Imagine you're getting ready for your morning
commute. You walk out to your car, slide into
the driver's seat, buckle your seatbelt. Right,
the usual routine. Exactly. But right there,
aimed squarely at the center of your chest, is
a solid... unyielding steel spear. Oh man. It's
bolted directly to the front axle of the car
and every single time you go for a drive you
just have to hope you don't hit anything hard
enough to drive that metal pole straight through
you. Which is a terrifying mental image. Right.
But for the first 50 years of automotive history,
that wasn't like some exaggerated horror movie
scenario. That was just called driving your car.
It really was. I mean, historically, it's completely
accurate. The steering column used to be this
totally rigid, uncollapsible rod of iron and
steel. Just a literal weapon pointed right at
you. Yeah. We treat the steering wheel today
as this harmless, static, unchanging interface,
right? Yeah. But the reality of how that object
ended up in your hands and how it evolved is
a wildly chaotic story. Which is exactly why
we are so thrilled to welcome you to today's
deep dive. Our mission today is to take this
incredibly mundane object that you probably touch
every single day, the steering wheel, and completely
change how you look at it. I love that goal.
We are basing today's deep dive entirely on the
comprehensive Wikipedia article covering the
steering wheel. And let me tell you, this is
not just a story about turning tires. No, definitely
not. It's a story of deadly dashboard spears,
high -speed 19th century races across Europe,
bizarre geometric shapes called squircles, and
the relentless evolution of human -machine interaction.
It really is the ultimate physical touch point
between humanity and the industrial age. I mean,
it maps our entire relationship with the automobile.
And I could not ask for a better guide to help
connect the dots of this automotive history than
you. So let's jump right in. Let's do it. We
have to start at the beginning. Before we had
the wheel, drivers obviously still had to steer
these early motorized carriages. But how are
they actually doing that? Well, you have to look
to the water for the answer, but maybe not in
the way you'd expect. Wait to the water. Yeah,
so near the start of the 18th century, large
sea vessels were already widely using the classic
many -spoke ship's wheel. It gave sailors massive
mechanical advantage. Sure, like a pirate ship
wheel. Exactly. But when the very first automobiles
started hitting the dirt roads in the late 1800s,
engineers didn't borrow from those large ships
at all. They borrowed from smaller rowboats and
sailboats. Oh, really? Yeah, they used a tiller.
OK, let's unpack this. A tiller is essentially
like a literal stick attached to a pivot point
on the axle. Yep, just a stick. So you're driving
an early car, sitting on a bench, and you're
just pushing and pulling a horizontal broom handle
to make the wheels turn. That's the visual, yeah.
It sounds like trying to steer. a rogue high
-speed lawnmower. I mean, if it's a direct one
-to -one mechanical linkage, every single bump
in the road is going to translate directly into
that stick. Exactly. And that was the fatal flaw.
It was incredibly unstable. You have to picture
the roads in the 1890s. Probably not great. Not
at all. We aren't talking about smooth asphalt.
We're talking about deeply rutted dirt paths
designed for horse hooves and wooden wagon wheels.
Oh, man. Yeah. If your primitive car hit a rock
or a deep rut, the front wheels would violently
jerk sideways. And because of that direct one
-to -one linkage you mentioned, the tiller would
just snap back, violently whip right across the
cabin. I mean, it could easily break a driver's
wrist or be ripped right out of their hands.
Wow. So relying on a boat stick for a land vehicle
weighing hundreds of pounds was clearly a terrible
idea once speed started to increase. Oh, definitely.
Who finally realized they needed to gear this
searing down and, you know, use an actual wheel.
The realization really came from the racing world.
In 1894, a man named Alfred Vacheron entered
the Paris -Rouen race. He looked at his panhard
four -horsepower model and just decided the tiller
was a liability, so he fitted it with a circular
steering wheel instead. He figured it out himself.
Yeah, and that is widely considered one of the
earliest employments of the wheel in a car. It
allowed for a reduction gear. meaning he could
turn the wheel a lot to move the tires a little.
