Night Panel Season

As we change the clocks for the onset of Winter here in the UK, the nights draw in and the pleasure of comforting, warm car interiors spring to mind. I’ve loved the feeling it gives since I started driving; the soft glow of dashboard lights, the comfort of a great driver’s seat, your favourite tunes playing and clear roads to travel.

Increasingly though, car interiors and illumination have become total monstrosities, seats that are far too firm, not generous enough and as for the lighting, I find most new cars more distracting than comforting. I hop from our Jaguar I-Pace with it’s numerous bright screens, buttons and ‘ambient lighting’ in to the Saab, and immediately realise how much more calming the space feels. The soft, consistent green glow from buttons, dials and displays and the highly visible orange of the more important gauges and it feels harmonious and inviting.

As the dark draws in around you, press the inspirational ‘Night Panel’ button and your space becomes even more enveloping, all displays close down, the centre console dims, and everything besides the speedometer on the cluster immediately goes in to black mode. It’s perceptible at how much more focused on the road you become, no distractions, no neon glow catching the corner of your eye, just a single dial offering complete clarity.

What’s interesting, over the years I’ve heard numerous comments about safety ‘you can’t see what’s happening’ ‘what if a warning light comes on’ and ‘it only illuminates to 90mph’. Of course, Saab thought of that, we’d expect nothing less, If any vital warnings need to be seen, or your fuel level drops below a quarter of a tank, then your full instrumentation comes back on, if you go above 90 mph, the remainder of the speedometer magically lights up, and if you need to adjust the volume on your tunes, or change media, then the audio display lights up momentarily and then fades out again, clever stuff.

In all seriousness, I honestly don’t know why other marques haven’t adopted similar innovations, it focuses the mind and allows the driver to concentrate on the road, it also looks incredibly cool. Of course, it does mean that we keep this exclusive pleasure to ourselves.

Dead Hour Driving

Silenced neighbourhoods, desolate streets and empty roads, when it seems like the entire world is safely behind locked doors and curtained windows, that’s the time to drive, like truly drive.

An almost bewitching sense of freedom and reverence - you, your car and endless opportunity to journey, anywhere, everywhere.

Old Saabs whisper their way through silent streets and once on to open roads, the instantaneous rush of the Turbo projects you towards the distance, no destination in mind. Window down no matter what the weather, just to listen to the soundtrack to another perfect drive. There’s a rawness to older Saabs, they allow an affinity with the roads that no new car can dream of matching, an analogue experience delivered by an intelligently engineered machine.

Mile after mile of not knowing where you’ll end up, see an interesting road and turn on to it, truckers and other dead hour drivers are virtually the only other people on the roads, silenced passage to your unknown destination.

I think it’s a part of life not many people understand, or even want to, it has no real purpose, no real result. Except the people that do get it, live by it, freedom and space to be totally immersed in the beauty of driving, a bond with your car and space to strip away complicated thoughts - simplicity for a few dark golden hours.

Night Panel

I posted a quick photo of the Saab Night Panel recently on Twitter with the following caption “Saab Night Panel, for when you want to focus on the important things in life”. It’s been one of the many Saab innovations that I’ve admired for years, and from the overwhelming response, it seems I’m not alone:

“Modern dash panels ruin night vision and most are a real fiddle to dim. This feature was brilliantly simple and simply brilliant. Made me love my Talladega even more”

“Soooo miss this feature, hate modern dashboards which are like games arcades, it’s almost as if what’s outside your car doesn’t matter”

“I need one of these for my brain”

“Best feature ever. More cars need it. So much light pollution at night in cars these days”

“With the inside of cars starting to resemble mobile discos I do miss this”

“This was always a feature I loved, especially when it lit the whole console back up as you approached 90mph”

Saab understood that a driver’s focus is the most important function of cockpit design; Switch off the light and you’ll see better. When you drive at night it is important to have as few distracting light sources as possible. You should be able to concentrate on keeping your eyes on the traffic around you and on the road ahead. And realistically, all you really need to be able to check is the speedometer. Which is exactly what you get you you switch on the Night Panel in your Saab. The rest of the instrumentation is blacked out to give your eyes a rest. It is only illuminated on a ‘need to know’ basis. Yet another safety feature from Saab.

It seems to me that the world needs Saab innovation right now, form, function and beauty.