Fabulous design touches.

[Pete-M]

I love the boot lid badges on these. Especially the jovial script used for 760 GLE.

 

 

Mustang and other '60s / early 70's speedo font.

 

 

Oh, there's loads more bits like this...

[Albert Ross]

Vectra B Mirror/bonnet/door interface.

[Timewaster]

205 Gti clocks

Dont know why, just like them.

 

+1 on the Volvo badges

[RoadworkUK]

 

Ribbed (for our pleasure) rear light clusters on Fords from '80 to '86ish. Why no ribbed clusters any more?

 

Also; the Sierra Ghia ones with the thin black lines on, like wot my Dads one had.

[dollywobbler]

Rover 75 dashboard.

 

Saab 9-5 double sunvisor (perhaps the only good feature about the car!).

No, ignore the mirror. Look above. Sunvisor down, but there's another sunvisor! Means you can twist one round to the side window and still have one for the windscreen. Very Scandinavian.

 

Range Rover bonnet corners. Strengthens the HUGE bonnet panel and looks so right.

[eddyramrod]

I loved the rear lights on these from the moment I saw them. The car won't ever set the world on fire, but it's acceptable enough; the lights just melted my heart.

 

Light-related again, sorry... See those flaps covering the headlights? They flip down, revealing four fixed headlights, and when you turn them off, the flap rises before the lights go out. It's quite spooky!

[PaykanHunter]

 

Hunter by the justified sinner, on Flickr

[freebird]

Other cars have "design touches" this car is one big design touch.

Its, possibly, the most beautiful thing on Gods Earth.

Every part of the car is a design touch, you could look at it for a week and still be finding little touches of beauty.

If only I had won that £100 million on the lottery and not those Fenland pikeys.

[flat4alfa]

[Justin Case]

Citroen C6 door pockets :

 

 

And not forgetting of course the iconic Maserati Clock:

 

[andrew e]

The hazzard light in the radio on early Ka's.

[gtd2000]

Citroen C6 door pockets :

 

 

And not forgetting of course the iconic Maserati Clock:

 

 

That looks like something you'd make after watching an episode of Blue Peter!

[Shep Shepherd]

My late uncle had a 1985 740 GL saloon with the 'jovial' boot script

[hairnet]

granarda mk2 manual sunroof handle

 

the fuel filler in the taillight (caddy?)

 

70s escort clock pod with rev counter.....(maybe im just a perv)

 

308 rrari door handle

[shite_meister]

Rover P6 front sidelights, they've got little pointy ears so that you can see from inside the car that the light is working, most get snapped off though.

 

Lexus LS400, steering wheel moves out of the way when you pull the key from the ignition, I always have mine turned off though.

[Pete-M]

Rover P6 front sidelights, they've got little pointy ears so that you can see from inside the car that the light is working, most get snapped off though.

 

Lexus LS400, steering wheel moves out of the way when you pull the key from the ignition, I always have mine turned off though.

 

Cadillacs had a little fibre optic or other magically powered version of that. Dip, main and indicators had little tell tails on the wing. Not quite as cool, but funky anyway.

[warren t claim]

When I was in Canada in the mid 1980s a family friend had a Pontiac GTO with the rev counter ON THE BONNET! How cool is that???

[tonedepear]

When I was in Canada in the mid 1980s a family friend had a Pontiac GTO with the rev counter ON THE BONNET! How cool is that???

 

That's awesome!

[Cavcraft]

*Awaits flaming:

 

The seating arrangement on the Zafira and the whole thing in general. The middle seats slide back/forth, the seating arrangement is both clever and useful and they managed to make a useable seven seater that's not massive (and not as crap) as a Galhembraron.

[DSdriver]

Citroen DS has a fibre optic cable from the dashboard lights to the ignition key socket. They were obviously fascinated by this new (at the time) material but couldn't find a serious use for it.

[M'coli]

Early Maestro/Montego column stalks: the symbols on them were lit by fibre optics when you switched on the lights.

 

 

Edit: this was written at the same time as the DS post above, so I wasn't reminded by it!

[Justin Case]

When I was in Canada in the mid 1980s a family friend had a Pontiac GTO with the rev counter ON THE BONNET! How cool is that???

 

Coincidentally, I was earlier reading an article in an old 'Classic American' about a 1970 AMC Rambler Rebel Machine and look what that had :

 

[dollywobbler]

Didn't the Dodge Charger have its indicator warning lights on the bonnet as well? There's a car with a few fabulous design touches.

[R9UKE]

Renault 25 and Vel Satis have a lovely "electrically assisted" tailgate lock. Drop the boot down on to the catch gently and a motor sucks it shut with the beautiful sound of fully functional French gadgetry. Yes - the 25 in my driveway won't start, but it still sucks it's boot shut nicely! You really appreciate it when you're in the car and somebody (who knows how to use it) shuts the boot... no ear popping bang

[eddyramrod]

Renault 25 and Vel Satis have a lovely "electrically assisted" tailgate lock. Drop the boot down on to the catch gently and a motor sucks it shut

 

Yes, Cadillacs have been doing that since at least the 60s....

[Pete-M]

 

The Skoda Superb "twin door". I love this idea. Love it to bits. I like Saloon and Estate cars. Not a fan of the hatchback for some reason - give me a Granada Saloon over the hatch every day - but hatchbacks are occasionally a godsend. So having a nice saloon car with a hatch for those times it's needed is an ace idea. It works, too. I've been driving them a few hundred miles a week for the last 18 months.

[warren t claim]

The stereos fitted to 1996-2001ish Ford cars.

 

a fantastic piece of logical design.

[Craig the Princess]

 

This switch on a Rover R8 which changes the brightness of the lights on the dashboard. Fantastic.

[55bloke]

Amazed no one has mentioned the indicators in the tops of the rear fins on PA Crestas - or the rear indicators on Citroen DSs. As for the electronic closing of the boot on Renault 25s, wasn't that only on the Bacarra? Certainly not on my TXE!

[Timewaster]

This switch on a Rover R8 which changes the brightness of the lights on the dashboard. Fantastic.

 

Not unique to the R8 by any means.