Bright hand drive
Posted by Tom Ford at 11:50AM on Tuesday 01 April, 2008 6 Comments
I have a couple of older, more mature cars on my personal fleet (OK, old and cheap barely covers it, but you'd be surprised at how many motoring journalists don't actually own a car) and have been struck many times by the differences between my day-job metal and my night-time fumblers.
For a start, I recently had to hop from my Mondeo long-termer into my wife's 2004 BMW 3-Series and thence into my '84 300TE Mercedes, and I was struck by one massive difference: the interior illumination.
Now I've never really clocked it, but even on quite a low brightness setting the interior of the Mondy is bright. It simply has so many light sources.
There are loads of switches all individually lit, a giant satnav/infotainment screen, another screen between the dials. It's like being bathed in one of those seasonal adjustment disorder mood lights unless you take everything way down, and even then you don't need a map light... unless your cataracts are playing you up.
Contrast that with an un-optioned (I paid for this one myself) 3-Series and you get soft orange lights in the instrument binnacle and on the radio and window switches. Barely visually interfering and a much, much darker cabin. Tremendously calming and much less distracting.
Then at the other end of the scale is my old Merc, which is probably supposed to have more lights than it has, but I'm happy fumbling around in the dark because it's like a giant, creaking, warm-oil-smelling womb.
No flashy bits here - and genuine bulbs rather than clinical LEDs or screens. Like motoring candlelight. I love it, even though it's a bit of an eye-strain.
Hmmm, at what point does all this stuff get a bit too distracting? I wonder whether there's some sort of EC directive on the subject?
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6 Comments for "Bright hand drive"
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I get that at some point I'm going to need to know where the defrost button is, or the traction control switch or whatever, but most of the time those lights are just a nuisance.
What happened to those dimmer switches we used to have that would dim everything in the cockpit? Leave that one light on, and let me dim the rest out of existence if need be!
I know exactly what you mean. I drive a 1996 Fiesta and even though it came with interior lights they have a habit of not wanting to turn themselves on when they see fit, and thus, night driving in my Fiesta is such a relaxing experience with only the light green glow of the instrument binnacle keeping me company.
Driving my parent's Almera on the other hand always leaves me with a headache at night just because of the sheer amount of lights inside the car... maybe car companies are trying to get us to buy smaller cars by blinding us in big ones?
One thing I've always been aware of in my lovely 10- year-old 206 is that if I turn the headlights on because it's raining rather than dark, I can no longer read the clock.
Being a car of sufficient age, I don't have any LEDs or screens, just a very dim array of orange lights on my instrument binnacle and stereo.
I much prefer this to the inside of a Lexus GS430 I was in recently, which was lit up like a hospital ward... very cold.
Saab had a similar button a while ago (it was on TG years ago) in the 9-3 Aero I think, where pressing it turned all interior lights off bar itself and the instruments, a 'Night Mode' kind of thing. Why don't all manufacturers have a similar button?
Would I be a complete pauper for mentioning that one of my favourite features on my Mazda MX-5 is its illuminated gearknob?
I'll get my coat...
I love the night feature on my C4. Everything bar the speed and the dials just turns off and the rest is dimmed just enough to let you drift off and test the vibrating seats!