See that interesting little oval-framed, out-the-windshield view up there? That’s from a 1959 Renault Domaine brochure, and despite all the wonderfully over-saturated colors and those strange – are they camping trailers? – out there in that little field, and that wonderful turquoise dashboard, there’s something about this image that feels off to me. Can you spot it? It’s kind of tricky, especially in this example?
Do you see it? Here, I’ll tell you: it’s the steering wheel. Because, despite it not having any sort of logo or text on the center hub, it looks like it’s upside down. Let’s see if we can find another picture of the wheel in here:
Yep! It is! For whatever strange human reason, if a steering wheel has an off-center horizontal spoke, that spoke should be more towards the bottom of the wheel than the top in order to look right. I have no idea why this is, and yet when I saw that steering wheel in the top picture, it somehow felt wrong. It doesn’t really make rational sense, but I can’t shake that feeling. It just looks upside down. And if you’re taking a photo for a brochure like this, for whatever reason I feel like the steering wheel should be in its upright and straight orientation. Again, there’s not a coldly objective reason for that, it just feels right, and that feels wrong.
Oh, and Peter always gives me guff if I don’t show the whole car, so here you go. Look at the location of the turn indicators there! One pair of them, just behind the rear door! I wonder how visible those were from the front, really? Also, I like seeing cars doing things like this, getting a fresh haul of wicker from the wicker harbor.
I thought it was the rear view mirror, which clearly has a view that doesn’t match what would actually be seen behind the car. Also it’s interesting how the mirror is placed to resemble the placement of a window on the travel trailer the car is facing. Definitely some chicanery there.
That is weird about the placement being right on top of that trailer.
The mirror would be angled toward the driver, so I think it’s meant to be showing the field to the left. The issue is that with the current camera position we would be seeing the headrest through the mirror.
Has Mercedes been adding to her camper collection?
I was most disturbed by the hot spot of sunlight on the far right of the dash. I guess the assistant holding what we in the business call a flag (or maybe drapeau in French) to block the light went to fetch a baguette or something.
I can’t believe he isn’t bothered by the one-eyed face in the middle of the dash trying to eat the stalk (indicator? Shifter?) coming from the steering column.
That made me laugh!
And now I can’t unsee it.
Even worse are the old AMC steering wheels that look upside-down, like the top inage, when they’re right-side-up.
Logical: If the were no resistance in the steering wheel at all, it would turn/fall by itself, so the heaviest part was lowest.
Most of course in a car like a Facel Vega, where the steering wheel is almost vertical.
Least in a car like the 1960ies VW bus, where it’s almost horisontal.
So I totally agree 🙂
There are also some charm to the old symmetrical steering wheels, with no “bottom” part, like the old black 3-spoke ones on really old VWs, or the 4-spoke one on the Ford Model T.
Which is another up your alley subject, JT: Articles on what car has the most vertical and horisontal steering wheels (is it really the Facel Vega and the VW Bus?), and articles on what steering wheels are the most symmetrical (Model T?), and of course which is most asymmetrical (is it really the Subaru XT?) 🙂
I’m sure there are some Citroen models that would trigger you.
I actually own a 1967 DS21, where the one spoke points to 7:30, but there is so much power in the hydraulic steering in those, that “steering gravity” is not a thing you think about. Besides, everything else in it is rather strange anyway 😉
In the case of the DS, it’s a safety concern. The steering wheel and spoke where designed to deviate the driver to the right (center of the car) in the case of an accident. Anyway, I had an AX where the 3 spoke steering wheel could not be adjusted to be horizontal when the wheels where straight, same problem with my friend’s peugeot 106 at the time, and idem with my peugeot 205…
https://youtu.be/7zvaBYIXa64?si=Fl0HjXILbnP__EQK&t=53
I loved the way they self-centered.
Google ‘XE Falcon ESP steering wheel’ for another good candidate!
What bothers me is that it would appear the car is parked on a diagonal meaning its ass is hanging out in the middle of the road and blocking traffic.