Oh, that makes sense. Right. That gave him immense
leverage, far more control, and the ability to
make continuous fluid adjustments without constantly
fighting the road. And I imagine the rest of
the automotive world saw this massive mechanical
advantage and just immediately changed course.
Well, in Europe, the pivot happened pretty quickly.
By 1898, that same company, Panhard and Levasseur,
made the steering wheel standard equipment on
all their new cars. Wow, just four years later.
Yeah, and that very same year... Arthur Constantin
Krebs designed a car for the Paris Amsterdam
Paris race and used an inclined steering wheel.
Meaning it was angled toward the driver. Exactly.
Rather than straight up and down like a bus,
it provided a massive ergonomic and performance
advantage. But the American market didn't catch
on quite as fast, did they? No, they really didn't.
Because the source material mentions the American
inventors Thomas B. Jeffrey and his son Charles.
And in 1898, they actually developed two advanced
experimental cars that featured a left -hand
drive steering wheel. So they knew the technology
existed. But then, when they went to mass produce
their first Rambler cars in 1902, they completely
ditched the wheel. They stuck to a rear engine
layout and went right back to the tiller. They
didn't switch back to the steering wheel until
late 1903. Which seems crazy in hindsight. I
have to push back here. Why on earth would you
invent the superior safer technology in 1898,
know it works perfectly, and then revert to the
inferior dangerous tiller for your big mass market
launch? What's fascinating here is how clearly
this illustrates the psychology of technological
adoption. Innovation almost always takes a backseat
to familiar conventional layouts, especially
when you're trying to build a brand new consumer
market. Because they were afraid of scaring away
the buyers. Precisely. Think about it. In 1902,
the American public was deeply skeptical of automobiles.
They were loud, they spewed smoke, they terrified
the horses. Right, they were basically monsters
to most people. Exactly. Jeffrey was trying to
sell these radical new machines to people who
had spent their entire lives operating horse
-drawn carriages or, you know, riding bicycles.
A tiller? in a weird way, felt familiar. Like
rains. Yeah, it mimicked the left to right pull
of horse trains. It was the conventional layout
of the day. That is wild. It wasn't until a critical
mass of early adopters, like those high profile
racers in Paris, proved the steering wheel concept
worked undeniably better, and the public saw
it in action, that the American market finally
demanded the change. So it was purely a commercial
safety play that kind of backfired. Pretty much.
But once the shift happened, it was permanent.
By 1904, all Ramblers had steering wheels. And
interestingly, at Jeffrey's insistence, the driver's
seat was moved to the left -hand side of the
car during that 1903 production run. Which was
a big deal. Huge. By 1910, most U .S. automakers
were offering left -hand drive, and soon it became
the permanent American standard. Which allowed
the driver to better see oncoming traffic on
those two -way dirt roads. Right, right. So the
wheel decisively wins the battle against the
tiller. But of course, once the wheel was installed,
automotive designers couldn't just leave well
enough alone. Oh, never. They had to start messing
with its shape and its placement. Oh, absolutely.
The circle was really just the starting point.
Here's where it gets really interesting. Because
today, looking at modern cars, it feels like
a geometric arms race. It totally does. For over
a century, the wheel was a circle. which makes
perfect mechanical sense to me. It provides precise
feedback through a large continuous interface.
Right. But now you look at some Tesla models
and they've completely ditched the circle for
a rectangular yoke with pistol grips. The yoke
is definitely controversial. Yeah. Or you look
at the new C8 Corvette and it has this weird
hybrid square circle shape that the industry
actually calls a squircle. Gotta love the name
Squirkel. It's so silly. It's got a flat bottom
and a flattened top. And I have to challenge
this. Doesn't a Squirkel or a Yoke completely
defeat the ergonomic purpose? How do you mean?
