Virtually every new car on the market has some kind of touchscreen infotainment system and while you could be excused for thinking such displays have only been around for a decade or so, their history dates much further back.
The very first production car outfitted with some kind of touchscreen display was the 1986 Buick Riviera. It was known as the Graphic Control Center, or CCC, and housed a host of important vehicle functions and displays.
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Of course, it wasn’t quite like the touchscreens you’re probably familiar with. Buick’s Graphic Control Center was a cathode-ray tube and had a simple black and green screen. It was also very small, measuring just 3×4 inches and was later featured on the Reatta as well.
A retro review shared online by MotorWeek offers us an in-depth look at the display. It contained all important trip-related information and proudly boasted 32,000 words of memory. The display also housed functions for the climate control, allowing users to adjust things like the temperature and fan speed. The system was so advanced for its day that the small fan displayed on the screen would spin faster when the climate control was in its highest setting.
All AM/FM radio controls were also housed within the display. One particularly cool feature is that it was possible to adjust the sound balance of the audio system and you could even tweak the equalizer. What’s particularly impressive about the system is that the screen is more responsive to touches than certain infotainment systems currently used.
Nevertheless, while Buick’s Graphic Control Center was ahead of its time, it wasn’t received particularly well among customers and was ultimately dropped in 1990.