JALOPNIK: “These days cars are smarter and more feature-packed than ever, but sometimes it’s the simple, little things that can make all the difference. There’s one now-ubiquitous detail that benefits millions of drivers every single day, saving them time and reducing stress, and you may not even realize it was something that needed to be invented — or how recently it was thought up. I’m talking about the little arrow in your gauge cluster that tells you which side of the car the fuel filler is on, which was thought up in 1986 by former Ford employee James Moylan, who died on December 11 at age 80. Automotive News’ obituary tells his story, which is further proof that the best ideas really can come from anywhere. That little arrow feels like such a no-brainer that I wouldn’t blame you for assuming cars have had them for decades longer than the late ’80s, but until Moylan came up with the idea, drivers were left having to remember it themselves or take a guess, if it was a car they weren’t familiar with. (This was less of a problem with older cars, where the fuel filler was often at the rear end, sometimes behind the license plate.) Even with pretty much every new car of the past few decades having the arrow, we all still know the annoyance of pulling up to a pump and realizing the gas cap is on the other side…”