2006 Honda Civic Sedan

I would say that the designers wanted the operator to be able to view the Tach easily.

Hardly more important than the Tach. Normally odometers are just big enough to be seen.

Brian

Thanks for info. However, I still do not get it.. i.e. about that huge tachometer. Perhaps I need someone to explain what is exactly the functionality of a tachometer. I hardly look at mine, as I usually have to concentrate more on the speed of my car... particularly these days where there is camera on almost every intersection of the city. I recall that the tachometer indicates the engine's RPM. What good does it do for regular drivers ? ...just to look at the needle jumping up and down as you change gear (manually or automatically)? I perhaps need a quick education here :) If I drive with the usual speed and handling of a car, I hardly see the needle even close to the "red" line. So, what's the point? And now why Honda makes it into a BIG issue in their visual dashboard of the new Civic?

Any comment about the back of the new Civic car, which is similar to the new Audi A4? I have not seen both new cars on the street... so, perhaps in reality, they may not be that similar anyway. I believe it is only similar for the sedan model... not the coupe, or the one originally shown in the Concept Civic vehicle... or even in the "City" asian edition or in the new Japanese Civic edition.

Howard wrote:

It's a sports car tradition. Classic sports cars had so little power, and what they had was only at high RPMs (pre-vtech), that you did want to know where that red line was, and for all that, it was relatively hard to break the speed limit accidentally. Compared to a Triumph Spitfire or an MGBGT or my old Alfa Romeo, today's Civic is so overpowered, it's not funny! The Alfa had the tach front and center.

With a stick, so you're sure which gear you're in, you can map the tach reading to the MPH, heck, you do that by ear (old sports cars were a lot noisier than Hondas, even though Hondas are purposely a bit noisier than Toyotas, just so you can drive them by ear, a little!)

Basically, the idea is you look at the tach because you love it, and you look at the speedometer because you must.

J.

the spedometer is more important, hence the reason it is put higher up, in your line of sight? Make sense