The dashboard is one of the first things you notice when you get behind the wheel. Modern cars have transformed it into a high-tech command center filled with screens, cameras, digital gauges, and touch-sensitive controls. Older cars had little more than a few analog instruments and switches.
But despite all that technological evolution, we still call it a dashboard. The name sounds obvious until you stop to think about it. Cars don't have anything that needs to be “dashed,” and today's dashboards have little in common with the simple panels found in early vehicles. The explanation goes back much further than the automobile—to the days when horses were doing the pulling.
