Let’s say you’re a car designer and you’re penning a new model from scratch, so you can put the switches and levers essentially anywhere you want. You’re probably going to place them with established conventions in mind, perhaps ergonomic data, certainly some sort of common sense, right? You’d think.
So why do some manufacturers choose the most absurd locations for controls?
There are plenty of examples out there. Here are just a few instances of some really idiotic control placements:
Saab 9-3: Rear seat heater switch in the front of the car
No, I am not gonna mention the ignition key, which is not as bad a placement as you might think. It’s the fact that the rear seat heat button is impossible to access from the back. And most people didn’t know it had rear seat heaters. I owned one of these, and if you had an infantile mentality and wanted to mess with rear-seat passengers, you would not be the first.
Alfa 75 Milano: Power window switches on the ceiling (front only)
Well, the front power window switches are up there. Not only is the position odd, but the buttons are both unlabeled and do an odd left/right press to make the windows go up and down.
The rear window switches are located on the panel behind the lid on the center console where both front and rear occupants have to contort to get to them. Rolling down all four windows requires some aerobic exercise. Of course, it’s an old Alfa so just be happy that they put the switches inside of the car; if you value ergonomics over a Busso V6 at full song this ain’t the car for you anyway.
Porsche 944/968: Odometer reset by pushing in an air vent
And no, it isn’t labeled at all.
Audi Coupe: Trunk only opens from inside the car
See the clean trunk lid? Yup, no key. And this was a decade or so before they got wireless key fob releases, so no dice if you’re trying to open it when you’re standing at the bumper, hands full of shit. Unsurprisingly, the Alfa Milanos (and a number of other cars) are the same way.
Sterling 825: Hood release in passenger’s side footwell
This is the Acura Legend that the Brits covered in their own body and interior (and electrics – ahhh!). Both the Honda and the Rover were home market RHD cars, and while the Japanese car chose to move the hood release to the driver’s side on US cars, the English manufacturer kept it right where it was in old Blighty – you can see it below the ill-fitting glove box. Bad choice, especially since in this British version you’ll be opening that hood way more than in the Legend. I will say that wood still looks pretty damn nice, though.
What cars have you owned where you wondered if, as Jeremy Clarkson once said about the Porsche 911, the designers of the interior stuffed all the switches up their nose, sat in the driver’s seat, and sneezed to place them? We want to know!
UK spec RHD BMW E30 3-series has the bonnet/hood release on the passenger side of the car. And the brake booster too, operated by a linkage running across the car, which isn’t so much an ergonomic issue as it is a surprising bodge.
Nissan 350Z has the ESP off button on the underside of the dash where only your kneecap can see it. It’s right next to the identically shaped switch that washes your headlights. Those are functions which you don’t mix up.
S13 Nissan 200SX in RHD had the rear fog light switch at knee level on the RHS of the dash. So every other drive you had your fog lights on.
2CV interior fan speed controller is the gas pedal. It uses the fan bolted on the front of the crank to gently waft air/exhaust fumes ineffectively at the bottom of the screen, but only just before you change up to the next gear. To demist the screen quickly you need to be doing 70MPH in 4th gear.
2006 Lotus Europa door locks. To lock the doors you can use the key in the door, or push the pin down on the top of the door, both of which disable the door locks in entirely separate ways that you can’t undo with the other control. Or you can use the unlabelled rocker switch on the front edge of the gear shift turret that can only be seen from your feet, which I guess is why it’s unlabelled.
My Renault Avantime puts the only power button for the stereo on a remote control which lives in a glove compartment.
The rotary shifter on the console in recent Explorers. It’s 1) the wrong interface (rotary) 2) in the wrong place (you could put it in the dash on closer to the steering wheel and gain a spot to put a phone holder, cup holder, baby changing table, between the front seats.)
The Citroën CX radio placement vertically between the front seats: Impossible to operate and dirt fell down the casette hatch