Encyclopedia Hoonatica: Non-Circular Steering Wheels

By Peter Tanshanomi Apr 18, 2016

EH-noncircwheels
Last Friday, our esteemed Mr. Emslie asked, “Non-Round Steering Wheels, Brah! or Blah?” Many of our readers cited specific cars thus equipped in their responses (amiable, informative, and entertaining—as always). Unfortunately, the hivemind didn’t produce a definitive list of every car that had something other than a perfectly circular steering wheel. So, let’s keep the irregularly shaped party going. Do us a favor and add an example to our virtual encyclopedia entry today.
The Caveats (there are always caveats):

  • Production road cars only. No customs, purpose-built race cars, or back-alley hack jobs. Otherwise we could post funny cars, dragsters, and F1 cars until the cows came home and the Interweb tubes were full.
  • It should actually have a wheel. Tillers and skid steers would be a humorous first post, but would get old quickly.
  • Motorcycles? See caveat directly above.
  • Airplanes? Oh, I should slap you for just suggesting it. There are twenty-three gazillion non-round control yokes in planes from Cessnas to military transports. We’re NOT going there today.
  • Boats or ships? [Insert Captain Picard facepalm GIF here].

Difficulty: If you go current, not to hard. Not much low-hanging fruit if you want to go vintage.
How This Works: Read the comments first and don’t post duplicates! Bonus points for adding photos.
Image Sources: LOW-RIDER’s Photobucket account, releasedatesnewcars.com (but quite likely ripped off from Car & Driver or some other legitimate site)

By Peter Tanshanomi

Tanshanomi is Japanese [単車のみ] for "motorcycle(s) only." Though primarily tasked with creating two-wheel oriented content for Hooniverse, Pete is a lover of all sorts of motorized vehicles.

34 thoughts on “Encyclopedia Hoonatica: Non-Circular Steering Wheels”
  1. 1977ChevyTruck, please post your horriblawesome Ford GT Versaille again – it has a non-circular steering wheel.

      1. Ooh, something in that picture makes me think that the Ford GT would look awesome in an all-over wood grain…
        Beech, birch, maybe even oak!

          1. It’s beautiful! Great photo shopping skills, Ford should really offer that!

          2. Thanks, although I don’t know about the skills part…

            Also, I concur about Ford offering this.

      1. Take your Ferrari La Ferrari to the La Brea Tar Pits after watching a Los Angeles Angels game!

    1. The poles conducting the electricity and the big rubber bumpers aren’t pictured for some reason either.

  2. Audi’s S and RS cars all, if I remember correctly, have a flat bottomed girl steering wheel. Because sporty.

    1. I have similar, only slightly non circular wheel in dd VW and every time hands meet that flat section, which is not often as you need to make U-turn or similar to reach that section, it feels strange, unnatural somehow. Seems like a very pointless feature to me.

    1. Portrait-mode stereo also, possibly the topic for another encyclopedia-hoonatica right there!

  3. Went to the car show last week and saw a lot of flat-bottomed steering wheels. But, also saw a lot where the central pivot point is moved down a bit, that seems even more common way to get thigh clearance. By contrast, the steering wheel on my Cressida is the most perfectly centred and circular of any car I’ve driven. It’s almost spooky to unwind it from lock and see nor feel nary a wobble.

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