Why did dashes go to pot in the 70's

[Stephen Remington <s1remington@domain.elided>]

Somewhat picking up off a great old thread from this Fall: Why did the da=
shes
of Italian cars start to be so awful in the mid 1970's? Robert Brady ment=
ioned
in the "The Best GTV" thread: "The '72 gets the bigger engine, but also g=
ets
the ugly interior, ugly grill and cheapo dash" I may have a bad memory bu=
t
seems everyone wanted a GTV assembled with a 60's look and 70's mechanica=
ls.

I had a 75 Lancia Beta once (probably designed a couple years earlier). I=
t had
an ok dash but it did have real wood. By 1979 it got this modular plastic=
 look
which was much less appealing. The Countach of the 1970's had an ugly mod=
ular
looking dash. What happened? In the late 60's there were some of the best=

looking dashes invented. Think about the Fiat 124 Coupe dash, the above
mention GTVs, the Duetto(seems it maintained a decent dash for most of it=
s
life) and 60's Ferraris and others. IMHO my 80's gtv6 interior/dash is a =
real
low for design.

Things picked up again in the 1990's. The 164 and 156 dashes are beautifu=
l.
Not to mention the Fiat coupe, and most other Italian sports cars of rece=
nt
times.

Steve Remington
Baltimore, MD
85 GTV6 3.0 "Gigi"
91 164B "#1"


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