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Making a car dramatic from the outside is relatively straightforward in comparison to concocting a madcap interior.
Constraints on space, vision and equipment, not to mention safety and cost, all play their parts, but none of it has stopped car companies from producing some wonderfully oddball cabins.
From lurid colour schemes to exotically strange trim materials, here are our favourite unusual and downright crazy car interiors:
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Lamborghini Miura
The Lamborghini Miura wasn’t the first mid-engined car to hit the road, but when it arrived in 1966 it stunned the world with its styling, outside and in.
When you got over the Bertone-penned exterior lines, the cabin was just as much of a shock thanks to its almost completely prone driving position. There was a race car focus to the Miura with little in the way of frills that meant you believed Lamborghini’s claim of a 180mph top speed.
If the Miura didn’t quite deliver on top speed, the cabin more than made up for it. Two huge dials dominate the forward view, while rearward vision is all but non-existent due to the tiny rear window that instead gives a superb view of the carburettors.
The seats can be adjusted, but the headrests are fixed to the rear bulkhead, which isn’t great for comfort or safety. Yet we forgive the Miura all of it for its style.
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Citroën SM
Never afraid of taking a different path to its rivals, Citroën’s idea of a luxury GT interior was no less controversial compared to its contemporaries when the SM was launched in 1970.
Embracing the new decade with its modernist look, the SM’s cabin took opulence and function and collided them together.
The result is a car that featured an oval steering wheel long before the much-derided Austin Allegro and air vents seemingly crammed in wherever they fitted.
A chromed gear lever gait sits in the middle, just ahead of the radio that’s stashed next to the handbrake. If Citroën was trying to subvert owners’ ideas of a what an interior should be like, they succeeded with the SM.
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Adams Probe
The Adams Probe might have been based on the humble Hillman Imp, but there was nothing meagre about its styling. Just to get into the cabin was an event thanks to the Probe’s low-slung 29-inch (736mm) overall height that necessitated entry through the roof.
This also required hammock-style seats that put its two occupants almost flat along the floor like a modern Formula 1 car.
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Adams Probe
The extremes of the Probe’s interior didn’t stop there as the steering wheel extended to the driver on elongated spokes. Two small round dials nestled in the dash, but were difficult to read as they were so far away.
None of this worried the producers of the film ‘A Clockwork Orange’ that used a Probe 16 as the main car.
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Docker Daimler
Daimler was not known for its flamboyance in styling, having provided cars to the Royal Family before and after the Second World War.
That all changed when company chairman Sir Bernard Docker married Norah, Lady Docker. The former dance hostess helped influence a series of extravagant show cars to grab headlines and the interiors were even more outrageous than the outer styling.
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Docker Daimler
Several ‘Docker Daimlers’ were made and they featured everything from hand-woven silk brocade upholstery to gold-plated tea sets.
Even more unusual was the lizard skin inlays used for the Blue Clover model rather than wood veneers. By comparison, the crocodile skin dash of the Silver Flash car was almost restrained.
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Fiat Multipla
Few cars have had both their exterior and interior design displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, yet the Fiat Multipla has.
Pitched as Fiat’s MPV rival to the Vauxhall Zafira, its oddball approach to cabin architecture was born out of clever, lateral thinking. So, there were two rows of three-abreast seating so everyone had plenty of room and there was still a decent boot.
This seating plan meant stacking the control that would usually be found in the centre console on top of the dash. The result was a pod that looked part Dyson vacuum cleaner, part R2D2.
Yet it worked really well as a practical people carrier and spacious family car, particularly with the middle front seat folded down as a picnic table/cupholder.
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Pagani Huayra
There’s something ornamental about the Pagani Huayra’s interior style and finish that elevates it above anything from other supercar rivals.
Everything works as it should and most of the controls are where you expect them to be, but it’s the way Pagani details every element that sets this car’s interior apart.
For starters, there’s the exposed gear shift mechanism that fascinates like seeing inside an expensive watch movement. How the centre console drips over the dash is a delight and the cluster of dials that makes up the instrument pod lets you know where all of that money has been spent. Crazy? Yes, but also very desirable.
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Aston Martin Lagonda
Aston Martin needed a car to widen its customer base and bring in much needed cash in the 1970s, which led to the Lagonda. It was a sound idea, but its cabin almost bankrupted the company.
This was due to its digital dash, which was a world first, that ended up costing four times as much as the development budget for the rest of the car.
Using touch-sensitive panels rather than buttons didn’t go down well with many of those brave enough to buy a Lagonda and the digital screens soon went on the fritz. The later cars used a cathode ray tube design for the instruments that was even less reliable and more costly.
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Nissan Cube
More lounge on wheels than a mere cabin, the Nissan Cube played down its dynamic abilities in favour of accentuating the comfort of its interior.
Nissan made this possible with high sides and big windows to give an airy atmosphere inside, while the single wraparound rear quarter was more an illusion than a practical point.
Seats that looked and felt more like armchairs were welcome, and Nissan said it was inspired by the curves of a jacuzzi for the look. The wavy dash lines and water ripple headlining certainly were brave attempts to follow this idea.
Just as noteworthy were some of the upholstery finishes that owed more to 1970s shag pile carpets than modern car design, which all made the Cube an entertainingly different choice.
