Road & Track gets it wrong

semtex

In the Porsche Cayman S vs. Nissan 370Z article in the April issue of Road & Track (discussed here: Road & Track: 370Z vs Cayman S), they show a photo of the fuel gauge cluster of the 370Z, along with the following comment about the Z's interior: "Our only complaint pertains to the dimly lit fuel and coolant gauges, which are difficult to see 90 percent of the time." This is on page 45 of the hard copy.

Well there's just one problem. The photo they published doesn't show the production version of the gauge! Here's the photo they used:



Here's the REAL thing:



I just emailed them the following letter:

The photo of the 370Z's fuel gauge on page 45 is not an accurate representation of the fuel gauge in production models that customers are actually buying. Either Nissan gave you a pre-production model to do your testing with, or you're using an old stock image. Either way, your "only complaint" about the 370Z's interior is predicated on a straw man. The production version has the area around the LEDs blacked out, precisely to make it easier to see the fuel and water temp levels, as shown in this picture from my own 370Z:

[Then I pasted in my photo for them here -- the same one right above.]

Sheesh this irritates me. Don't get me wrong; I know the cluster isn't perfect and could use some improvement. But if you're going to knock something, don't use fake evidence to make your case. That's just lame.

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