Really, it’s pretty remarkable when you think about it: the woefully outdated visual reference picked by some out-of-touch government designers working for the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards in the 1970s (the original draft of FMVSS 101 was in February of 1967, but the icons were not standardized until a later update) just so happened to resemble an entirely separate and unrelated oil-based device, the oil lamp, that, while vastly more ancient than the oil can, has been so enshrined in cultures and folklore all over the world that it became a far more recognizable, oil-associated object. There’s a few reasons for this, not the least of which is just simple association over time, but I think the oil pressure light owes its continued longevity to a happy and improbable coincidence, the visual similarities to the ancient oil lamp. ![]() If you showed an actual one to an average driver today, they might think it was a small teapot, or something.Īnd yet, somehow, this icon is still associated with oil. People haven’t used oil cans like portrayed in that icon to add engine oil in ages. So, much in the same way as the floppy disk save icon, the concept of “engine oil” is represented by a device that almost nobody driving today has had direct contact with. ![]() ![]() There’s plenty of oil can designs in use today, but they don’t look like this anymore they look like these: These types of oil cans really haven’t been common since, say, the 1950s or so. ![]() I’ve included the icon again there, so you can see resemblance: the long spout, the little thumb-pump button on top, the loop handle. That’s an old-style oiling can, a type that was most common in the early 20th century.
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