Have you ever tried to remove even part of the dashboard in a modern car? My advice is, don’t. Trade the old car in and get a new car with a working dashboard.
The problem is not necessarily that the dashboard is such a complex piece of gear, but rather that it’s put together in such a fiendishly illogical and roundabout way that there’s no use bringing logic to this particular stupid-fest. Nope, trade her in, I tell ya.
Of course, it’s not just dashboards is it? I mean, the whole way a modern car is constructed is aimed at reducing time on the production line rather than making life tolerable for the people who have to service and fix the damn things. Design-for-manufacture, it’s called. And to hell with design for the poor stiffs that wind up owning the things.
Consider the oil-filter placement on a Mazda MX-5. It could not be more squarely under the manifold with never quite enough room to get a wrench on it or a hammer and screwdriver to skewer the bastard when you’ve finally run out of ideas.
And what about stuff like Toyota’s decision to place the starter motor of some of its V8s in the Vee of the engine. Yep, under the intake manifold! Or Holden’s use of a reach-around clutch throw-out lever that dictates the gearbox has to be removed to change the clutch slave cylinder. Have mercy.
And if memory serves, I seem to recall a particular model of V8 Falcon that needed the engine to be lifted part way out of the engine bay to change an exhaust flange gasket. Spare me.
Now, I can sort of see how space can be limited and complex, and how whole assemblies are more production-line friendly than a million individual bits and pieces. But what I will never understand is the human race’s insistence in hiding or disguising the way things go together. Which brings me back to dashboards.
Seems to me, carmakers employ whole squadrons of designers to come up with new methods of making a dashboard look like one solid piece. Of course, we all know that’s not the case, so why lie about it? What’s wrong with being able to see the little screws that hold the gauge panel in the dashboard? Where’s the harm in being able to identify the fasteners that allow one to remove a vent panel to clean in behind it? How is a hidden, moulded plastic clip that will break every time, superior to a screw that can be fastened and undone a million times?
I suppose it doesn’t matter too much to the person who buys (or leases, more likely) the car brand new and simply drops it back at the dealership every 10,000km for an oil change and a set of wiper blades. But for somebody like me (and you, I suspect) who will buy the same car a couple of decades later and attempt to service it and keep it running ourselves, this devotion to hiding how stuff goes together is a royal pain in the whatsit.
And I’d really love to know how all this started. At what point did car designers say: “Hey, we should make our cars look like they’re all one piece.” Having screws and bolts on display is soooooo 1950s. Yeah? Well, maybe it is, but I’ll bet London to a brick that you and I could keep a 1950s contraption in good nick, with simple hand tools and a decent workshop manual. Try that with your plug-in hybrid SUV.
Personally, I have no problem in being able to see fasteners. I mean, there’s got to be something joining that panel to this one, right. So why try to kid me that it’s all one piece when I know it aint? Since when has the idea of being able to see how a piece of machinery works become so offensive? And yet, what do we see when we open the bonnet on a new car? Yep, a big plastic cover designed to prevent curious eyes seeing how the thing might possibly work.
Of course, the counterpoint to this latest philosophy has been the distinctly anti-flattery steampunk movement. Which, by the way, I love.
This new/old way of looking at design sees exposed plumbing and visible fasteners all making a comeback with no attempt to hide either the workings or the design principles of the thing in question. It’s science on show and, given how magnificent something like a brace of side-draft carbies really is, or how beautiful a set of snaky, stainless-steel header pipes can be, it just makes sense to not simply not hide this stuff, but to actually highlight it.
The steampunk thing started with industrial design but has recently spread its lovely, hand-hammered wings to embrace all manner of design schools, including architecture and interior design. Actually, it wasn’t even originally a deliberate attempt at a new design language, rather it was a by-product of the thinking that so long as a metal press or a boiler system or a three-angle mill did the job, who cared if the plumbing, wiring or hydraulics were on show?
And hopefully, one day, cars will once again be the recipients of this school of thought. Until then, I’ll be out in the shed polishing the finned alloy rocker cover I found at a swap meet the other day. And then I’ll carefully choose what fasteners I use to attach it to my engine because not only will they hold the cover down and keep the oil inside, they’ll also be seen by anybody who bothers to look under the lid. In fact, I might even ditch the bonnet altogether.
