You know how sometimes you see something so ridiculous and absurd you find yourself becoming unreasonably smitten with it? Like, say, if a kitten in a Dickies jumpsuit showed up to repair your HVAC, or you bought a new set of brake pads and found that they were made of intricately carved scrimshaw. I’m a big fan of such things, and David showed me something that I feel like fits into this category remarkably well, and it comes from a pretty unexpected source: the dashboard of a third-gen (2014-2018) Chevy Silverado 1500.
Specifically, it’s the center stack infotainment screen on the Silverado 1500. I know almost all of us have very mixed feelings about how much modern car interiors are now dominated by screens, but I think we’ve also been trained by now to expect a certain look and size of screen on a car or truck, and when there’s a significant deviation from that, it strikes us as off. Perhaps even funny. Which is pretty much what I’m getting from these third-generation Silverado screens.
You’ve already seen it in the top image up there, but let’s take another look, because it really is remarkable:
Now, let me be clear here: I don’t have a problem with small screens, and I prefer physical controls to controls embedded into touch screen menus. Absolutely, no question. But that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the design comedy of a tiny screen set into an area clearly designed to house a significantly larger screen. Because look at that!
Look at the size of that bezel around the screen! There are acres of featureless black, slightly curved, textured plastic forming a vast territory around that tiny pond of a screen. Really, it’s not so much that the screen is too small – I’m sure there are other cars that have had similarly-sized screens before – but in this context, in this design, where it gets lost in the vastness of nothingness that surrounds it, you can’t help but smile.
It’s hard not to look at that screen and be reminded of 1940s-era televisions, with their tiny black-and-white CRTs peeking out of huge wooden enclosures and early portable computers like the Osborne I from 1981, with a tiny 5″ green phosphor screen inset into the middle of a suitcase full of electronics:
Oh, you know what else it reminds me of? The control panel in a Soviet-era Soyuz spacecraft!
The Silverado doesn’t have one of those amazing mechanical globes, but you get the idea.
If you’ll permit me to go even farther with the visual associations, even beyond the world of tiny screens embedded into bigger pieces of equipment, then consider this visual analogy: the toilet with the joke hole only big enough for farts from that episode of I Think You Should Leave:
I mean, look at it; you can see what I’m getting at, right?
I don’t necessarily have a greater point to make here other than to note the inherent and strangely charming comedy of these design choices, and I think that’s probably enough. I think back in 2014 or so this would have looked much less strange; but today, when the default is massive screens commanding every available inch of dash real estate, it absolutely feels quaint and strange.
I mean, look at the dash of the current Silverado:
Screens on screens on screens. Once, long ago, we had these things contained, protected, and separated by massive bezels. Is this progress? Who’s to say?
Top graphic image: eBay; oldcomputers.net
The Ford F150 XL level also used a smaller screen for the radio/backup camera. You buy a cheap truck you get a little screen.
I actually LOVE the way GM mocks the buyers of cheap trucks. There was a certain generation (GMT400 or maybe 800) in which trucks with a higher GVW didn’t require a passenger air bag, so GM put in a dummy airbag cover with a completely useless cubby.
Eh, Jason is just showing off his guest appearance on ITYSL. Good job on the unreasonably angry lawyer trope.
Our base-spec work truck that I drive everyday has that dashboard. You can’t even touch the screen; it just assigns like “ok” or “cancel” (to the “don’t stare at this while driving” warning on startup) to those buttons under the screen lol
Aww, click bait and switch, all I saw was tiny infotainment stack and thought it was on a new car not an oldish truck.
One of the current interior styling tropes is the screen that looks like it pops up out of the dashboard, but it just sits there, never popping up or down.
Btw, what the fuck is infotainment anyway? It seems apropos to reenacted sea battles with real ships in the Roman coliseum, not the radio on a TV in the middle of the dashboard.
Note to Autopian art department, the next time there’s a think piece about screens in automobiles, a picture of Russell Crowe in gladiator drag saying “Are you not infotained?” would be a banger.
Despite the appearance, it was still an improvement over the base AM/FM-only radio the earlier base model GM trucks had. And before everyone says “At least those radios had buttons!”, they sure did, and those buttons would flake off the black paint and glow various colors of green beneath while still only receiving AM and FM radio. I’m a staunch fan of buttons, but I also like Bluetooth.
I couldn’t live with that. It’s like blank switches, but on steroids.
It’s a real missed opportunity on that bezel, so much real estate to add senseless graphics! It could say “4×4!” or “Off Road!” or something with some jazzy swoops and stripes. I guess that kinda thing mostly died off in the 90s….
I’m reminded of this:
https://i.imgflip.com/62oa7w.jpg
…This gives me the same “Brought into the future kicking and screaming” energy my ’16 FR-S’s Pioneer screen stereo has. Except way more twee and absurd. I love it.
Ah yes, the base spec “whatever” bit. Could you at least try? Maybe some small storage cubbys?
A nice useful hole! That’s
the ticket.
I love that screen too. Kinda wish it was still an option.