Well, driving requires a fluid, hand -over -hand
turning motion, right? If you chop off the top
and bottom of the wheel, you're just grabbing
empty air in the middle of a U -turn. Aren't
you just breaking that fluidity for the sake
of looking futuristic? It definitely seems counterintuitive,
and a lot of traditionalists argue exactly what
you just said. But form ultimately follows function.
OK, so there's a practical reason. Yeah, the
shape of the steering wheel isn't just about
the hand -over -hand turning motion anymore.
It's heavily dictated by the physical space available
in the modern car. It comes down to what automotive
engineers call packaging constraints. Meaning
literally how you package a human being into
the driver's seat. Exactly. Think about the core
The flat bottom exists for a very practical reason.
The C8 is a very low -slung, mid -engine sports
car with a high center console. Right. Very tight
fit. Right. If the wheel were a full circle,
the bottom arc would physically block your thighs.
The flat bottom makes it significantly easier
for the driver to get their legs in and out of
the car. It's about egress. Oh, that makes sense.
And the flattened top. That's there to enhance
the driver's line of sight. Modern digital gauge
clusters are packed with information, and a traditional
round rim would block the top half of that screen.
The squircle makes sense for fitting into a tight
sports car. But what about the Tesla yoke? If
you drop the hand -over -hand motion, how do
you actually park the thing? Well, the yoke is
pushing the boundaries of what a steering input
looks like when cars move away from traditional
mechanical steering racks. They rely more on
variable steering ratios, specifically steer
-by -wire systems. Oh, meaning there's no physical
steering column connecting the yoke to the wheels.
Right. In a steer -by -wire system, computers
and electric motors handle the actual turning
of the tires based on your input. And because
it's controlled by software, the ratio can change
based on your speed. Wait, really? Yeah. If you're
on the highway going 70 miles per hour, turning
the yoke five degrees might gently change lanes.
But if you're in a parking lot going two miles
per hour, that exact same five degree turn of
the yoke might turn the front wheels all the
way to full lock. The software adapts. So you
never actually need to cross your arms or go
hand over hand, which makes the top and bottom
of the steering wheel theoretically obsolete.
That is wild. It just proves that driving isn't
a static interface. It's highly dynamic, depending
on the technology driving it. Precisely. And
we've seen this dynamic shift in shapes and sizes
before, driven by engineering needs. Like when?
Look at early Formula One cars from the 1950s.
They used massive, large diameter wooden steering
wheels taken straight from road cars. Because
they needed the leverage. Exactly. Without power
steering, the drivers needed a huge lever just
to get enough physical leverage to turn the car's
heavy front end at high speeds. Wow. But as racing
aerodynamics advanced into the 1960s and 70s,
the cars gained lower and the cockpits became
incredibly tight and compact to reduce drag.
The drivers were practically lying down. So a
huge wheel wouldn't fit. The wheels had to shrink
dramatically, morphing into these small rectangular
grips just to fit inside the space without hitting
the driver's knees. That's fascinating. And placement
is dynamic too, right? Yeah. We talked about
left -hand drive becoming standard in the US,
obviously contrasting with right -hand drive
in places like the UK. Right. But some designers
just threw the whole left versus right debate
out the window. like the McLaren F1. Oh yeah,
one of the greatest high -performance sports
cars ever built. For sure. They put the driver's
seat, the pedals, and the steering wheel right
in the dead center of the cabin. Yeah, you have
a passenger seat slightly behind you on the left
and one on the right. It's all about optimizing
the car's center of gravity and giving the driver
perfect symmetrical spatial awareness on a racetrack.
Okay, so playing with shapes and placement is
fascinating when we're talking about sports cars
and performance, but Let's bring it back to everyday
driving. OK. And back to that terrifying spear
I mentioned at the very beginning of the show.
