Wednesday 26th November 2003

Colour Dash

Multi coloured Guages are on their way

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Its something never seen on a production car before – but it'll be on the all-new Mustang.

A colour-configurable instrument cluster can be back-lit in any of 125 backgrounds by “mixing” three primary colors with the turn of a dial. The effect can be subtle or dramatic, particularly at night, as the speedometer and tachometer illuminate in variations of blue, green or red hues, creating a unique, personalized driving mood.

It uses six light-emitting diodes that are selectable in order from green, blue, purple, white, orange and red. The LEDs are filtered through innovative “light pipe” fittings on the sides of the speedometer, tachometer and vehicle operation indicator panel to create the numerous color options.

You can see how the system works courtesy of a screen saver available for download at www.fordvehicles.com .

[sublimatica]

Seems like a nice idea, if a little gimmicky. I drove my mate's Passat at night a while ago, and the blue-lit dials which I'd previously thought were kinda cool became very annoying and distracting when I was driving. Changing the colour to a less garish, 'trendy' colour would have been ace.

Don't suppose it costs much to achieve this sort of feature these days.

[Crazy of Cookham]

AHHH. Bling Bling reaches ford. Sounds a bit of a talking point in the pubs. Guess you can adjust colour to suite your driving mood. At last the guys across the pond are designing cars with a thought to fashion. Maybe they will get them tio go around corners as well soon.

[errek72]

Argh. Please no. Isn't all that Max Power stuff bad enough as it is? Can't Ford spend research money on how to built 'sports' cars without leaf springs?
I mean, Imagine Alfa or Mercedes coming up with an idea like this..

[ATG]

Almost a good idea. What might be more useful is if the backlighting conveyed some info. Frinstance, the rev counter backlight could change from yellow to red or even start flashing as you get near the rev limit. Maybe the speedo could change colour depending on what speed bracket you were in 0-30, 30-60, 70+ to give you some feedback in your peripheral vision.

[RichB]

No wonder Ford are loosing money hand-over-fist if this is what their "designers" are paid to worry about! Rich...

[v8thunder]

The idea of a changing dial to suit the revs/speed in your peripheral vision seems like a good idea, but their intention smacks of 'personlise your mobile phone' to me.

[simonrockman]

I'm driving a 1984 quattro this week and it's got LEDs. It's amazing how something which looked like the way of the future twenty years ago is really retro now. A bit like the scrolling BBC Micro listings on the console screens in Red Dwarf.

Simon

[Buffalo]

well it cant be that new because my mates saab had a radio that could change from deep red backlight through orange to greeen, but is uppose its the first *fully interchangeable setup*

Often wondered why manufacturers dont give you teh option of different colour lights - for example if you buy a new stereo, you could end up with a different backlight colour to your dash etc - although this isnt much of a problem now that radios aren't really interchangeable.

At the end of the day though, i'd rather my car handled superbly than be able to change colours on teh dash.

[Marshy]

errek72 said:

Can't Ford spend research money on how to built 'sports' cars without leaf springs? I mean, Imagine Alfa or Mercedes coming up with an idea like this..

D'ya think it took a Ford electronics boffin more than about a day to cobble up an RGB LED to a few pots and go "hey, dial in your own dash colour"?

[thepedster]

those trendy micro CD hifis have had these for good 2 years now, yes ford are the first to put it i na car and very cool it is, but its not ass over face crazy is it???

but yes I do want one in my next car,

/gets out the soldering iron and some LEDs...

[LuS1fer]

Which Ford sports car in recent memory has leaf springs again?

[DennisTheMenace]

Ford courier