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Most cars sold in America have ugly interiors. They are full of hard plastics and the fit and finish is the last thing on the designers minds.
I still don't get why European cars get more time and attention paid to their interiors, when American cars are left to look like the inside of a Matchbox car.
I think it's ugly in Mini's too. It's a unique interior but I really dislike it.
Agreed. I would never own one but I've always thought they were cool looking cars until you get to the interior which is quite hideous, particularly for a car costing $35k+.
Retractable door-handle flaps
Single front wiper blade (common on supercars and purpose built race cars and older E-series Mercedes Benzs)
Steering wheel with a single vertical and a single horizontal spoke
Pistol-grip shifter
an ECU for engine and transmission management (common on current vehicles)
Steering wheel with both tilt and reach/depth adjustment (common on current vehicles)
Instrument cluster that tilted with the steering wheel
Furthermore, some models were equipped with additional features:
Digital instrument cluster that tilted with the steering wheel
Headlight Washers (seen on various luxury cars of the last decade)
Trip computer with range/fuel management facilities (common on current vehicles)
Pneumatic suspension with height control (common on some current vehicles, supercars and purpose built race cars)
Push-button four-wheel drive (later changed to all-wheel drive)
Hill holder brake system, prevented rolling on hills in the manual transmission version.
I had one. The interior is designed based on an airplane cockpit. There were buttons and switches everywhere. One I never figured out what it did. Mine had most or all of those features, excpet it was automatic. A lot of those features were neat, but did not work very well. It was impossible to get the steering wheel into a comfortable driving position because the column was thick and all those things sticking out of it tangled with your knees. The oddball steeringwheel shape was difficult to grip in a comfortable position at least for me. The trip computer was cool, but inaccurate. You could also raise the suspension up or down 3" with a button. Not sure what that was supposed to accomplish, but it was fun. The lines that make up the road on either side of the little car on the dash were a tach and turbo boost depiction. The lines would grow or shrink depending on RPM and turbo boost. When you made the car go up on the air suspension, the little car picture would also rise up. It had a great huge sunroof. Windshield was super sloped and the side windows were funky. Overall, it was pretty much a POS, under powered, bad mileage, mediochre at best handling, uncomfortable. A bit of a dog to drive. Plus some big problems with the cooling system/turbocharger. However it was unique, easy to pick out in a parking lot and it was fun to watch when people got into it and said "WTF???!!!" It was more bizzarre looking than in the picture. The interior was totally ugly, but absolutely unique. The seat fabric was totally 1980s japanese. It was funny. I have to admit, I loved it - at least in retorspect. I am not sure I did at the time. If they had not all rusted away to nothing, I might try to buy one for fun and nostalgia, or to give a kid. I do not think there was anything like them ever again.
This picture shows the dash up close. Tis is an accurate picture since one of the engine problem idiot lights is on (right side top). That was its normal condition.
Last edited by Coldjensens; 09-18-2012 at 11:26 AM..
Most cars sold in America have ugly interiors. They are full of hard plastics and the fit and finish is the last thing on the designers minds.
I still don't get why European cars get more time and attention paid to their interiors, when American cars are left to look like the inside of a Matchbox car.
European cars have plenty of plastic in their interiors, too.
Agreed. I would never own one but I've always thought they were cool looking cars until you get to the interior which is quite hideous, particularly for a car costing $35k+.
I happen to like the interior of my MINI Cooper. And it wasn't anywhere NEAR $35k. I like the funky center speedo, with a digital speedo directly in front of you in the tach cluster. I like how everything is functional, and in easy reach and works well. I like the blue accent lighting at night in the handles and footwells, and the materials you tend to need to touch feel good. I don't care about harder plastics, as I remember the days of hard painted metal interiors. I don't drive around stroking my dash, anyhow. But it has good fit and finsih and no rattles.
Notice it doesn't have a bunch of cheap silver plastic bits like the earlier picture. The black plastic looks and feels high quality and fits the style quite well, especially with the chrome ring accents.
It does have a lot of circles, but who cares? on older cars, if you had a dash full of gauges, you had a lot of circles, too:
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