We've talked about shapes and packaging, but
for decades, the placement of this rigid metal
ring on top of a solid metal condom posed a very
real, very lethal threat to the person sitting
behind it. It's hard to overstate how dangerous
it was. In a severe front end collision, the
front of the car crushes inward. Right. But a
solid steel steering column won't crush. So as
the front axle was pushed backward by the impact,
that steering column would be thrust directly
into the cabin, often impaling the driver who
was, you know, simultaneously being thrown forward
by their own momentum. What blows my mind is
the timeline here. According to the Wikipedia
article, the very first collapsible steering
column one engineered with overlapping tubes
designed to telescope and crush absorbing the
kinetic energy of a crash was invented in 1934,
but it was a complete market failure. It wasn't
until 1968 that US regulations, specifically
FMVSS standard number 204, actually mandated
that steering columns had to collapse in a crash.
It's a huge gap. I have to push back here. If
we had the brilliant mechanical technology to
stop people from being impaled in 1934, why did
it take a government mandate 34 years later to
make it standard? Well, this raises an important
question about the automotive industry's priorities
at the time. And it's a bit of a dark chapter.
I'll bet. The harsh reality of the mid 20th century
was that Historically, safety didn't sell cars.
Automakers fundamentally believed that talking
about safety features reminded consumers of car
crashes. Oh, which scares them away from the
showroom. Exactly. They wanted to sell consumers
on style, speed, chrome and luxury. A collapsible
steering column was an invisible, expensive piece
of engineering that didn't look flashy on a billboard.
So they just they completely ignored the danger
to save a few bucks and preserve their marketing
vibe. Well, there were some half measures introduced.
In 1956, Ford introduced what they called a safety
steering wheel. What made it safe? It was a deep
dish design. The rim was set high above the center
hub and the spokes were designed to flex and
absorb some of the energy if the driver's chest
hit it. OK. But the underlying column itself
was still completely rigid. It was essentially
a bandaid on a spear. That's horrifying. But
there was some incredibly quirky outside -the
-box engineering solutions to this before the
mandate, right? Like what the French automaker
Citroën was doing. Oh, the Citroën DS. It is
a masterpiece of strange avant -garde engineering.
I love the DS. Right. So instead of a traditional
wheel with three or four symmetrical spokes,
the DS used a large curved off -center single
-spoke steering wheel. Just one spoke. Just one.
And the entire design was engineered so that
In the event of a severe crash, the steering
wheel would physically deflect and guide the
driver's body off to the side, away from the
solid steering column, rather than trapping them
against it. That is brilliant in a very bizarre,
uniquely French way. But, you know, we've talked
about how that rigid column was a nightmare for
crash safety. But that rigidity was also a nightmare
just for everyday driving comfort, wasn't it?
Oh, absolutely. Because without power steering,
every single pothole sent a shockwave straight
up that metal pole into your wrists. Yep. Automakers
needed a way to decouple the wheel from the road,
which led to a really strange musical invention.
I'm looking at the banjo steering wheel. The
Banjo wheel is a piece of mechanical genius.
Yeah. Before hydraulic power steering became
prevalent, though mechanical power systems were
introduced around 1953 on Studebakers, I should
add. Right. Every bump, cobblestone, and vibration
from the road traveled straight up the rigid
steering column and directly into the driver's
hands. It caused massive fatigue on long drives.
Your hands must have been numb. Exactly. The
Banjo wheel solved this by replacing solid cast
iron spokes with group of thin wire spokes. Which
looked exactly like the strings of a banjo, hence
the name. So let me guess the mechanism here.
If you don't have power steering, you're wrestling
a heavy metal box. By making the spokes out of
thin piano wire, they act as a literal shock
absorber. Exactly. Each spoke was made of four
or five individual metal wires running parallel
to each other. These wires acted as a physical
buffer, a sort of literal suspension system for
the driver's hands. That's so smart. When the
front tires hit a rut, the wires would flex and
absorb the high -frequency road vibrations before
they could reach the driver's palms. That is
such an elegant, purely mechanical solution to
a comfort problem. And speaking of driver comfort,
we have to mention the 1961 Ford Thunderbirds
swing away steering wheel. Oh, that's a classic.
