I love that MINI put the rev-counter front and center.

What other cars do that as well?

I know that Smart cars are like that...

...but recently I remembered the Renault Twingo (starting in 2007 I think?) was also designed with this layout:




Any others out there?

 

A bunch of cars center the rev counter (Porsche, Mazda, many others) in a conventional dash, typically with speedo and engine instruments flanking on either side. A 2nd part of Mini's implementation is to have a center-mounted primary display. Prius and Tesla M3 come immediately to mind as cars who went with large central displays, although neither puts a tach in front of the driver as such a feature isn't very important their intended market . It's obviously not a great idea to have to glance to the right to monitor speed so most systems include some type of aux display for speed in the driver's line of sight (including Mini). The advantage to the automakers is that it increases commonality between left- and right-hand-drive models for different countries.

I have very mixed feelings about Mini's implementation of this feature. On the Gen1's, the tach was nice and the center display had a nice retro vibe and was pretty functional, but as it grew to basketball proportions, it became awkward and a round presentation doesn't really fit with most of the information you want to display. This is my main gripe with later-model stying where many styling elements were grown to cartoonish proportions. I'd like to see Mini give this one up and go with conventional rev counter and speedo in front of the driver.

- Mark

 

Good points.

I agree about the XL pizza pan being of cartoonish proportion and should no doubt be improved upon.

Yeah,
Porsche jumps to mind immediately with regards to center placement of tacho, along with a good number of others as well as you say, especially the classics before most gauge clusters became a kombi-instrument style.

Stuff like old Alfa Romeo is lovely.





But I was curious moreso about the solo pod style set-up as it seems to be less utilized.

I did come across another variant which is pretty cool and used cross-platform on Toyota Aygo / Peugeot 107 / Citroën C1





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:

:

Another odd variant of the solo pod style is on the Fiat Seicento,
although it is off-center.

 

The Twingo I posted earlier is a hot Gordini variant and it had a different rev-counter face design than the base model.

The base model is a little more simplified and has what I'd call a classic VDO typeface.

I like the way that the numbers graduate in size from small to large in both designs.

 

Australian MINI’s have their tach in the center, just not directly in front of the driver.

Their laws prohibit the giant speedo so they got a giant tach instead.

 

yep!

I had a crazy idea once...

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ble-tacho.html

...thinking I could get an Oz spec tach and replace my speedo with it LOL

:

:

:

Came across another solo pod style rev-counter,
but it is small and off-center.



I think it is poorly designed as it looks a mess to me.

As seen fitted to Suzuki Splash:



and,
Opel Agila:

 

Never knew that the old Plymouth Prowler had this single pod central tach layout:




I find it rather odd that they opted for a straightup AutoMeter, but I suppose it adds to the vintage hot rod ambiance.

"The tachometer is the only instrument directly ahead of the driver; the huge AutoMeter tach has a strapped-on look, emerging from a hole cut into the standard corporate steering column."

https://www.allpar.com/model/prowler.html

:

Although they think it's huge,
I think it is too small!
...


...and looking back again now at the Twingo RS,
I really like how they built in a shift light:

 

Chevrolet did a twist of this in the wayback days -





And,
what about a neat outlier which is an odd version on the theme,
oldschool musclecar hoodmount tach:



:

Alfetta GTV in the 1970's did the solo pod thing:



:

I suppose we can also count the Chevy Sonic here.



:
:

Y O W Z A ! ! !



But browsing BaT this morning I see a Ferrari 488 Pista which is just an incredible machine,
which also happens to have a nice center-focused rev-counter.

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/20...8-pista-coupe/

Beautiful!

 

TRD offers a solo pod rev counter for the Vitz.



And,
this vintage Fiat Abarth 850 TC Nurburgring Corsa isn't a solo pod, but man is it truly beautiful!



The nuovo Fiat 500 has a solo pod, but it was a multifunction unit and to my eye quite convoluted and busy with the rev counter being a bit too slim and almost lost amongst the visual clutter,
I suppose you'd get used to it though.




New Beetle had a similar multifunction solo pod but it was more analog and it had a tiny tiny tiny tachometer.



Veering slightly,
just saw a video of an R50 racing in MINI Challenge with a clocked tach (that's what I've always called it but have seen it called "rotated", "sideways", or "tilted" as well) which was the first one I've seen like that on a MINI...


...would require some fiddly tinkering to get it mounted like that.

Rather odd and I'm curious to how it'd be, but I think I prefer the standard fitment location.

Older racecars often had rotated tachometers for easier quick-glance visibility...



...and it's a popular thing with aircooled 911 owners as well.

 

toyota 86 has center tach too

 

Race cars often clocked all of the gauges so the needles pointed to 12 under normal operating conditions.

 

Was just looking at this nifty wagon on BaT --- looks like a tach but it's a speedo, I like how it goes zero-to-zero!

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/19...er-american-2/

Close-up pic from another Rambler found on the web: