I’ve always liked cars and driving – the sounds, the smells, the colors, and the excitement when the new models were shown in the 1950’s and 1960’s as I was growing up. After learning to drive in my Dad’s 1931 Model A that we painted in our garage, my high school cars were a baby blue 1949 Plymouth and a green 1940 Ford Deluxe Fordor.  College years were spent in a white over red 1954 Chevrolet 210 Del Rey. From those early years until now, I have paid special attention to dashboards.

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So, after retiring from a career as a university professor and administrator, I decided to see what was published. I discovered only one out of print book, a somewhat esoteric look at dashboards. But I wanted to remind readers of the dashboards in cars they may have actually driven or ridden in.

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I spent a year researching, traveling to car museums, and photographing dashboards – including a couple of visits with Jay Leno. What I discovered was a fascinating relationship between car dashboard design, architecture, art, culture, and advertising.

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Finally, in some ways writing The Dashboard Book was the best of times and the worst of times. About the time I was ready to put The Dashboard Book together I was diagnosed with cancer - multiple myeloma. The next year I spent getting treatments, writing and formatting the book. In short, this project kept me busy and engaged.

 

I now have also completed Hood Ornaments:1899-1960 and two Texas-centric automobile essays which will be published in Fall 2020 and Spring 2021. Finally, after many road trips in Texas, my book Texas International & Interplanetary Travel Guide was published in December 2023. It's a guide to more than 60 Texas towns with the same name as an international town, an international country, or a planet. It's cosmic.

W. Moore December 2023

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