Because cars in the early 60s were getting incredibly
low, wide and featured these massive wrap around
windshields. Getting your legs under a huge steering
wheel was becoming physically difficult for the
average buyer. It was a tight squeeze. So Ford
made it so when you put the car in park, the
entire steering column would literally unlatch
and swing nine inches to the right. It cleared
the way. so you could just slide gracefully out
of the seat. It was the absolute height of luxury
at the time, though, as you can imagine, having
a steering column that unlatched posed its own
safety issues. I would imagine, yeah. It eventually
had to evolve into the more standard tilt -away
wheel by 1967 to meet those updated, stricter
federal safety standards we talked about earlier.
OK, so by the late 60s and 70s, the steering
wheel is finally relatively safe. The column
collapses, you can tilt it, you can telescope
it to fit your body. Exactly. And once automakers
realized they had this safe, adjustable piece
of prime real estate positioned right in front
of the driver, they realized something else.
The driver's hands were just resting there. It
was time to give their fingers something to do.
Yes. This is the birth of the steering wheel
as the command center. Right. The first edition
was obvious. The electric horn. Early cars had
a squeeze bulb on the outside, but eventually
they put a button on the hub or on the spokes.
A huge convenience. And some automakers even
created the rim blow wheel. I love the logic
behind this one. The switch was integrated right
into the inner rubber rim of the wheel itself.
Oh yeah. You didn't even have to move your hand
to the center hub. You just squeezed the wheel
hard anywhere on the inner ring and it honked.
Which is actually a fantastic safety feature.
Moving your hand off the rim to hit a center
horn pad takes a fraction of a second. But at
60 miles per hour, a fraction of a second covers
a lot of distance. Right, absolutely. The rim
low allowed for an instantaneous reaction. But,
of course, the industry didn't stop at horns.
In 1966, that same innovative Ford Thunderbird
offered highway pilot speed control. They put
buttons on the wheel. They put physical rocker
switches right on the steering wheel pad to operate
the cruise control. And according to the source
material That specific Thunderbird cruise control
had a truly wild feature. It had a retard button
on the wheel. Oh, right. If you held it down,
the car wouldn't just coast to slow down. It
would actually tap into the physical braking
system, lightly apply the brakes, and illuminate
the stop lamps in the back. You're breaking the
car right from the steering wheel. It was the
beginning of putting total vehicle control at
the fingertips. And it just snowballed from there.
Did it ever. By 1988, Pontiac models like the
Trans Am were offering steering wheels loaded
with 12 different buttons just to control the
audio system. 12. And then the 90s hit, and suddenly
you have navigation buttons, cell phone controls,
voice command triggers, little scroll wheels.
So what does this all mean? How on earth do you
wire 12 complex electronic buttons on a piece
of hardware that has to spin 900 degrees in either
direction without twisting all those wires until
they literally snap? That is one of the great
unsung heroes of automotive engineering. It's
an invention called a clock spring. A clock spring?
Yeah, it sits right behind the steering wheel.
Instead of normal wires, it uses a flat, spiraled
ribbon cable coiled up inside a plastic housing,
very much like the mainspring in an old mechanical
clock. Oh, that makes so much sense. Right. When
you turn the wheel to the left, the ribbon winds
tighter. When you turn to the right, it unwinds.
It allows for continuous electrical connection
to all those buttons in the airbag without ever
tangling. That is genius. But, you know, we have
to adjust the elephant in the cabin here. We
constantly complain about the dangers of distracted
driving, yet... Automakers have essentially mounted
a hyper complex smart device inches from our
thumbs. Are we turning everyday drivers into
overwhelmed, distracted airline pilots? If we
connect this to the bigger picture, the steering
wheel perfectly maps our entire evolution of
human machine interaction. How so? We moved from
purely mechanical control, the tiller, to mechanical
assistance with the banjo wheel, to hydraulic
power steering, and now to full electronic interfacing.
The stated goal of all these buttons is to keep
the driver's hands on the wheel and their eyes
on the road, rather than reaching for the dashboard.
