The interior design of every automobile today be-it the high class luxury sedan or the simple hatchback that is most kids first car have one feature in common. Yes of course! It’s the centrally mounted cup holder, easily the most indispensable device today.
It is probably hard to imagine that not so long ago car manufacturers never thought of adding these comforts. The suspension systems of yester-days were so rough that drinking coffee while driving never even crossed the minds of consumers and manufacturers alike.
The era of open air theaters and drive-through restaurants sparked the need for a newer and more innovative interior design by the manufacturers. The first designs in this direction came in the form of shabby innovations by restaurant attendants to attach trays to the doors of four wheelers. The car manufacturers however weren’t far behind and came up with notched glove sections that could hold coffee cups. In spite of all these modifications the pleasure of being able to drink your coffee while you drove wasn’t realizable. Preventing the cups from sliding was the best thing that these contraptions could do. Any effort to access these holders in a moving vehicle resulted in slopping and spilling of the drink.
Even with developments at a later stage, the cup holders were not successful in satisfying both the visual and efficacy requirements. They were usually fixed to the inside of car doors. These cup holders reduced the leg space drastically and also were susceptible to sporadic slamming of the doors. The current production of cup holders are usually prepared to hold cups of all shapes and sizes securely. A trendy method to accomplish this is to make use of spring loaded holders which hold onto the cups irrespective of their size.
These appendages have obviously not been welcomed with the same enthusiasm throughout the world. Europeans do not bother much with any form of the cup holder and when asked, they take the opportunity to describe this invention as yet another example of American excessiveness. However, a number of autoobiles incorporate cup holders in their design today due to globalization and assimilation of world markets.
We would, of course, be underrating human prospective for innovation and development if we thought this was the end of road for cup holders. There are still a number of ways in which their convenience can be improved and we can rely on our auto manufacturers to keep running until they have accomplished the best.
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