Dashboard displays, or instrument panels have not always existed, were taken a little bit longer in being part of vehicle. If you needed to know how much gas was left in an early car, you put a stick in your gas tank, and if you wanted to know the temperature, you went to the radiator itself. By the 1930s, cars started coming with gauges, and by the mid-30's, all cars included what has been graciousl termed the "idiot light," or a warning light indicating that something is wrong with the vehicle. Even in the present day, manufacturers are tinkering with the instrument panel, moving it to the center of the dashboard or packing it full of technology that may make keeping your eyes on the road harder than ever.
At minimum, a dashboard display has a speedometer and a fuel gauge. In addition to those gauges, the display will feature some combination of a tachometer, charging system gauge, oil pressure gauge and engine temperature gauge, but there are some with GPS, Music/Video player, Parking cameras even with smartphone sync system (just amazing). In fact, it may surprise you to learn how much time carmakers spend designing dashboard displays, how much they invest ($$$$$$) and how that this might change in the future, here is where I see a challenge.
Digital dashes came in 2000s but most digital speedometers have had green numbers displayed on a dark green or black background. The current model Honda Civic has an upper digital dashboard with white numbers against a blue screen, digital fuel and temperature gauges. Toyota is using electronic instruments for showing the cars parameters for its Yaris/Vitz model , the car employs a vacuum fluorescent display to indicate the speed, RPM, fuel level, odometer, etc. On high tech vehicles, such as the Mercedes-Benz S-Class and Lexus LFA, the instrument gauges are shown on LCD displays instead of having a mechanical gauge. The displays could be configured for a wide array of features. As you see all carmakers seems to be trying to get outstanding features and useful applications for its vehicles' dashboards, it is on your hands (actually in your brain) to create solutions... join the race
For the future, there are endless possibilities to develop, there are great tools for start our applications I just found this DEMO from Freescale... and seems to have all what I need for a beginner in dashboards applications, works with a 16-bit MCU take a look and let me know if you know any tool that could help, or what are you creating