This vintage Rod & Custom...
This vintage Rod & Custom decal decorates the windshield of the Neal East roadster. Aaron took a photo and used the cartoon illustration for the graphics on our gauges.
If you have a custom car, why have stock gauges? That's the question that led to the creation of the Aurora Designer Series Gauges about two years ago. The idea behind the product is to give customers an opportunity to select one of 114 different designs and 22 different colors from 25 different series of Aurora Instruments gauges. Whether you want sophisticated or wild, retro or contemporary, you're bound to find a gauge-face design to match your rod or custom.
But, what really got us interested is the Aurora Instruments "Make Your Own Design" system, available through the company Web site. It allows you to design your own gauges, selecting the gauge-face color, graphic elements (from numerous choices), lettering style from various fonts and sizes, needle style and color, and trim-ring style and color. Since the colors are chosen from an on-screen color palette, you can select gauges the same color as any custom paint. It's as simple as going to the Aurora Web site and using your mouse to select the colors and styles you want.
Customizing your gauges is...
Customizing your gauges is as easy as changing an air filter. The trim rings and needle remove easily and quickly, allowing access to the custom face. The faces are accessible even after the gauges are mounted in the dash, so you can change the look of your gauges as often as you want.
It doesn't stop there. The Aurora Print Service allows you to create your own custom design, using any of your own digital images, which can be applied to a gauge face through the Aurora Web site. If you have a little talent with computer-graphics editing programs, such as Photoshop, you can create a unique design and have it applied to your Aurora gauges. Pretty much any digital image you can create can be applied to a custom gauge face- whether it's a custom logo, flames, an image downloaded from the Internet, vintage nose art, a photo of your cat, you name it.
Once your custom face is complete, you can print it at home (photographic paper is recommended) or upload a digital PDF file to Aurora (the company's Web site guides you through this process). From there, Aurora's professional printing service uses a digital press to apply your custom image to highquality, antiglare Mylar, die-cut and ready to install. The gauges can be ordered pre-assembled or un-assembled. The face prints can also be ordered by themselves, making it easy and inexpensive to change the look whenever you feel like it.
Designing a gauge using the...
Designing a gauge using the Aurora tool is a simple seven-step process. Steps 1 and 2 are to select your dash color and instrument face color by clicking on a color from the on-screen palette.
Installing or removing the gauge face is as simple as unscrewing the trim ring and removing the glass and needle. It's that easy to swap the face or modify it-say, with some pinstriping-without having to remove the gauges from the dash.
Aurora offers the most popular standard gauges- speedometer, tachometer, oil, water, fuel, pressure, voltmeter, and clock. Because the face is easily changeable, all Aurora gauges can be swapped for metric configurations. Another advantage is you can create your own specific tach redline. Or, if you're running additional gauges (differential oil temperature, for example), those faces can be created with ease.
We wanted some one-of-a-kind Rod & Custom gauges, so Art Director Aaron Kahan came up with a custom design based on an old-time R&C cartoon decal. Doing the actual designing was the toughest part of the process. After that, it was just a matter of making the right mouse clicks and waiting a couple of days for our personalized gauges to show up.
Visit the Aurora Web site to create your own unique set of instruments, or to check out a gauge-face gallery of hundreds of instrument faces designed by other customers.
Step 3 is the fun part, where...
Step 3 is the fun part, where you create the graphic for your gauge, either by selecting a pre-designed face from the Aurora Web site or by creating your own custom design, which is how Aaron did it.
Step 4 is selecting the font...
Step 4 is selecting the font style. With 41 different type styles available, you know there will be one that matches the look you want. Aaron chose Muscle Red for our gauges.
Steps 5 and 6 are needle selection...
Steps 5 and 6 are needle selection and trim selection. There are three needle styles-Modern, Classic, and Vintage-in the full range of colors. The trim rings come in black (which can be painted any color), chrome, or gold. For our design, Aaron chose the Classic-style needle in an amber color, and the chrome trim ring. Step 7 is Finish. Your gauge design is converted to a PDF file and uploaded to the Aurora site. From there, the company prints your gauge face and ships it to you.
Wouldn't you like to have...
Wouldn't you like to have a set of cool Rod & Custom gauges like these? Well, you can't. That's the whole point of the Designer Series Gauges from Aurora Instruments. Each set of gauges is customer-designed and completely unique. All you need to design your own is an Internet connection to Aurora's Web site.