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!
That is some straight up uncanny valley shit. I got disgusted chills from that first gif.
At first I was thinking that this was because Tahiti is in the Southern Hemisphere and things turn differently down there; however, that wouldn’t account for the needles moving in opposite directions. No sir, the only possible explanation is that Mark must be driving smack dab on the equator with his wheels straddling the line. This, of course, means he’s not in Tahiti at all. In order to straddle the equator he must be in one of these places: Brazil, Columbia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Gabon, Indonesia, Kenya, Somalia, Uganda, Maldives, Kiribati, or Sâo Tomé and Principe. Or, he’s driving back and forth on a boat sailing along the equator. So where is he really? My money’s on Maldives, it’s a favorite money laundering destination due to poor banking oversight and regulation. Has Autopian management checked company bank accounts recently? Just saying….
Southern hemisphere: Understeer! Northern hemisphere: Oversteer! Understeer! Oversteer!
No.
Also, if not a manual, no need for a tach. Replace with a multi-use water temp / oil temp / oil pressure / tire pressures / voltmeter / etc, that one can click through with a button (NOT A TOUCHSCREEN!).
Use a yellow/orange/red light for tach instead.
Tach is not only for monitoring dangerous engine rpm, it’s also to situate in what gear you are, is it performing to specs, is your transmission slipping…
Most of the nowaday considered useless gauges are not useful for momentary information per se, but they are still priceless to establish a statistical pattern, as they will show clearly and intuitively any deviation from the usual routine, all other things being equal.
Hence the need for analog gauges vs digital (digit-based) ones, as they are glanced at and indicate normal behavior or deviations from it with a needle moving in a specific way or staying at a specific spot. But I’ve been there already.
I was this many years old when I learned some people used the tach to decide when to shift. I never knew that was a thing. Doesn’t everybody shift by ear and feel? I guess not.
9 cars in my lifetime, 7 manuals, and it wasn’t until car 6 (4th manual) that i had a tach, but the first three sticks were 4 pots with so little sound insulation (or even floors) that you couldn’t make a mistake. Now i’m older, with more on my mind and a quieter car, a blinking shift light would be more suitable for the 5th to 6th shift after a merge or overtake, whether i’m talking to a passenger or to myself.
My main use of the tach these days is optimizing mileage (big realized gains at 18-1900 vs 21-2200 on the freeway).
(and i like the oppo rotation, but think the aston version more intuitive as the needles appear to approach each other at aggressive acceleration).
A tach isn’t needed in a manual car either. Sound and feel is the only thing needed to know when to shift
Hard disagree. On any vehicle a tach will tell you useful things about your vehicle’s performance. Excessive idle speed, slipping transmission or in the wrong gear (which I do occasionally in the Suburban when downshifting for downgrades and forgetting to move back to D), and serving as a speed indicator if your speedometer fails.
Every self-respecting hocker knows that you spell it loogie, not loogey.
An absolute abomination, and an insult to the laws of ergonomics and to the (mostly) innocent souls with whose blood these laws were written.
Hmmm. His rental must be a diesel, given the relatively low red line on the tach.
I guess I could acclimate to whichever way the dials moved, but every car, motorcycle and airplane that I have ever operated had needles that moved in what seemed like the most intuitive way. And speed and tach going in opposite directions is not that.
No
Abomination
Eldritch horror
This is what HP Lovecraft’s darkest fever ether dreams were about
I thought they were about miscegenation.
…. yeaaaaaaah there’s kind of some of that in the mix, too
I like it purely from an aesthetics point of view, but completely understand how it could make it harder for people to read the tach
Are they spinning in opposite directions because Tahiti is so close to the equator?
I think I’m firmly in the camp of “keep them going in the same direction” for ease of use and consistency (both between gauges, and between cars).
I’m not quite in the “kill it with fire” camp, but I think I’d find it pretty off-putting.
I have never actually cared that much about the tach to chime in here.
I mostly shift by sound/feel.
Every so often I’ll check the tach to make sure I am not railing the poor engine or blowing my feeble attempts at hypermileing.
To the tune of the Big Ben chimes:
WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG, WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG.
IT’SWRONG
IT’SWRONG
IT’SWROOOOOOOOOOOONG
I like the idea, if well worked like Aston Martin did. But this era will end soon, when everything will have a screen instead of dials.
The famous CSX2345 Competition Cobra had a counter-clockwise tach, while everything else on the dash was going clockwise.
This is right up there with pineapple and ham on a pizza – an affront to all that is decent in the world
You are so wrong that the only reasonable expectation is that you also pronounce “gif” with a “g” instead of a “j”
The greatest trick the devil every pulled was convincing people Hawaiian pizza was Okay.
The tach is practically useless, at least in the US where nearly everything is an auto.
So no one is even going to notice it going in the wrong direction (presumably they would make the useless gauge go backwards as they have in the two real clusters we’ve been shown here).
A) True. B) It would still annoy the hell out of me if the tach went counterclockwise.
inside out is giving me the Angry Eyes
That’s a gaffed up gif with the red 0-1k rpm.
voted loogey even though I don’t feel THAT strongly. For unknowable reasons, starting in the center doesn’t bother me, starting outside is an abomination.
This is an abomination, and should be burned with fire.
The tach in my X1/9 was reversed. It was beautiful.
I believe it was that way to keep it visible through the steering wheel.
I’m not so sure. The steering wheel has its spokes at 9:00, 3:00, 4:30 and 7:30 so they shouldn’t obscure the dash at all:
https://www.car-shooters.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/CAR_SHOOTERS_FIAT-X1-9-STORIA_42-1440×959.jpg
I guess you’re right. Maybe just a “space-age Italian” thing…
Probably. Especially given earlier X-1/9s had traditional tachs:
https://www.fiatforum.com/gallery/1978-fiat-x1-9-dash.70120/full
With the speedo on the left and tach on the right, I think it’s fine. It’s easier to glance at a reverse tach and know what you need to know. Having the speedo on the right throws the whole thing off for me.
Loogey. They should sweep in the same direction as the danger zone (Archer FTW!) is at the same end on each, and increasing the mental processing you have to do to comprehend your status could be a bad idea.
Are we still doing phrasing?
Inappropes, man!
They are bad. As has been said before, the purpose of the gauge is to tell at-a-glance. If you have to peer at it and get your bearings, it is not okay.
That said, at least the Aston-Martin is perfectly symmetrical, unlike that nasty Peugeot; had the Temp needle been reversed, the Peugeot could have made the same case for style.
This is why I’ve always loved the previous standard for sportbike instrumentation that some cars have adopted – digital speedo but analog tach. It’s a very good way to display different types of information (though I’m partial to an analog speedo too, like my Suzuki has).
To answer the question in the headline: no.
Tres Chic!