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Almost since the first cars were made in the late 19th century they've sported a steering wheel.
And while they've become a lot more complicated since then, with modern wheels invariably featuring lots of buttons, they're all still generally much the same.
But over the years there have been a few that have broken the mould – often only to fade away, unlamented. Here we celebrate some of those wheely bad ideas…
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Chevrolet Spinner (1940)
With no power assistance, the steering was very heavy at low speeds on cars of the 1930s and 1940s. Chevrolet's answer was to offer a $12.50 option of a built-in spinner, which in theory made it easier to turn the wheel. The option proved unpopular and short-lived; it was offered for just two model years.
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Messerschmitt KR200 (1955)
Why have a steering wheel when you can have a set of handlebars instead? This was economy motoring at its finest back in the fifties, with the most basic steering imaginable. No need to incorporate buttons for the stereo or cruise control as they weren't fitted. Its design was surely influenced by the company’s control yoke for its aircraft during World War Two.
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Ford Edsel Teletouch (1957)
The Edsel was a complete disaster for Ford, for a multitude of reasons. One of them was the fact that it tried to be too clever for its own good, such as with the gear selection, which was via push buttons on the fixed steering wheel hub. Not only was it an ergonomic disaster but the electrics could be hideously unreliable too.
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Citroën ID19 (1959)
You'll notice there's a disproportionate number of Citroëns here, because the French company has constantly tried to push the boundaries. Over the years Citroën has offered plenty of single-spoke steering wheels but this one is arguably its finest, on perhaps its most avant-garde production car ever.
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Plymouth Fury (1960)
The Austin Allegro's Quartic steering wheel was a landmark item for all the wrong reasons, but Plymouth got there more than a decade earlier. With its two-tone finish to match the car's colour scheme, the Fury's steering wheel was eye-catching – if not all that comfortable to use.
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Chevrolet Corvair Testudo (1963)
A square steering wheel is one thing, but a rectangular one is something else altogether when it comes to ease of convenience – or otherwise. Imagine trying to feed this through your hands as you negotiate a series of S-bends…
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Ford Wrist Twist (1965)
The fifties and sixties were a hotbed of creativity within car makers who tried out all sorts of wacky ideas. One of them was Ford's Wrist Twist which was almost into the realms of driving by touch. With everything power assisted, the Wrist Twist theoretically provided easier manoeuvring – but the fact that it never took off suggests that perhaps it actually didn't…
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Maserati Boomerang (1971)
Another one from the 'What were they smoking?' pile. This is the steering wheel that has it all: terrible aesthetics and even worse ergonomics. Note that as well as all of the gauges there are also rocker switches along with stalks to control the lights and the wipers too. Utterly bonkers.
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Austin Allegro (1973)
The Allegro was so poorly packaged that the average driver couldn't see the instruments so something radical had to be done. The answer – it seemed – was to fit a 'Quartic' steering wheel. But that proved not to be the answer as this square steering wheel lasted for just one season before it was replaced by a regular circular wheel.
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Aston Martin Lagonda (1977)
The Lagonda's digital dashboard meant a steering wheel that allowed visibility of the (often non-functioning) displays was essential. The answer was a single-spoke item that was the essence of minimalism.
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Lancia Sibilo (1978)
There's ugly and then there's this. We have no idea what the buttons are for or what those slots do, but what we do know is that it looks like a brown bakelite tray stuck on a brown bakelite dash and we're so glad that this Bertone confection didn't ever go beyond the concept stage.
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Citroën Karin (1980)
If you think the steering wheel looks bonkers, find some exterior shots of the Karin and you'll see that its dash is actually quite restrained…
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Lamborghini Athon (1980)
We're truly intrigued by this one because we cannot see how it works. We know that the wheel pulls away from the dashboard somehow, but with no hub we're wondering what the rim revolves around. But then as the Athon was a concept, maybe it never had to work…
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Matra Murena (1980)
Single-spoke steering wheels used to be quite fashionable and it's easy to see the appeal; pretty much wherever the wheel is turned the instruments remain in sight. And yet although these designs are largely in the past they still somehow look futuristic.
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Renault 5 Turbo (1980)
Look through all of the steering wheels here – and elsewhere too – and you'll notice one thing that they just about all have in common. They're symmetrical when the road wheels are pointing straight ahead. But not here; Renault decided to try something different and we're not sure whether or not it works.
