Really thoughtful design features

[BigBo]

Henry Fiddleton said:

IIRC MR2 Mk11 have illuminated ignition barrels?

Absolute god send when its dark...

Toyota optional extra the wee ep82 in my shed has that and the extra lights in the footwell

[jmorgan]

Like the Saab cup holders. And the dash dim button, turn all the lights off apart from the speedo, no idea why though.

[dazwalsh]

few nice touches from ford

heated front windscreen, an absolute god send

capless fuel filler system, think it also prevents miss fueling too.

cubby hole big enough under front arm rest to hold a 2 litre bottle of water. (Kuga)

more of a safety feature I suppose but if you slam on it automatically puts the hazards on, hopefully preventing anyone running into the back of you.

The soft ambient lighting directed down on to the center console from where the rear view mirror is.

puddle lights

[Al U]

BigBo said:

would a feature not be the likes of turbos ,LSD's, MIVEC or VTEC surly most of what's been said are more little gimmicks rather then features?

To me, a feature is something that if it were taken away it would either save cost or reduce complexity of a part or system. So it could be anything on the car really that you think is useful if it was put there by the designers in the first place.

[BennyW]

Remote control headlights on my megane, useful for finding the car in a car park or for fully lighting up the driveway from a distance without unlocking the car

[Crook]

LS400 had wipers that slipped down behind the rear bonnet lip when not in use. It also put the wipers on intermittent when stopped.
I think it was that car that tilted the NS door mirror when the car was in reverse. Also steering wheel that gets out of your way when you take the key out.

On the filler cap/clip thing, the MK4 Golf has a castellated rim around the thread that clips over the top of the hinged flap. Neat.

[FD3Si]

My Clio 172 has a tow hook. It's invaluable.

[TryingHard]

Honda Accord 2008

If the internal fan speed is very high (noisy) and a call comes through it reduces the fan speed whilst on the phone. When you hang-up the fan speed goes back up. Can be over-ridden if needed for very hot/cold days.

When you de-active other electric windows the lights on the buttons also go out (including the driver master control). Makes it easy in the dark to see if you have locked them.

Also has voice control - totally useless!

[AlmostUseful]

Al U said:

Another one I have just remembered that was very cool from my early motoring days was on my saxo VTR. It had a pin pad immobiliser in front of the gear stick like this. It meant that even if you had the keys, the engine wouldn't fire unless you entered the correct pin code. Friends would ask me if they could drive it and I would say go ahead and give them the keys, was quite funny seeing the look on their faces when it wouldn't start. Quite a cool security feature I thought although I'm sure pro's could bypass it -

My R plate Saxo had one of these too.
My number was 9681, what was yours?

[LeoZwalf]

CR6ZZ said:

lauda said:

CR6ZZ said:

For example, my Audi B6 S4 has a feature on the light switch that automatically turns off fog lights when you turn off your lights. As a consequence you must make a conscious decision to turn your fogs on each time you need them - they can't just be left on.

Every car I've ever owned does this, right back to my 1996 Honda Civic 1.4. I'm surprised anyone would design lighting controls that didn't work in this way.

Interesting. The S4 is the first car out of the many, many I have driven that has this feature. I must assume therefore, if it is indeed a common feature, that the dozens of drivers you see driving with their fogs on at inappropriate times are doing it just to be prats.

1992 mk3 Golf here has the same feature so it certainly isn't something modern!

[LittleEnus]

TryingHard said:

Honda Accord 2008

If the internal fan speed is very high (noisy) and a call comes through it reduces the fan speed whilst on the phone. When you hang-up the fan speed goes back up. Can be over-ridden if needed for very hot/cold days.

When you de-active other electric windows the lights on the buttons also go out (including the driver master control). Makes it easy in the dark to see if you have locked them.

Also has voice control - totally useless!

They should have put the R&D into making the fan quieter

[clonmult]

Triumph Man said:

WestYorkie said:

The little sunvisor on Vag cars also stops your rear view mirror getting dazzled when using the map lights.

Always thought this was a good idea on my Passat - like somebody had thought about it.

On my BMW, I like the little knurled wheel you can turn to have cold air at the face vents when the air is hot onto feet and screen. Unfortunately, BMW did not forsee the invention of "The woman" and as such there is no knurled wheel for the passenger side vents. And being a woman, she is always cold (some of the time...)

I also like the heated door locks (yes kind of pointless on modern cars with remote locking) but on normal central locking, it's actually very useful. You pull the driver's door handle for a few seconds, and the lock heats.

That cold air to the face was available on my '85 Vauxhall Cavalier.

The old Volvo 480 would flick the rear wiper when you engaged reverse if the front wipers were on. The door locks were also illuminated when you lifted the door handle.

[cocopop]

The original headlights on both my MX5 and RX7 were designed in such a way as to make it impossible to dazzle oncoming drivers, even on full beam.

Very thoughtful.

[clonmult]

Al U said:

My S2000 has a feature on the stamping inside the fuel filler flap that the cap slides into when you are putting petrol in the car. It's a nice idea because it means you haven't got to have the cap resting on the bodywork. The flap is upside down in the picture but I'm sure you get the idea. Haven't seen it on other cars, although I know some like ford have capless filler necks.

Variant of that on my 316Ti - there is an indent in the filler flap hinge that can hold the cap.

[Truckosaurus]

My old Saab 9-5 would do an extra courtesy wipe of the wipers about 5 seconds after you washed the screen to pick up any last drips and drops.

[TIGA84]

My old man bought an XFR a few months ago, have only played in it a couple of times but having the windscreen washer jets on the actual wipers is a fricking great idea.

[lemonslap]

jmorgan said:

Like the Saab cup holders. And the dash dim button, turn all the lights off apart from the speedo, no idea why though.

When I had my Saab 9-3, I used to use the dash light off button a lot when driving at night. Such a good system, would only leave the speedo illuminated unless something was wrong I.e fuel was low which it would then just light that part of the dash. Reallly miss this feature

[Tycho]

jmorgan said:

Like the Saab cup holders. And the dash dim button, turn all the lights off apart from the speedo, no idea why though.

The Saab cupholders were great. The dim button is meant to be better for your eyes when driving at night so there isn't much distraction. I also like the way the speedo is about 75% taken up by speeds up to 100 and then the next 25% is from 100 to 160.

[Riktoid]

Al U said:

My S2000 has a feature on the stamping inside the fuel filler flap that the cap slides into when you are putting petrol in the car. It's a nice idea because it means you haven't got to have the cap resting on the bodywork. The flap is upside down in the picture but I'm sure you get the idea. Haven't seen it on other cars, although I know some like ford have capless filler necks.

My old Zafira had this too, along with a dust cap tool to save you getting manky fingers when checking tyre pressures. I never used it!

[Al U]

AlmostUseful said:

My R plate Saxo had one of these too.
My number was 9681, what was yours?

I genuinely can't remember it was a good 6-7 years ago but I do remember that where they were pressed so frequently it was obvious which 4 numbers the code contained.