Our Two Cents: Favorite Physical Controls In A Car

It’s once again time to ask the staff of Hagerty Media a question, one that will provide Our Two Cents for you, dear reader. In the last year or two we’ve seen more articles covering the rampant spread of touchscreens in automobiles in a worrisome tone. Change is coming for our dashboards, and pressure by Euro NCAP will almost certainly affect new vehicle designs for the EU. And thanks to all the component sharing in our globalized society, this will likely trickle down to vehicles in the U.S. by 2026. (Well, at least for cars sold on both continents.)

I reckon most folks applaud this news, as even the Tesla aftermarket sells physical buttons for their touchscreen-intensive vehicles. So we asked our staff about their favorite physical control in a car, and the answers will be both a surprise and a firm validation of things you likely appreciate in older vehicles.

Analog Transmissions

Gearshift lever-and-knob for a manual gearbox. – Joe DeMatio

Can’t be a list without this one! – Sajeev Mehta

Of High Beam Controls

Even if the touchscreen tides turn, there’s one that will still never return: the floor-mounted high beam switch. The chunky click that comes with a tap of the left foot to cycle the headlights either up or down is the best, and all without moving my hands. Sadly this is likely forever relegated to being a novelty despite being highly functional, if prone to rust and corrosion from being on the floor. The floor-mounted switch was possibly the peak of manual switches. – Kyle Smith

I suppose the obvious choice in physical controls is a manual gear shifter. Going less obvious, I always loved the foot-operated high-beam floor-button. Growing up I never knew just how ubiquitous they were, but we had one in our old Plymouth van, and it was always a source of confusion for anyone new to driving it. “What’s that thing do?” was a common question. – Stefan Lombard

I love that the default position for the high beam selector on the Lamborghini Espada is “on,” and if you want to turn off the high beams, you have to push the turn signal stalk way forward. That’s because a fast car needs good headlights and in Italy, in 1970, if you drove an Espada you owned the road and you didn’t care if you were blinding the peasants in their Fiat 600s. – Aaron Robinson

I Control My Climate

I love the old school, non-climate control HVAC controls. I don’t need to keep my truck at exactly 72 degrees and for it to find the exact fan speeds for me. I love the process of trial and error to find the Goldilocks setting and just leave it alone. Call me inept or just an old soul, but I don’t know how to use that function to my satisfaction and I suspect the majority of the population doesn’t either. – Greg Ingold

The three-knob HVAC control panel is probably my favorite thing in a car dashboard. Honorable mention to the three lever control panel, as sliding a slightly more complicated lever feels even better. These systems are so logical, and so easy to adjust! – Sajeev Mehta

Shortcut buttons

In new performance cars, my favorite button is the individual setting selector. I think personalization has gotten a little carried away. Yearning for simpler days sounds nostalgic, but it truly was simpler when you just hopped in and drove, or, at most, got to select between three damping modes.

Given all the variables inherent in today’s cars, I don’t want to hunt through menus every.single.time to get the setup that works for me. One button to quickly set them all, please! Fortunately, most manufacturers have caught on to this concept. – Eddy Eckart

Good point Eddy. Can we just talk about menus for a second? I know the logical move is to play with that stuff while at a stop, but we all know nobody does that, they’re scrolling through menus while doing 90 on the interstate… – Greg Ingold

The Ride Height Lever

Another favorite control of mine is the lever in the Citroen DS that raises and lowers the suspension. It’s down by your left leg and it’s set-and-forget, meaning you move the lever and then go on with your day as the car moves up or down at its own leisurely rate. Those also have a city/country horn selector, which allows you to toggle between a polite beep to scatter the pedestrians and a blaring scream for the motorway. – Aaron Robinson

When Pleasure Devolves Into Ergonomic Pain

My pet peeve is with sound system controls. I’ve had to consult the manual in some press cars to figure out how to turn it on, change stations, adjust the quality of the sound. I’m a serial channel-changer, and want to do that quickly, with a minimum of time to take my eyes off the road. Adding buttons to sound systems was the big trend in the late 80s and early 90s, to the point where I started a button-count on press cars. I believe the winner was a Pontiac Sunfire convertible (Monsoon audio), with 24 different buttons, knobs, and sliders for the equalizer. Going digital and touch-screen hasn’t helped this issue very much.

To me the ideal setup was on the 1990 Lexus LS 400, which, shockingly, had a huge round knob to turn the sound system on and adjust the volume, and a big rocker switch to change stations. It was a shocker at the time; the brand-new ground-breaking Lexus brand had gone back to the future for its sound system controls, but I never heard anyone who owned an LS 400 complain. – Steven Cole Smith

Turn It On, Turn It Up!

Knobs for volume and manual radio tuning, please! If I can only have one physical, non-touchscreen control on the whole dang car, it would be a volume knob.

If I end up in a self-driving car someday with no steering wheel and the UI can read my mind, set temperature and other comfort settings automagically, massage my feet, make me a sandwich, and do my taxes while it transports me across town…I still want a physical volume knob. – Ben Woodworth

The Headlight Popper

It’s not the most useful thing in the world, but I love the button on the dash of an NA Miata that raises/lowers the pop-up headlights, without turning them on. There are practical reasons for such a button (changing a bulb, making frequent stops at night), but the main purpose it serves is as a universal “hello” from one Miata owner to another. – Andrew Newton

The Relief In Finding The Bubble

I firmly believe my co-workers here at Hagerty Media took all the good ones, which was a relief. Until I realized they put an upward pressure on me, a bubble that rises to heights I will struggle to achieve. What is a boy to do?

When looking for interior innovations, I usually start with cars that advanced the genre. (Especially ones that I remember vividly.) So I eventually remembered the switchgear in the 1986 Ford Taurus that was activated by pressing on a bubble, and turned off by depressing a relief on the other end of the switch.

I remember using these buttons and enjoying them, as it was easy to determine which relief to press with just a gentle touch of a finger to scan the button pad. No eyes were needed, and the driver’s side window switch was set higher than the other buttons. The whole affair was logical and simple, but the bubble had to burst at some point.

Now we have pull/push type levers for windows, and steering wheels full of flat buttons, impossible to discern without taking your eyes off the road. Bring back bubbles, they will be such a relief! – Sajeev Mehta