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Citroën DS
Never one to follow convention, Citroën shunned the usual wood ’n’ leather trimmings for its large DS saloon launched in 1956. Instead, what customers received was a lesson in modernism that started with the single-spoke steering wheel.
In front of this was a strip speedo rather than a circular gauge and the gear lever sprouted from the dash for added weirdness.
In the middle of the front footwell, a large hump allowed the engine to sit far enough back in the chassis due to the DS’s front-drive and longitudinal engine location.
Mixed in was a button on the floor in place of a brake pedal and glassfibre roof panel that was needed to achieve the required curve and lower the centre of gravity. All very odd, but also now very collectible.
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Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz
Pick any generation of Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz and its interior is a crazy concoction of materials, finishes and styling. Yet nothing tops the seventh generation that ran from 1971 to 1978 for peak land yacht appeal. Sitting in there is like being inside Liberace’s mind.
The first thing to greet you on opening the door are seats that appear to have cushions on them. This is how Cadillac brought even more comfort to its owners, while even the door panels were designed to be like pillows for added luxury.
A surprisingly practical touch was the lamp monitor positioned in the roof so the driver could glance in the rear-view mirror and check if the brake and tail lights were working properly.
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McLaren F1
The defining features of the McLaren F1’s cabin are its central driving position and seating for three. The former was dictated by designer Gordon Murray’s desire to make the ultimate sports car, while the latter made use of the available space.
Yet there’s more to the F1s interior than meets the eye, such as the twin rear view mirrors needed because the driver is in the way of where you’d normally find this item.
Other interior features that mark out the F1 are the driving pedals being adjustable, but only by the factory so you have to get the car tailored to you.
Then there are the consoles either side of the driver’s seat for the air conditioning and stereo because there’s nowhere else for them to go and be within reach. It all adds to the otherworldliness of this amazing supercar.
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Austin Maestro
It’s easy to deride the Austin Maestro with the benefit of hindsight, but it was a decent but dull attempt to take on the Volkswagen Golf and Ford Escort.
Many will remember the Vanden Plas model’s talking dashboard with its synthesised voice, but there was more to the Maestro’s cabin than that.
For example, the higher spec models came with a digital speedo at a time when only expensive cars like the Audi Quattro had this.
There were also seat belts with adjustable height shoulder buckles and a 60/40 split-fold rear seat. None of this seems revolutionary today, but the Maestro’s interior was a radical departure at the time.
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Porsche 911
Look at an early Porsche 911 and its cabin is very much a product of its time. Thirty years down the line, Porsche was effectively offering the same interior design and layout, which left it completely out of step even with its own interior efforts in other models.
Crazy perhaps, but it was also what die-hard 911 devotees expected and wanted.
This trend ran right up until the 993 generation of 911 launched in 1994. Five separate round dials sat in the dash, with minor controls scattered across the cabin-wide straight line console below. A concession to modernity was the small hump in front of the gear lever for window switches.
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Lancia Stratos
Form over function was never an option for the Lancia Stratos as it was designed solely as a competition car. Even purely road-going versions conceded little to luxury and retained the simple knob to pull the window up and down as it saved weight for competition cars.
Another direct result of the Stratos’ rallying origins were the scooped out door pockets which are the ideal size to hold a crash helmet when not needed.
They sit over very wide sills, so even getting into and out of the Lancia’s cabin takes a little getting used to, but like all motorsport-bred cars the Stratos oddball interior is soon forgotten when you take this Ferrari-engined car for a drive.
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Maserati Quattroporte III
For such an anonymous-looking car on the outside, Maserati more than made up for it with the cabin of the Quattroporte III. This third generation of its four-door saloon featured more ruched leather than a 1970s sofa warehouse and a transmission tunnel wide enough to double as a dining table.
As was the norm for Maserati at the time, ergonomics was something to be ignored and the curved instrument binnacle picked up too much glare to be legible much of the time.
If you wanted the complete Quattroporte interior experience, there was also the Royale with mini bar, rear picnic tables and electric adjustment for all four seats. Few took Maserati up on this and only 53 Royales were made.
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TVR Cerbera
So much of the Cerbera was a departure from the norm for TVR, including its cabin. In place of the usual two seats, the Cerbera was touted as a four-seater, though the rear pair were no more spacious than in the likes of the Porsche 911.
Up front, the dash was a swirl of curves and the two-spoke steering wheel was another break from convention. It was needed so the driver could see the dials positioned below the steering column. There was also an air vent placed here as there was nowhere else for it to go.
Like other TVRs of the period, the Cerbera didn’t bother with anything as prosaic as door handles inside. Nor did it stick with the usual TVR knurled aluminium release on the transmission tunnel. What you got were buttons on the centre console to press that popped the door open using solenoids.
Great when they work, but not so much fun if they fail on a hot day.
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Saab 9000 Joystick prototype
Saab always played on its aerospace connections for its Earth-bound models, but the 9000 Joystick prototype took that idea much further.
This car was part of the Prometheus safety project and did away with the steering wheel altogether. It was replaced by an aircraft-style control stick sprouting from the centre dash console.
Where the steering wheel should have been was a huge front, knee and side airbag. The idea was this improved safety by removing the steering wheel as a danger and offering a much larger pillow of air in the event of a collision.
Those who tried it reported the Joystick was easy to drive, but the idea faltered and remained a single prototype.
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