I reckon making a machine look like a non-machine is a bit like those toddler beauty pageants in the States. You know the ones; where disillusioned middle-American moms live vicariously through their tackers by dressing up their three-year-old to look like a three-eighths-scale super-model. Frankly, it just demeans everybody involved, and it probably ought to stop.
From Steampunk to Steam Trains
The other design language I’d like to see make a comeback is that uber-plush, foot-stools-at-forty-paces vibe that came and went with the golden age of steam trains. The sort of thing we associate with the Pullman coach. I’m talking rich carpet, big, boofy, full-width lounges with corner cushions, sunblinds with tassels, miniature chandeliers and ornate wall-lights, brass luggage racks and lots of wood panelling. And instead of a panoramic sunroof, what about a proper lantern ceiling?
It was probably the time to be travelling the world by train (so I’m told) and I’d love to see a seven or eight-seat SUV presented the same way. Some modern stuff like Bentleys get close to this with their cast-aluminium brake pedals and diamond-quilted leather, but no carmaker has yet had the stones to go full Pullman. Come on fellas, let’s have it.
Zip It, Pal
I’ve been thinking about something The Speaker said the other day. We were interstate in the old W124 Benz and, as I always do, I was performing my morning, preflight checks before we set off for another few hundred kliks to our next stopover point.
You know the sort of thing: Dip the oil, check the brake fluid level and give the coolant tank a slap so that it puts a wave through the contents and you can suddenly see where it’s sitting despite the tank itself having discoloured to the exact same colour as the coolant. Oh, and running a quick eye over everything else with the potential to come loose/fall off/catch fire.
And whaddaya know? The previous day’s, er, spirited 700km had, indeed, caused a heater hose to move slightly. It wasn’t in a position where it was going to clobber anything or foul on anything else, but it wasn’t where it should be, so I broke out the travelling tool kit and grabbed a zip-tie of approximately the right length. Which I then used to secure the hose, snipped off the excess and threw the offcut in the toolbox to be disposed of sometime in the next 30 years.
“You know what,” The Speaker offered as this was happening, “zip-ties should be banned.”
Are you off your trolley,” I wanted to know. “There isn’t a single car in my shed or driveway that would be even remotely operational were it not for zip-ties. And race-tape.”
“I don’t care,” she fired back. “They’re wasteful and I bet all those bits you snip off are filling up the stomachs of sea turtles.” (She loves sea turtles.)
“Only if the turtles are living at the bottom of my toolbox.”
“I’m serious,” she said. “Ban zip-ties or make it a rule that they have to be reuseable.”
Thing is, she’s got a point. But she’s also a few years too late, because reuseable ties have been around for a while now. Except, the last time I looked, they were really expensive. But for the sake of peace for the rest of the day, I agreed to google them. And guess what? They’re actually widely available now and not at all expensive. So let’s do the environment a favour (not to mention the sea turtles) and all switch to reusable zip-ties. (Not sure what we’re gonna do about race-tape, though.)
Let’s face it, the average zip-tie doesn’t carry much weight or load (or shouldn’t anyway) and being able to reuse them should reduce the number of side-cutter incidents where removing an old tie has resulted in the loss of a digit.
New Tools, New Problems
Which brings me to buying new tools.
For reasons known only to the tool industry, every new gadget I’ve bought in the last few years – from a hole saw to a drill bit or even a hammer, has come packaged in clear, but very hard plastic with welded seams that couldn’t be pulled apart if they were attached to two Brock Commodores travelling in opposite directions. Why? Beats me, but maybe it’s to protect the contents during shipping. Although the hammer that requires impact protection is not the brand for me.
Anyway, I’ve discovered the hard way that the only genuinely successful way to liberate the contents of these plastic exo-skeletons is to cut each edge open with a pair of side-cutters. But what happens when the tool inside the plastic is the new pair of side-cutters you bought to replace the set that fell off your boat and into 40 metres of water last time you went fishing?
This could be the end of civilisation as we know it…