What Happened To The Steering Wheel?

Car designers, let’s be honest, have plenty to play with when they want to make a statement. Alloys, lights, body surfacing, wing mirrors; it’s not as if they’re short of places to play. You get to draw cars for a living, for goodness sake. So why are you concentrating on the poor old steering wheel?

Back in the dark, lonely days before Car Throttle, steering wheels looked like this:

Did you spot it? Yeah, apparently there’s a car in that picture too. Slim, elegant, and timelessly gorgeous, wonderful to handle...the steering wheel is free of buttons, padding, and safety gear. It’s lovely.

Now, things are more like this:

Okay, so that’s an exaggeration, but it’s not just the tech on all our wheels that baffles. A few buttons for simple car functions on the wheel are better anyway – helps keep eyes on the road and crap tunes off the stereo. We’re all for that. But what about the shape?

Flat bottoms have been around for ages, which all started in racing cars to help drivers get in and out easily, without wedging legs under the wheel (ouch). Racing cars have super-fast steering racks, and spend barely any time cranked all the way over, so a flat bottom isn’t really an issue. But in road cars? Hmm. Cool looking, but it does feel weird.

Mercedes clearly spotted this and said "Ahh, we can do much better wiz our double flat steering wheel. Das is boss, yah." So they did this in recent AMGs...

Touché. Except Aston Martin have turned the idea on its side, with a flat sided steering wheel in the new Vanquish. More than that, they’re charging £600 if you want it. Cheeky.

But what if you want a funny-shaped wheel but with switches on it for the stability control? And lights...and wipers...and suspension...and engine...and gear change-up lights...and indicators? Oh, and the horn. And gearshift paddles. You’d have to be mad, right?

Course not. A wheel with that very spec is fitted to three of the most desirable cars on earth: the Ferrari 458 Italia, the Ferrari F12 Berlinetta, and the Ferrari FF. Good job Italian electrics aren’t what they once were.

Odd then that the ultimate techy supercar guys, McLaren, do the barest, most gorgeous steering wheel around today...

Perforated leather, mostly round, no buttons, and a tiny centre boss. It’s almost like the bad old days before CT!

Still, when they can come up with an airbag to fit in a classic Sparco wheel like this, I’ll be first in line.

These things are still the best, which is why you see them in everything from rally cars to D1 drifters. Simplicity wins.