The truck driver’s workstation has transformed over the past six or so decades. It’s gone from the bare basics needed to keep both man and machine alive to today, where ergonomics, biomechanical considerations, and tsunamis of tech are all tuned to the nth degree to ensure the helmsperson and his mechanical carriage are performing on point.

The dash itself has evolved from something with few gauges and few switches, to many gauges and many switches, and is now on the path back to stuff-all of either. Gauges today are there to satisfy a cultural desire over necessity. Once, an in-cab tablet was something the driver took to stay awake; whereas, increasingly in the years ahead, it’s a device that will occupy much if not all of what was the dash. And we’ll have Siri, Alexa, Chuck or Warren to keep us abreast of all the truck’s vitals and warn us they’re about to engage emergency stop because we got bored and started watching Netflix.

For some time, we’ve harboured the idea of running a series on great dashboards of the past. From a time when character, quirks, and idiosyncrasies dominated the driving department’s control centre. When gauges were physically connected to hot and cold bits and, when they worked, told you if those bits were hot or cold. When Kysor alarms bleared on summertime ascents, and you could manually control shutters and fans. And when switches made shit happen at times when it wasn’t important, and didn’t when it was. A time when things looked awesome but weren’t always entirely on the money, like the Dynatard switch in the Mack Ultra-Liner I drove being just out of reach while sitting in the driver’s seat. I pressed a hard plastic drinking straw over it when leaning forward all the time got annoying. Yes, the great dashes were yesterday’s infotainment, sometimes low on information, but always high on entertainment.

Last month, we ran the story on Murray Bruning and Les Hayden’s restored FR Macks in Greymouth. I omitted the pics of the dashes because I thought, “Wow! What a fabulous pair to kick off ‘Great Dashes’ with.” Rest assured, everything on these puppies worked sublimely.

So here you go. First up is the dash and surrounds from the earlier-style Reinforced Plastics (RP) cab variant on Les’ FR. Next month, we’re going to have a look at Murray’s.