What parts of your car have you modified? For many of us, custom wheels are a given, while body kits, exhausts, and air intakes are all popular mods as well. Few of us, however, are customizing our gauge clusters. But maybe we should be!
Posting to Instagram, artist Ronnzoni of Hatem Graphics shows us how it’s done. As it turns out, you don’t need some fancy decal cutter or expensive printing gear to upgrade your gauges. All you need is a brush, masking tape, paint, and the artistic ability to deliver.
Obviously, Ronnzoni’s skills in this regard are far beyond the average. And yet, it’s wild to see just how sweet a set of standard gauges can be with the right treatment.
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The instrument cluster in question comes from a Mercedes-Benz E-Class of the W124 generation. These cars were noted for their solid build and good reliability, and had that austere German quality when it came to things like the dials and switchgear.
Ronzzoni gave the clean German cluster a graffiti-style upgrade straight out of the 90s—the proper treatment given the car’s decade of manufacture. The outer dials are simply rimmed in pink and bordered in teal. As for the main center gauge, the speedometer got custom lines and numbering, along with speckles, dripping paint effects, and an exhortation to PUSH IT TO THE LIMIT – though it’s unclear if the limit to be pushed is the Merc’s speed or its mileage. Amusingly, the odometer within the cluster has been reset at some point in the disassembly process, so perhaps it refers to the former rather than the latter.
Painting like this requires great control to get right. As is obvious on Instagram, Ronnzoni has honed his painting and masking skills over many years of hand-painting graphics on custom cars. If you want to tackle such a project yourself, you’ll need to practice your numbering and line-tracing skills before starting on your car’s actual gauge cluster, or just rely on masking and stencils if you’re not that good. Another thing to note is that you want to do mods like these in as clean an area as possible. There’s nothing worse than reassembling an entire cluster and putting it back into your dash just to realize there’s dust trapped inside and a hair is stuck on the temperature gauge.
The hand-painted gauges are just one part of the car’s customization. In an earlier post, we see the gauges are color-matched to the car’s teal interior. The checkerboard headliner is an additional treat.
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The coolest thing about this project? It’s fun. Dash clusters are usually pretty dull, and they have been since the early 90s. That’s particularly disappointing given the gauges are the prime interface between the driver and the car. If you’ve got the time and tools to take apart your dash and some art skills (or you’re good with electronics, if you want this look), you can make yourself a far more interesting cluster that will inspire you every time you get in and drive.
Image credits: @Hatemgraphics via Instagram video screenshot
I like some of the gauges that have been turned into clocks… but it’s usually not exactly the stock gauge being used. I like the green Porsche gauges and also mid 60’s Mercedes like on a 280 sl. I could use an office chair made from a mid 60s Mercedes seat as well.
Boring maybe but I find the standard W124 instrument cluster pleasing to look at.
This is a pollution.
This would have been awesome in my clapped-out 90 Miata!
Current owner: Push it to the limit!
Third owner: Push it to the mechanic.
Second owner: Push It by Salt N Pepa.
Original owner: Take it to the Limit by The Eagles
(Donning my Captain Pedantic outfit)
That is not any ol’ checkerboard, that is Porsche Pasha # 5742 fabric.
Next up- How to transform your boring toilet paper holder into a beautiful work of art.
I definitely appreciate the skill and patience involved (I’d never be so focused), but it strikes me as disconcertingly meta.
As in, they’re clearly in a style of the era with which we’re familiar, but no actual car then had gauges like this. So this isn’t actually 90s, in a sense.
It’s ike how tv and movies often depict teenager’s bedrooms in period fare – they’re this amped up, completely unrealistic version based on an ideal that emerged only afterward. Like that most kids’ rooms in 1995 were not a minimalist riot of neon.
While I think this particular example is visual pollution, gauges really make a huge difference, especially on custom stuff where aftermarket gauges are used. So many otherwise well done hotrods or kit cars are hurt by the use of the standard OTS gauges, often with cheesy bezels, amateur-hour “era” designs, or inappropriate or childish typefaces. After putting all that work and money into making something just right, doing that is like building a beautiful, well-made house and finishing the kitchen with the same HD cabinets that every hacked-together rush-job flip house has, the available styles of which range from unremarkable to outright terrible. Yeah, you know it’s well made behind it all, but the parts you frequently interact with and that everyone else sees makes it feel like it isn’t, which makes all that effort feel less satisfying, maybe incomplete. (I fully understand that sometimes you just need to get the damn thing done and you can’t let the perfect be the enemy of being able to use it, but it is a compromise and a glaring one).
Relatedly, for the boat I designed, I was going to use the mechanicals of standard gauges, but set them behind the dash panel with an entire new and larger faces of my own designs set onto the front of the panel and with custom needles and domed covers. It’s those kinds of details really stand out even to people who aren’t really into boats, cars, whatever, plus if you’re going to be looking at it frequently, make it interesting for your own benefit.
Can I respect the skill while saying the design choices are gross?
Absolutely. I feel that way about 99% of restomods.
there is a reddit for that : ATBGE
That’s badass!
FIFY
Come on fhqwhgads
True story: 5-10 years ago, I had no idea who Deadpool was, and I thought all of these little bumper stickers and spare tire covers were Strongbad.
i’m off to watch some strongbad emails
If the car isn’t off-white with the snazzy Solo cups’ “Jazz” treatment (teal and purple zig-zag (ish) graphic) down the side, then they’ve missed an opportunity.
I’m going to do that on my plain-ass white BMW e36. Sourced a supplier and all.
I’m assuming the gauges on this Mercedes are illuminated from the front instead of backlit?
Every single VDO cluster I saw until the mid 90s was front-lit, but I’m sure there were exceptions.
Last year we were talking about how many idiots drive around with just their DRLs at night, and I was like “Well the dark gauge cluster should give it away!” and then I realized that almost all gauge clusters now are backlit 24/7. So obvious, yet I never thought about it. Seems like we should fix that.
Yeah, the VDO gauges on my E30 are front lit too.
Agreed about always illuminated gauges.
I LOVE this!
Also, any Euro from the 80s/early 90s is great for this, as VDO supplied most of the gauges and the clusters are pretty modular. They disassemble easily.
I was surprised how easy it was when I had to replace the odometer gears in my w126.