Years ago when I traveled for business, when I got my rental car, I tried to make a note where the gas tank opening was: right side? left side? I wanted to pull in to the gas station properly.

Did you know that since the early nineties ALL cars’ dashboard fuel gauges have an arrow pointing to the side where the gas cap is?

I’m sure I didn’t know that until well into the 2000s. Here’s the short version of what happened, told by Elliot Eisenberg on January 16, 2026:

The Friday File: Cars have a small arrow on the dashboard telling drivers which side of the car the gas tank is on. That’s the Moylan Arrow, named after Ford engineer Jim Moylan, who died last month at 80. He pitched his idea in 4/86. In 11/86 he was told it was great, and the first Arrow appeared in model year 1989. 2.5 years from idea to implementation. 

Moylan came up with the idea after being caught in the rain pulling up to the wrong side of a gas pump in a Ford company car. You can read the whole story here.

Here’s his original memo:

Here’s the challenge: how many people know that the arrow is there? Did YOU know it was there? I wrote to Dr. Eisenberg asking how many people knew and what were we doing about that? He responded:

Well I am doing my part.  And a number of folks have said their car does not have The Arrow. I said look again and lo and behold it is there.  You are so right.  So many have no idea it is there. – Elliot Eisenberg

So here we have a marvelous feature that a great many people don’t know about. And a feature we don’t know about is a non-feature.

The Gospel is GOOD NEWS…but only if someone knows about it.

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” (Romans 10.14 – 15, ESV)