[QUOTE]Originally posted by PsychoBen
[B]He's saying a gear indicator and radio station preset number should be displayed on the gauge cluster?

 

Does the Vanquish you are referring to have manual transmission or sequential transmission (I honestly don't know)? If it's latter, then, again, apples and oranges...

For sequential transmission such as those on motorcycle and M3 SMG, I would say gear indicator is absolutely useful and a must. But for a manual car w/ HH shift pattern, I feel most people would be able to tell which gear they are in by the shifter position. Is it useful to a few? Evidently yes. But it seems like you guys are treating it as a freebie item. While we are on the wish list, I like to throw in tire pressure gauge, lateral g gauge, head-up display, brake bias monitoring, etc. - all of which is useful and can only help on the track or on the road. Hack, while we are at it throw in the Nav system too.

Now back to reality. S2000 is neither a Buick (I chose this analogy b/c they are known to have big space ship-like display for unimportant info and I applied it more to the radio station preset display request) nor a ~100k Vanquish. Besides, even assuming the Vanguish w/ gear indicator was a manual trans, I can name at least a dozen more exotic sports cars that do not, so what does that really prove? That it is an exception to the rule?

Fact is there is always somebody who wants something that is important to them. Over the years on this board, I have seen wish items from plush power seat to multi-color dash to automatic transmission to power hardtop. The question on hand is: Is it a reasonably practical item in an S2000 and does it fall in line with what the car is suppose to be. Although since several have voiced that they like the idea of a gear indicator, I am intrigued to see how many owners would choose it for X amount of dollars.

Ralper, my

 

I can't believe you spent so much time typing all that.

 

I really think the difference is you guys look at it as a personal have / not have item. I on the other hand look at it in broader scope: Would most S2000 owners pay X amount more for the car to have gear indicator as standard equipment? Personally I have a wish list that is a mile long. But looking at S2000's model as what it's suppose to be, I can easily see the validity of my list of wants not being standard on the car.

 

I can't believe you actually read it.

Eh, stuck indoor w/ the snow storm outside...what else am I going to do.

 

PsychoBen

You are talking about two very different things:

You are absolutely right when you speak of the information overload in school. I couldn't remember what year Jan Van Eyck painted his masterpiece, nor could I remember all of the elements on the periodic chart. There was entirely too much trivia for me, and I wasn't so interested in it. Moreover, these were things that I had to memorize, not observe.

When I am in the cockpit of my car I do want a steady stream of information to flow from gauges allowing me to moniter (if I choose) the functions of my car. I'm not so sure that you disagree. One of the aspects of sportscar driving is driver involvement. Gauges and information is part of the feedbact that makes up driver involvement. Very few of us need a tach, but none of us would buy the car without it.

I would be willing to pay extra for the gauges and gear indicator. The fact that I was willing to pay in the upwards of $32,000 for a two seat, sometime, fun vehicle should be proof enough of that. If I was concerned with the few dollars I'd have ended up with a Civic DX. No fun but economical.

 

Not a personal attack but a self observation. If I'm at that point in my life where I desire some mechanical reassurance to indicate what gear I'm in, I think it would be wise to get more intimate with my automobile. To outfit a cockpit with the motivation that "one can never have enough information" would seem to be a bad receipe for someone who needs a light to let them know they just dropped from 5th to 2nd. Less time "looking" and more time "listening" has served me well. This opinion applies to gear indicators, not electronic engine monitoring gauges. FWIW, I put oil pressure and water temp gauges in my car but for good reasons. I can get three bars up here in Vermont and my water temp gauge is reading 130 degrees. Not cool. That water temp bar light is useless. As for the gear indicator light, I would think in most cases, the only reason for an indicator light is to tell you is whether or not you made it to the right gear but doesn't that large electronic tach, the location of the shifter and the exhaust note provide that info? Is it that difficult to know the difference between 4th and 2nd gear at 75mph?
Bottom line for me and it's just my opinion. A "gear indicator" light in a sportscar makes about as much sense as an Amish Traffic Cop.

 

Well then let's delete the tachometer. If you aren't intimate enough with your car to know how high it's revving, you might as well drive an automatic.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Russ
[B]Not a personal attack but a self

 

Thanks for posting that S2000 Driver! It's good to see some articles from 'the other side of the world' to get an indication of what overseas journalists think.