"The dash display is almost completely digital—strangely, they left an extra analog speedometer and tachometer"
This is common even today, even on 100% digital screen dashboards, they'll have fake analog speedometer and tachometer displays. My 2023 Mazda CX5 is 50/50, half the dashboard is analog and half is digital. And I like it that way.
I’m never a fan of digital speedometers. I still have to think about how far a number is from my target. I’m sure if I used them long enough instead of only seeing them in rentals I’d get used to it.
One of the first things I learned during my electronics apprenticeship was that changes in a value are much more intuitive to read with an analog pointer (or a digital replication of one).
This is common even today, even on 100% digital screen dashboards, they'll have fake analog speedometer and tachometer displays. My 2023 Mazda CX5 is 50/50, half the dashboard is analog and half is digital. And I like it that way.