter as needed.
How about a deer sensor light?
Too soon.
If your like me and wait til it isn’t you hit another deer. This makes me wonder why no country artist writes songs about losing his Puck up and his dog and his girlfriend when he hit a deer. Makes you wonder.
Really .awesome you wonder how many things on a dashboard are unnecessary. I never use the PRNDL did manual vehicles ever have these? I know by feeling what gear I am in. Oil lights that do pressure but not empty/full. How do you pronounce PRNDL? I think Lisa Douglas did it in Green Acres but she had an accent. You’d think for the over 100 things you now have to do with the steering column appendages one would have been useful in the spot.
Oil pressure lights/gauges always made me curious too, especially in non-performance cars. “Warning: Your oil pressure is low, which could be because you are low on oil, but the cause is not limited to that scenario.” Dude, just tell me how much freaking oil I have in there.
But really I upvoted you for the Lisa Douglas reference.
Thanks I am old I can’t wait to use my petticoat Junction knowledge. I bet less than 5% of the members here could name the 3 sisters.
I have had to use it because some of these old shifters are pretty sloppy (including the auto in my 928).
No problem I am sure Betty Jo, Bobby Jo, and Bobby Sue are pretty sloppy now too.
I almost fell off the pole laughing. I really have to get wifi so I don’t have to climb up here to use the internet…
I am sure Alf and Ralph can take care of you.
These fillers could make for some great keychains! This also reminds me of something that has bothered me for years. I have a WJ with Quadra-trac II and I’m looking at Quadra drive versions they appear to have adhered a Quadra drive badge on the shifter trim. I just want to peel one off to see if it’s there solely to hide the screen printing. Anyone want to try and confirm my suspicions?
I kinda like these, it seems like they put more care and thought into them than the button blanks you see on lower trims of more modern cars.
My NA Miata was a lower trim level and did not have all the features. I wanted an inconspicuous remote trunk release so I wired up a trunk popper solenoid and installed a button behind the blanking plate on the left side of the dash. I got a hidden switch, a convenience feature, and Revenge on The Man, all in one package.
I have to commend RAM for the new 1500 Tradesman interior for that reason alone. They gave it a bespoke interior, so even though it is the lowest trim, it doesn’t have any button blanks or missing items. (And honestly, it’s about as good as an F-150 XLT interior from a few years ago.)
I remember that the old 2nd-gen F-bodies, which were available with a column shifter, mostly came with a floor shifter. When you moved the gear lever on the console, the ring on the steering column that would move with a column shifter moved. I know this allowed the ignition lock to lock both the steering wheel and the transmission lever.
I have a 2nd-gen F-body that was originally an automatic, and if you depressed the button on the shifter, and then firmly grabbed and rotated that collar, the shifter lever would hilariously move on its own into gear.
See my comment below – likely the same mechanical function.
Well yeah, my buddy HAD to do that every time in his Formula because the lever linkage was loosey-goosey.
The 1978 Ford LTDII I had in high school had possibly the cheapest PRNDL indicator known to man. The indicator needle was cast onto the collar that rotated with the column shifter. It sat behind a plastic window marked PRNDL. Can’t recall after 30+ years if it was backlit or not (I think it was).
That column-mounted PRNDL dated back to the 1958 Thunderbird and the 1960 Ford Fairlane/Galaxie and Falcon series.
Yes. A really simple arrangement that never got out of adjustment. (The kinds with linkages that tug the needle back and forth on a remote display often wound up with the needle landing midway between markings, which frankly looked like crap.)
The Ford indicators originally were completely see-through with a bulb illuminating them from below via a refractive light-pipe arrangement molded into the clear plastic. At night, the “PRNDL” letters illuminated and “floated” in space. It actually looked pretty cool. Sometime in the 90s, I think, when they kept the column indicator on trucks, they changed the illumination system so that the bulb shined up behind the plastic window, and the back was hooded to confine the light. Bulkier and not as cool.
Isn’t that the perfect place to put “Apply brake to shift from Park” or did that message only come about later? It was definitely on every ’90s car I owned.
I think you’re right with the ’90s being when that became a thing. IIRC, my mid-’80s high school car could definitely do the lurch forward thing if you just yanked it into gear.
Park/Shift Interlock was something that came about in the 90’s and wasn’t a US requirement until 2010.
That came way later, my 2003 VW doesn’t require brake to shift
You can thank crazy Karens and Audi for the shift interlock. Audi was too scared to tell their customers that they were shit drivers.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/history/the-audi-500-unintended-acceleration-debacle/
Stupid Hoomans.
Needs a Bender meme.
That team was busily working on the hush-hush plan to add the little arrow to the fuel gauge.
If you keep giving away secrets, how am I going to impress my dates?
Show them the dashboard light. You’ll see paradise there.
The last girl was a vegan and didn’t like Phil Rizzuto.
