# Thoughts on centered instrument panels in cars?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-centered-instrument-panels-in-cars/254338>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [July 9, 2004, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-centered-instrument-panels-in-cars/254338 "2004-07-09T19:44:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\
**Post date:** [July 11, 2004, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-centered-instrument-panels-in-cars/254338/21 "2004-07-11T23:37:01Z")

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I drive a Citroen Xsara Picasso which has a centralised instrument panel (I think they made it this way so that left and right-hand drive cars would have a greater number of common components) It took about five minutes to get used to and to be honest, I think it is better; the steering wheel is never in the way. It looks like [this](http://www.birmingham101.com/xsara1.jpg) BTW.

The display is entirely digital (the speed is expressed in large 7-seg numerals) - I actually find this easier to read and instantly understand than I ever did with an analogue speedo. The other advantage is that, should I take it abroad, I can just press a button and have it switch to displaying km/h instead of mph.

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