Is This The Most Useless Automotive Feature Ever?

I refer, of course, to the cup holders indentations that used to(?) be on the inside surface of glove box/compartment doors. The one pictured here is from my 1978 Mustang II and I can say almost for a fact that they have never been used for their stated purpose on this car. But my family had a succession of 1960s-70s domestic sedans and all of them had the ubiquitous "cup dimples" for lack of a more formal term (cup holder seems generous in the extreme). As a kid I recall maybe attempting to put some sort of beverage on them but it just never seemed to work out right. Either the door was too shallow and anything but a tiny little teacup would hit the top of the compartment, or whatever cup I was using wouldn't even fit in the dimple. 

Suffice it to say, these things have been irritating me to some small degree for much of my life. I mean, it's not like I wake up every morning and cry to the heavens "Why, oh why are there useless dimples in my glove compartment door?". But it has been percolating in the back of my mind, lo these many years. And now, since I have this forum where all the world may partake of my (admittedly minor) little neuroses, I may possibly generate some answers. 

Actually, when I started this post it was purely out of some other, related, irritation which we shall get to in a moment. As a matter of fact, when I started searching for these things in the ol' Interwebs I was a bit flummoxed on what even to call them. I came up with "cup dimples" on the fly, but I've also seen them referred to (once) as "picnic cup holders" but nothing else (admittedly I only flipped through the first two pages of Google results). 

Am I the only one to find these things somewhat inscrutable as to their actual utility? I bet not.

A quick review of Car Lust posts comes up with something that I think is similar: the car record player. I first noticed these when I researched the old DeSoto Adventurers from the late 1950s:

[The Adventurer] did, however, offer a record player, Chrysler's "Hi-Way Hi-Fi" which fit under the dash (it popped out of the dash on other models). It really wasn't a popular option and they are prized by collectors today. The turntable itself was designed by CBS-Columbia and only played proprietary records pressed by CBS-Columbia, about 7 inches in diameter. Supposedly, they could be played while driving, but some have questioned this ability. As Chrysler's press release noted, the marketing wasn't altogether different from today's in-car DVD players, although the artistic selections differ somewhat:

For driver and passengers who prefer the lively scores of Broadway musicals, Highway Hi-Fi provides the lilting and memorable tunes from the hit show, "Pajama Game."

And if the children are restless on a long ride, Davey Crockett and Gene Autry are ready at hand to help keep them quiet. [quoted here]

The main problem with an in-car record player is pretty obvious: you would never be able to play it while driving as the needle would be skipping all over the place. Hence, if they had any use at all it was to play a record or two while you were parked somewhere for a picnic lunch or romantic interlude. Neat idea, but ultimately not very useful.

The cup dimples present a similar problem. Even if you had a small cup whose base fit perfectly into said dimple, the second you accelerated to any appreciable degree said cup would go flying into the passenger's lap. So in all likelihood, the dimples were probably meant, as we saw above, to function primarily while parked, hence the 'picnic cup' designation from elsewhere. 

As luck would have it, Henry Petroski, an engineer and historian extraordinaire, has already written a short treatise on the evolution of cup automotive holders: 

Riding in the earliest automobiles must have been a bone-jarring experience. Not only were suspension systems crude by today's standards, but also roads were much more unforgiving. The possibility of drinking from a cup while driving may never have entered the consciousness of early touring parties. Liquids were kept tightly corked in the thermos bottle, which was secured in the picnic basket until the car stopped and a blanket was spread out beside the road—on terra firma.

Petroski suggests that the cup dimples may have been derived from the tray that hooked onto a partially rolled-up window that one used at drive-ins. Since that usually hooked onto the driver's side, the passenger would need somewhere to put his or her beverage container. Enter the flip out table in the form of the glove compartment lid. I do seem to recall attempting this when at some of our own drive-ins in middle Wisconsin and that was where I discovered that a reasonable-sized soda with a straw was too tall for them (and probably way too heavy). 

Some of the early attempts to create after-market cup holders usually resided on the transmission hump whereby a saddle-shaped device provided space for a couple of cups and perhaps a compartment for storing other things (mostly cassettes I would imagine). You can still buy such things, although for the Big American Cars^TM of my youth the sides of the saddle draped pretty far on either side of the transmission hump. 

As Petroski notes, there was some discussion several years ago where some held that the number of cup holders was crucial to the buying decisions of some patrons, usually women, though whether this is apocryphal and/or based purely on anecdata is beyond the scope of this post (but see here). The first car I drove regularly that had actual built-in OEM cup holders was our 1997 Honda Civic. In that case, the two holders are side by side just under the middle part of the dashboard. Since it's a stick, the shifter is somewhat in the way, and since they are one-size-fits-none I've occasionally had a drink go south on me during a, ahem, somewhat spirited start. The newer Subaru Forester has them farther back and in line front-to-back and also has little spring-loaded clips that hold smaller vessels a bit more snugly. A definite improvement, still not perfect, but a damn sight more useful than the dimples in my Mustang.

Which brings us to the proximate cause of this post. See, Mustangs have a small compartment in the center console just in front of the seat backs which I am certain has functioned as a makeshift cup holder for many a Mustang driver. Unfortunately, being rectangular in shape, any cup that is placed within its confines are subject to the vicissitudes of inertia such that a quick acceleration or stop can cause the contained vessel to tip right over. Which is what happened to me this morning for the umpteenth time. As usual, I swore a bit, got the paper towels out, and cleaned up the spillage. That was about when the utter disutility of the stupid little lid dimples caused me some little consternation. 

Come to think of it, I may have used the dimples a time or two to put a soda can on -- the dimples seem to me just about the right size for the base of a standard drink can. Other than that, I have to say it's probably the single feature about that or any other old car that gets even less use than attention in my book.

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