Must have been cold and lonely.
Pull out your tire gauge to measure your dates blow up PSI, that will impress her! Sorry popped in my head had to post.
Didn’t this era of land barges have their gas spouts behind the rear license plate?
Some cars did.
One of the silly things I enjoy about my Mustang is that it actually has “fuel filler —>” printed…on the tach.
Took them long enough my 2001 Isuzu didn’t have one and at times depending what vehicle I was driving these ate great.
The dashboard arrows will make a comeback since EVs seem to have their charge ports scattered willy-nilly on vehicles these days.
I knew my manual GMT400 had an empty spot for the PRNDL, but I couldn’t remember what was there, so I had to go look. Plain rectangle of black plastic. What a ripoff.
“Music or maybe A Prairie Home Companion blasted a full volume until everyone is shrieking, howling mess, begging for mercy.”
Prose like that is why I’m thrilled to be a Member.
We had a “nothing gauge” in a Dodge station wagon when I was growing up. It was a clock with no hands because my dad hadn’t chosen that option. I don’t know how much that option cost, but honestly, Dodge, how expensive would it have been to just give everyone clock hands?
Not only are they not giving you anything, they are going to punish your cheap ass every day you own that poverty-spec vehicle. And, they will use the embarrassment of your children to instill some damned respect for the capitalist system into your freeloading progeny.
Are you really insulting the differently abled clocks? What are handsless clocks supposed to do? For shame.
In the future the clock will probably require a subscription.
Torch! You missed an aside on the Caravan/Voyager. You’ll note that there is a tach in the manual minivans next to the speedo. As silly as it was to put FRONT DRIVE where the gear selector was, Chrysler didn’t feel a tach was necessary on the automatic minivans. So how did they remedy that? By replacing the gas gauge with a seatbelt light, and putting an inappropriately large gas gauge where that tach was.
https://imgur.com/gallery/xpbPfFi
I owned a ’92 Voyager 5-speed, and you’re correct. However, the entire upgraded gauge cluster was a 100% plug-n-play install. By the time I bought my van, there were hundreds of fancy vans in the junkyard due to failed transmissions. $40 and 15 minutes later, I had the full gauge package. All the necessary sensors were already installed.
Funnier than that is my parents had a 1993 LE with the fancy gauge package. 1 junkyard Town and Country gauge cluster and BCM later, and I had the full digital gauge cluster complete with automatic locking and a bunch of other T&C features not available on the Voyager.
Come on y’all Dashboard Confessional was RIGHT THERE! Hell, make Torch’s Dashboard Confessional a series!
And Jason can include a Matt/Adrian/Gossin style music accompaniment from the eponymous band. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A94dmLthBHA
I would’ve put a little spirit level in that place so that you can tell when you’re about roll over.
Also, I surprised Henry Ford didn’t put in a replica of the Grand Cross of the German Eagle that Hitler awarded him for his virulent anti-Semitic rantings.
A level would be helpful in a truck, so I like your idea. Maybe an ambient air thermometer for people in cold climates to know when to start looking for black ice. Either or both would be cheap.
Maybe a display for a factory radar detector. That would be a more expensive option.
Speaking of crosses, a Catholic option could be a Virgin Mary icon that illuminates when the speedometer reads above 70 MPH.
Or a Saint Christopher medallion! He is the patron saint of travel after all.
Maybe get yourself a sweet Madonna dressed in rhinestones, sitting on a pedestal of abalone shells.
That description strikes me as very specific. (pulls out psychiatrist couch) Tell me about your childhood.
You’ve not seen “Cool Hand Luke”?
Oh, come now. It’s not like Henry Ford purchased the The Dearborn Independent – Wikipedia to spout anti-Semitic nonesense and forced Ford dealerships to buy and distribute them using quotas.
Or that he got a mention in Mein Kampf.
Or that he smiled a beaming smile that only comes from receiving the highest Nazi civilian honor created by Hitler. Henry Ford receiving the Grand Cross of the German Eagle from Nazi officials, 1938 – Rare Historical Photos
I miss Ford’s Heraldry, at least here in the states. Doesn’t it live on outside the U.S. on some models still?
Personally I miss Triumph’s Heraldry.
They were not triumphant.
948ccs of fury and impish indignation.
Your post got me thinking about the Plymouth Fury and other vehicles named after violence (and crime): the Plymouth Rampage, Dodge Avenger, AMC Matador, Studebaker Dictator, Mercury Marauder, Plymouth Prowler, Mahindra Invader…
They have been busy killing the cars in their lineup… but perhaps Vignale still counts as a successor of the Ghia trim level. So a Focus with fancy seats and ”special” wheel design, but unfortunately just lame text badges, no classy crests or emblems to be found. I think Ghia has already been dead for a decade, at least in Yurp.
Or the important instruction: “Put it in H”