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Italdesign Orca (1982)
You can see instantly that the Italdesign Orca was a child of the 1980s with those digital displays and the mass of small buttons on the steering wheel boss. Sometimes we complain of a busy dash on a new car, but we can't think of many new models that come close to being this confusing.
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Mazda MX-03 (1985)
This could be only a mid-eighties concept car with its plethora of digital displays and a steering 'wheel' seemingly inspired by something from a fighter plane. We wonder if one day a car maker will have the guts to offer a steering wheel like this even if it's just as an option.
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Subaru XT (1985)
The Subaru XT was weird in so many ways, and its steering wheel was just one of them. Maybe one of the XT's designers owned a Renault 5 Turbo because the Subaru's steering wheel appears to have been inspired by the mid-engined hatch, but with a couple of buttons added for good measure, in typical eighties Japanese fashion.
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Oldsmobile Incas (1986)
We're being slightly unfair here by including a load of concept cars from the 1980s, but they were fascinating, if only to show what cul-de-sacs some car makers went down back then. Anybody test driving an Incas-style production car would have run away screaming unless they happened to have lots of F-15 flying time under their belt.
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Saab 9000 Prometheus (1993)
Saab was thinking outside the box for this one. It reckoned that by removing the steering wheel it could improve the safety of its cars, so it ditched the wheel and instead a joystick was fitted. But whereas a car typically has around three turns between locks the joystick offered just half a turn, making the 9000's steering seriously twitchy.
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Mercedes F200 (1996)
By the time the Mercedes F200 arrived the Saab 9000 Prometheus project had already been canned, but that didn't stop Mercedes from trying a similar idea. Of course this also went nowhere but what's neat about the F200's design is that it allowed a symmetrical dashboard with a full-width digital display, so there was no need to engineer left- and right-hand drive cars separately.
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BMW Z22 (1999)
BMW bought the Rover Group in 1994 and five years later came the Z22 concept. Part of Rover's back catalogue (from its British Leyland days) was the Austin Allegro. Coincidence? We think not. Think of the Z22's tiller as an (almost) Quartic steering wheel, complete with lots of buttons for that ultra-modern look and feel.
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Citroën Osmose (2000)
As you can see from the picture, the Osmose concept's extremely busy steering wheel was merely a mock-up as the tech wasn't quite there yet to display the entire dashboard in such a small space. We're now in a position where this tech could be introduced on a production car, but we really, really hope that doesn't happen…
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Spyker C8 Spyder (2000)
For those who reckon that too much is not enough, the Spyker C8 was one of the most gloriously over-designed cars ever made. Some C8s got a regular steering wheel that could have come from any premium saloon, but it makes us very happy that quite a few came with this fabulous wheel made of polished alloy.
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GM Hy-Wire (2002)
The Hy-Wire consisted of a platform which contained a hydrogen fuel cell plus all steering, braking and suspension elements, all driven by wire. That allowed the cabin to be free of linkages and so forth, really opening everything up. The steering-by-wire also led to the conventional wheel being replaced by this futuristic-looking control which was ugly but apparently very effective. Maybe one day…
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Citroën C4 (2004)
At first glance the Citroën' C4's steering wheel doesn't look especially weird; it was the way that it worked that was strange. While the rim turned in the conventional manner the hub was fixed, which meant the multi-function buttons didn't move. Which wasn't ideal because the driver's hands did…
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Pagani Zonda R (2009)
Multi-function steering wheels are nothing new, especially in the world of motorsport, but the track-only Pagani Zonda R got an especially wacky flat-bottomed steering wheel which incorporated a rev counter. We can't work out whether that's a stroke of genius or completely mad.
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Honda EV-STER (2011)
Should this even be here, bearing in mind the EV-STER concept's steering isn't even via a steering wheel? It looks more like a pair of joysticks but we're pretty sure that they move only from side to side to steer; the accelerating and braking are still controlled via pedals. Either way, we're not sure we'll see anything like this appearing on a production car any time soon.
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Pagani Huayra (2011)
From the bling is king school of design, the Pagani Huayra's steering wheel – in conjunction with its dashboard including the instrumentation – must be a contender for the most over-designed of all time. With its carbon fibre rim, alloy hub and inlaid controls it looks beautifully made, if not beautiful.
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Chevrolet Corvette C8 (2019)
Things have come full circle (see what we did there?) with the latest Corvette adopting a square steering wheel just like the Austin Allegro did almost half a century earlier. Well, maybe not just like the Allegro but it's good to see that interesting steering wheels aren't a thing of the past.
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