The car pulled over, and this is where the steering wheel landed. The tires are turned correctly into the curb. This is just Europeans being Europeans. The camera-human had the same exact thought, but his thought was that of what is the correct place for the wheel to be for the car to be in this circumstance. “I’m pulled over to the side of the road, tires should be turned in”. Unfortunately for you, the steering is only 1.8 turns from lock-to-lock.
Torch, you are right emotionally, but wrong intellectually. Just another Wednesday in the Torchinsky house.
There is also no curb.
It’s evolutionary. We’ve evolved to expect the sun to be above the horizon and this looks like the sun is below the horizon so it triggers your unsettled feeling.
And here I thought it was the Pac Mans playing tag on the right.
The biggest issue to me is that at least one of the two caravans isn’t level! A sweaty bottle of Kronenbourg on a warm humid day is going to slide right off the table!!! Sacre bleu!!!
I think it’s also just how it ‘crowds’ the area you’re supposed to look through for instruments, however small those instruments are. Reminds me of Neon steering wheels which had spokes that angled up, whether the gen 1 after switching from 2 to 4 spokes, with the top spokes thinner, or gen 2 which I guess looked symmetrical if you folded it top-bottom – but spokes still ‘angled’ up.
Good catch. I thought the image in the rear view mirror was incongruous, too.
Thank you, I was going to say this as well.
Grape harvest completed, the French farmer rewards himself with a visit to the clandestine compound of his favorite courtesan. In his haste, he forgets to straighten the steering wheel.
The Invisible Man is playing chicken with that other car. Worse yet, he’s naked.
Weird little things like this make an image stick to your brain..which is the goal of advertising.
I have a 99 Cherokee where the steering is perfectly upside down and drives in a straight line. P.O. said he had work done and the wheel was put on upside down. I thought BS but it’s the same number of turns lock to lock and tie rod looks evenly spaced, so there it is…
Wild-assed guess on the turn signals: perhaps they were located back there because earlier ‘trafficators’ involved the little semaphore arms in the B pillars?
Given the lack of an external structural pillar in the B position, and how delicate the C one is, the shown placement is likely default as opposed to placing them on the roof?
like I said: pure speculation
Yeah – the steering wheel caught my eye immediately. I think this was a test of our location on the autism spectrum.
That harbor contains France’s most optimal ecosystem for wickerfish, which turn to baskets when exposed to air, an evolutionary adaptation scientists have yet to explain.
As for the top image, what troubled me was that someone was taking clandestine photos of a stranger’s campsite from the back seat of a car.
Given that I have a 1954 Panhard Dyna Z very similar to the one at the Lane Motor Museum with a steering wheel like this
https://www.lanemotormuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/panhard_dyna_z_1954web3a.jpg
it didn’t strike me as being off, that Renault steering wheel, ha. Jason, you actually drove the Lane’s Dyna Z so you already have some experience with such a steering wheel…
My gut reaction was that you were upset the car that’s in view is facing towards the viewer which means you can’t nerd out on the tail lights.. I don’t know if that says more about me or you.
I thought it was the autopilot playing chicken.
It would bother me more if the car was on the highway in the image, but since it already looks like it’s pulling off the road to begin with, it makes enough sense to me.
I have a theory on the steering wheel. We all have an intuition for when something seems off balance vs steady and secure. An upside-down steering wheel like that just looks like its about to tip and fall to one side, after all the “center of mass” as it is is above the pivot of the wheel, and our brains see it and subconsciously think “OH CRAP ITS GOING TO FALL OVER RUN AWAY” which makes us feel just a bit uneasy. Or maybe its something else, I need my coffee…
I had the same, but much less well thought out idea. It looks like it would fall, whereas if it’s the right way, the spokes make a flat surface that it could sit on. Not that a wheel can sit on anything, but just looking at the spoke.
It may also be that we are used to seeing a wide open top for a better view of the instruments. They are partially blocked in the top image.