The history of the automotive heads-up displays from 1950s to 1990s

8 min read

Both exterior and interior design of Pontiac Trans Sport minivan was away from purely utilitarian and far ahead of its time, reminiscent of a monorail capsule loaded with future-tech. Take a look at the steering wheel with lots of buttons, for example.

The photo of the heads-up display itself, unfortunately, is not freely available. There are only photos of the interior. But since the Pontiac is part of the GM concept, and we also have an idea of what GM HUDs were like before and after, we can assume that the Trans Sport, similar to other models, displayed speed, turn signal indicators, and possibly a selected radio wave.

1988 was the year that heads-up displays in vehicles became available to a wider range of drivers.

This was again not without the help of the aviation industry — namely, after the acquisition of Hughes Aircraft by General Motors in 1985, and a subsequent merger with GM’s in-house electronics division Delco.

The Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme with a heads-up display as an option appeared in 1988. The launch campaign for this model was built around the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race, where the Cutlass Supreme Convertible was the pace car.

Its heads-up display had two main functions: it displayed speed and a turn signal indication.

This video shows how the HUD looks and works in slightly later versions of the Cutlass Supreme.

An interesting fact about this model is that initially only 50 units were produced, which were used as pace cars and in festival events. Then they were sold to 50 selected Oldsmobile dealers.

After a while, General Motors discovered some issue with the certification of these models. Each dealer was asked to return them to GM (where they were to be destroyed) and receive the full amount of their purchase price.

Most of them were returned for credit, but a few dealers, understanding the collectible value, objected and kept their cars, leaving (by all accounts) less than 10 in the total population.

The first Japanese manufacturer to introduce heads-up displays was Nissan. In 1988, Nissan launched the 240SX and Maxima, which had the option of displaying the speed on the windshield. It was a green image, very close to that in the Oldsmobile version.

This video shows how it works in the 240SX.

The heads-up display in the Grand Prix was almost the same as in the Cutlass Supreme. The speed, turn signal indicators, and a few other indicators were reflected in green on the windshield.

Judging by the photos, it was still quite a massive design that towered over the dashboard. A little later, automakers will start integrating the HUDs into the dash to make their body less visible.

In this video, you can see in a few shots how it works.

In 1991, the second Japanese manufacturer released a car with a projection display. It was Toyota with its luxury sedan for the domestic market, the Crown Majesta.

Its HUD looked neater than that of GM or Nissan, because it was not raised above the dashboard, but was hidden in the depth (almost similar to how modern built-in HUDs look).

In addition, the Crown Majesta display displayed not only the speed, but also the warnings to the driver, such as an open door or an unfastened seat belt — these were indicated with an orange triangle.

The next model from GM to feature a heads-up display was the 1992 Pontiac Bonneville.

Following the Toyota, the GM's HUD would display additional readings: high beam, turn indicators, low fuel and other warnings (low oil pressure, low oil level, high coolant temperature).

The image below shows a page from the owner's manual describing the HUD's functions (read it in full, pages 107 through 110).

The C5 Corvette was introduced in 1997, but the first year the heads-up display was introduced as an option was 1999.

Its HUD is curious because it displayed several car indicators at once and was a bit more customizable.

Besides the speed, it displayed a scale with engine RPM, as well as an additional scale which would inform the driver about the oil pressure, the coolant temperature, and the fuel level

Unnecessary indicators can be turned off — for example, leaving only the tachometer.

Here's a quick video review of the Corvette C5 heads-up display.

The real game changer was the Cadillac DeVille, launched in 1999.

Its heads-up display had a night vision assistant function and showed the image from the camera, which was located in the center of the grille. It was a $1,995 option for the DTS and DHS models, based on infrared, heat-sensing technology developed for the military.

After 2004, Cadillac no longer put night vision into the HUD — the feature was moved to the digital instrument cluster (but we still think it was a good idea, so we added night vision camera support to HUDWAY Drive).

20+ years later it still feels cool to watch the commercial or to see this DeVille option in action.

Hope you enjoyed reading it as much as we enjoyed digging the sources, images, and videos.

We do it on a regular basis, in search for inspiration and practices to apply to what we do about heads-up displays. We've been making them since 2013 — and among the HUD fans we're known for:

HUDWAY Drive — a portable, super-customizable heads-up display that will sit well on almost any dashboard.

HUDWAY Go — a navigation app making your phone work as a heads-up display at night mode when you simply place it under your windshield.

Both are neat alternatives to the factory built HUDs. Ask us anything about them at support@hudway.co.

And stay tuned, coming soon is another post on the heads-up display technologies, this time — on those from the 21st century.