But you're right, there is a very fine line between
convenience and cognitive overload. And there's
a physical toll too. The Wikipedia article explicitly
warns about the ergonomics of managing all these
buttons while trying to steer. Yes, the constant
repetitive motion of steering requires strategic
movement. The golden rule of ergonomics laid
out in the source is that your wrists should
not be bent. They need to be straight. They must
be kept straight to avoid overexertion of your
tendons and to prevent compression of the delicate
nerves and blood vessels in your arms. So keep
your wrists perfectly straight when you're working
the volume controls on your 12 button squircle.
Exactly. And while we're giving practical advice
pulled straight from the source material. I have
to address a cardinal sin of driving mentioned
in the text. It's called dry steering. Oh, dry
steering, the quickest way to make a mechanic
cringe. It really is. Dry steering is when you
forcefully turn the steering wheel while the
vehicle is completely stationary. A lot of people
do it when they are trying to inch into a tight
parallel parking spot. Guilty. If you are listening
to this and you do that, stop immediately. Let's
explain the exact mechanism of why that is so
catastrophic for the car. Well, think about the
physics involved. You have a vehicle that likely
weighs around 4 ,000 pounds. The entire weight
of the front engine is pressing down on two patches
of rubber, compressing that rubber into the abrasive
asphalt. Okay, tons of pressure. When the car
is rolling, even slightly, the tires naturally
pivot. But when the car is dead still, the static
friction between the tires and the pavement is
immense. So when you just... Crank the wheel.
When you grab the wheel and force those tires
to turn, you are forcing your car's steering
rack, the tie rods, and the high pressure hydraulic
power steering pump to violently fight thousands
of pounds of static friction. Oh man, that sounds
expensive. It puts massive unnecessary strain
on all those metal joints and it physically scrubs
the tread right off your tires. Always let the
car roll even just a fraction of an inch while
you turn the wheel. Breaking that static friction
will save you a very expensive repair bill. Consider
yourselves warned. No more dry steering. Man,
what a journey this has been today. It's a lot
to cover. We started with early motorists literally
trying to steer their motorized carriages with
wooden boat tillers. We survived the terrifying
era of rigid dashboard spears aimed at our chests,
we marveled at the brilliant wire -spoke banjo
wheels acting as hand suspension, and we've arrived
at the modern era of the 12 -button Squirkel
Command Center, complete with winding clock springs.
It really makes you wonder what the next century
holds for this interface. We've gone from mechanical
to hydraulic to electronic. Well, I know you
found something buried in the outer edges of
the source material about exactly that. What
is the future of the wheel? I want to leave everyone
with this final forward -looking thought. The
Wikipedia article notes a recent patent applied
for by General Motors. It's for a modular steering
control system. Modular. Like you can swap pieces
out. Kind of. This isn't just a wheel with new
touch screen buttons. It is a device that can
physically change its shape. Wait, what? Yeah,
it can transform from a traditional circle for
highway cruising into a rectangular yoke, depending
on the driving situation or the driver's preference.
That's amazing. But take that shape shifting
concept and combine it with the steer by wire
technology we discussed earlier, where electrical
systems are entirely replacing physical steering
columns. And it raises a fascinating possibility.
I'm listening. Will the steering wheel of the
future even be permanently attached to your car?
Or will it just be a highly personalized shape
-shifting smart device that you carry with you,
plug into the dashboard, and use to interface
with whatever autonomous or semi -autonomous
vehicle you happen to step into? A plug -and
-play bring -your -own steering wheel. That completely
breaks my brain, but given everything we've just
unpacked about packaging constraints and electronic
interfaces, it makes total sense. It really does.
We want to thank you for joining us on this deep
dive. The next time you sit down, close the door,
and reach out your hands to grab that seemingly
mundane ring of leather or plastic. Take a second
to actually look at it. Notice the incredible
history, the trial and error, and the brilliant
engineering resting right there at your fingertips.
It's never just a wheel. It's a century of survival
and innovation. Thanks for listening. We'll catch
you on the next deep dive.