windyboy

Myself & a few collegues and just returned from the chippie this lunchtime and as we were getting out of my car one of my collegues said "Why is a dashboard called a dashboard ?"

Does anybody know ? as we don't.

Windyboy

SirFozzalot

Sorry mate.....dunno!!

Jonto

Pass !

Mice_Elf

It's called a dashboard from days of yore, when people mooched about in horse & buggy contraptions. The roads were pretty dirty and became muddy when it rained - and the rear hooves of the horses would kick this up onto you and your passengers. Not good..

So carriages or wagons had a board that was fixed at an angle not unlike the dashboards of cars, and it was called the "dashboard." They used to put their feet on them, too.

When cars came along, they were really just adaptions of the horse & carriage....So the thing that they attached the instruments in the car to, or the horseless wagon, was called the "dashboard" because it looked just like the dashboard of a wagon.

It was therefore called the "dashboard" because it did its job when the horses were kicking up mud when trotting or running. It just so happened that the thing in the car looked like the dashboard in a wagon.

windyboy

Thanks very much, I'll pass it on.

If you ask enuff people the same question one of them is bound to know the answer.

Windyboy.