When the rear-view mirror was still on the dashboard
05/12/2017
If you drive a car from the fifties or sixties, there is a good chance that your gaze will fall on an interior rear-view mirror that is mounted on the dashboard and not on the upper edge of the windshield. British roadster and sports car manufacturers in particular liked to choose this installation position, but it can also be found in Italian cars.
The low position of the mirror is unusual for modern drivers because the mirror is so low. This solution would be unthinkable in today's cars, as the high seats with headrests (front and rear) would make it almost impossible to see anything.
Even back then, mounting the mirror on the dashboard had its disadvantages, even though the window areas were larger, the rear was lower and the view was normally unobstructed with two people in the car. However, vibrations not infrequently caused the mirror on the dashboard to become distorted. In purely aesthetic terms, however, the solution was certainly convincing, which was probably one of the reasons why it was used again and again.
