[publius911]

Who the F thought that it would be a good idea to have the instrument panel at the dead center of the dashboard.

That's an easy one to answer. It's the internationalization of industrial products. Cars, specifically, are extra sensitive to the bean-counting influence and bottom-line design.

Half the world drives on the "wrong" side of the road, and a center instrument pod solves the left-side-right-side driver position problem.
Although with electronic instrumentation there is no extra cost, any more, to run wires to the proper side of the car together with the speed and RPM displays.

[Army Air Corps]

I am reminded of the relocatable instrument “pod” of the Rover SD-1. All the instruments were in a single pod-like unit; this made it easy to build a car for left or right hand drive because the dashboard was the same on left or right-hand drive models. The factory just had to bolt the pod to the appropriate side of the vehicle.