Honda is going back to the drawing room with its interiors, and it’s shown us a pretty cool concept. It made me recall the interior of the Honda S2000, which I have always thought was the coolest, most focused interior of any car. Still, it’s not my favorite. So I have to ask: What’s your favorite car interior of all?
I would have said that my favorite is either something from a BMW E36 or E46. Something from either generation, and probably from the M3, because those models have that awesome M logo in the gauge cluster.
I’m also quite the sucker for the warm amber glow that BMW uses in its cabins, and I much prefer it to the default green in Fords or the blue(ish) in GM cars. I prefer the amber even to VW’s cool two-tone blue and red approach, but Volkswagen doesn’t get my pick for favorite interior, either.
My favorite car interior of all time is that of the 2006 Saab 9-3 SportCombi. The same interior, or a very similar one, could be found in a few other Saab models, but the SportCombi is a wagon so of course it wins out overall. I should not like this interior because it’s using that very basic green backlighting, but there’s just something to the approach that Saab took with their cabins.
The green backlight actually makes it cooler! Like a fighter jet. There are just so many buttons. Again, I should hate it because it’s a lot to keep track of, but fighter pilots don’t complain, and neither would I in the cockpit of that rocket.
Just look at that turbo needle in its cluster, on the right side, atop the fuel level and oil temperature needles. It has an orange section that offsets the rest of the green. I feel that orange section is just begging the driver to spool the turbo to infinity; it’s an invitation to hoon.
You can’t see it in the picture, either, but don’t forget that the key in those Saabs went in the center console rather than the steering column. I would take that twisting action over a push-button start any day.
The color scheme. The layout. The button grouping. Everything about that Saab interior draws me in. So what about you? What’s your favorite car interior ever?