The dashboard of a modern car, a Bentley Continental GTC

A dashboard, dash, and sometimes fascia (chiefly in British English) is a control panel located under the windshield of an automobile. The Bentley Continental GT is a Grand tourer Coupé with two Doors and a 2+2 seating arrangement released in 2003 replacing the previous British English or UK English ( BrE, BE, en-GB) is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the A control panel is a flat often vertical area where control or monitoring instruments are displayed The windshield or windscreen of an Aircraft, Automobile, Bus, Motorcycle, or Tram is the front Window It contains instrumentation and controls pertaining to operation of the vehicle. During the design phase of an autombile, the dashboard or instrument panel may be abbreviated to IP.

Originally, a dashboard was the upturned screen of wood or leather placed on the front of a horse-drawn carriage, sleigh or other vehicle that protected the driver from mud, debris, water and snow thrown up by the horse's hooves. A carriage is a wheeled vehicle for people usually horse-drawn A sled, sledge or sleigh is a Vehicle with runners for sliding instead of wheels for rolling Vehicles, derived from the Latin word vehiculum, are non-living Means of transport. ^{[1] [2]}

Types of dashboards

A Suzuki GSX1300R motorcycle dash

Lawn mowers, farm tractors, and earlier automobiles sometimes have little more than a steering wheel and some form of ignition or power switch. The Suzuki Hayabusa (also known as the GSX1300R in some countries is a Hyper sport motorcycle originally introduced by Suzuki in 1999

Custom-built racing cars often simply have a piece of sheet metal that forms the dashboard. Whenever a new gauge needs to be added, a hole is drilled in the appropriate location. Open wheeled racing cars often have no space for a dashboard, so the instrument cluster is integrated into the center of the steering wheel. Open-wheel car (Often single-seater car, in UK English describes cars with the wheels outside the car's main body and in most cases one seat

Motorcycles and mopeds have a compressed version of car dashboards, but nevertheless larger machines sometimes have enough room for items such as audio equipment and GPS navigation. MotorCycle is the title of a 1993 album by Rock band Daniel Amos, released on BAI Records. Mopeds are a class of low-powered (typically under 50 cc displacement) motorized vehicle generally two or three wheeled Basic concept of GPS operation A GPS receiver calculates its position by carefully timing the signals sent by the constellation of GPS Satellites high above the Earth

Dashboard and centre console layout

Increasingly, manufacturers are experimenting with moving all display portions to the center console. Various arguments are put forward for this, including cost savings when constructing both left- and right-hand-drive versions.

Padded dashboards and safety

Padded dashboards were advocated in the 1940s by car safety pioneer Claire L. Straith ^[3]

Under the aegis of a safety program initiated by Robert McNamara (see The Fog of War documentary), padded "safety" dashboards were introduced in 1956 by Ford under the name "Lifeguard". Claire L Straith (1891-1958 was an American plastic surgeon Dr Robert Strange McNamara (born June 9 1916 in Oakland, California) is an American business executive and former United States Secretary of Defense The Fog of War Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S McNamara (2003 directed by Errol Morris, is an American Documentary film about the life Ford Motor Company is an American Multinational corporation and the world's fourth largest automaker based on Worldwide vehicle sales, following Lifeguard was the name of a 1956 safety package marketed by the Ford Motor Company. Consumers showed little interest. ^[4]

One of the safety enhancements of the 1970s was the widespread adoption of padded dashboards. The padding is commonly polyurethane foam, while the surface is commonly either polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or leather in the case of luxury models. A polyurethane, commonly abbreviated PU, is any Polymer consisting of a chain of organic units joined by urethane links The most general definition of foam is a substance that is formed by trapping many gas Bubbles in a Liquid or Solid.

In the 1990s, airbags became a common fitment on dashboards, and are mandatory in some countries. An airbag is part of a vehicle's safety restraint system a flexible envelope designed for rapid inflation in an automobile Collision, to prevent vehicle occupants

Dashboard items

Dashboard instruments displaying various car and engine conditions

Items located on the dashboard first included the steering wheel and the instrument cluster. A steering wheel (also called a driving wheel or hand wheel) is a type of steering Control in Vehicles and vessels ( Ships and Boats The instrument cluster pictured to the right contains gauges such as a speedometer, tachometer, odometer, fuel gauge, and indicators such as a gear shift position, seat belt warning light, and engine malfunction light. A speedometer is a device that measures the instantaneous Speed of a land vehicle A tachometer is an instrument that measures the rotation speed of a shaft or disk as in a motor or other machine An odometer (often known colloquially as a mileometer or milometer) is a device used for indicating Distance traveled by an Automobile or other A fuel gauge (or gas gauge) is an instrument used to indicate the level of Fuel contained in a tank Later came heating and ventilation controls and vents, lighting controls, and audio equipment. In more modern cars, automotive navigation systems are mounted in the dashboard. An automotive navigation system is a satellite navigation system designed for use in Automobiles.

Audio equipment

The first audio component other than a radio was a monophonic phonograph option on some Chrysler cars well before the cassette or eight-track tape players, which could only be operated when the car was stopped. Monaural (often shortened to mono) sound reproduction is single-channel Chrysler LLC is an American Automobile manufacturer that has been producing Automobiles since 1925 The Compact Cassette, often referred to as audio cassette, cassette tape, cassette, or simply tape, is a Magnetic tape sound This is an article about the 8-track cartridge For eight-track multitracking see Multitrack recording. Graphic equalizers and controls for increased bass came next, and finally CD players. Equalization (or equalisation, EQ) is the process of changing the frequency envelope of a sound in Audio processing. A Compact Disc (also known as a CD) is an Optical disc used to store digital data, originally developed for storing digital audio

The audio system controls (such as radio and CD player) may also be on the dashboard, although volume and tuning, for example, may be controlled from a stalk beside the steering wheel.

The top of a dashboard may contain speakers for an audio system, and vents for the heating and air conditioning system. A glovebox is often found on the passenger side, and sometimes on both sides. For the sealed container for handling hazardous materials see Glovebox.

A heavily stylised dashboard with deeply recessed instruments and controls from a 1980s Lancia Beta — period fashion

Fashion in instrumentation

In the 1940s through the 1960s, American car manufacturers and their imitators designed unusually-shaped instruments on a dashboard laden with chrome and transparent plastic, which could be less readable but was often thought to be more stylish. The Lancia Beta is a car produced by Lancia. It was the first Lancia produced by the company after it had been taken over by Fiat in 1969 Sunlight could cause a bright glare on the chrome, particularly for a convertible.

With the coming of the LED in consumer electronics, some manufacturers used instruments with digital readouts to make their cars appear more up to date, but this has faded from practise. Some cars use a head-up display to project the speed of the car onto the windscreen in imitation of fighter aircraft, but in a far less complex display. A head-up display, or HUD, is any transparent display that presents data without requiring the user to look away from his or her usual viewpont

Gallery

Typical dashboard position in the front of the passenger compartment

Dashboard of a WWII jeep

A modern Formula 1 car may have its on-board instrumentation mounted on the steering wheel

A cluster of gauges as typically seen on kit-cars

Notes

See also

• Automotive navigation system
• Car AV
• Dashboard electronics
• Glove compartment
• In car entertainment
• Vehicular communication systems