Back in 2021, Tesla introduced a yoke steering not-wheel as standard equipment for its S and X cars, instantly generating scorn from enthusiasts and journalists worldwide. The company has since made the yoke an option rather than standard equipment and the world has moved on. I have not. I fell in love with that stupid yoke, and it has lived rent-free in my head ever since. Now, with the power of legal hard medications, ten fewer teeth than I had before, and a grinder, I’m going to give my favorite car a yoke. Please talk me out of the clouds.
Surgeries suck. If you’ve never gotten one before, consider yourself lucky. I just had my first-ever surgery and while it was minor, recovery has sucked harder than a Detroit 6V92 gulps air at its rev limit. If you’ve ever seen pictures of me online or met me in person, you know that I never show my teeth. I’ve made so much progress in my life, but my teeth have always been not-so-pearly white anchors that dragged me down.
I’m beginning a long five- to six-month process where my mouth heals up and strengthens so I can get dental implants. I desperately need something to distract me. This is the perfect time to do some of the projects that have been rattling around my head! A couple of them will involve my personal Autopian Test Car: A 2008 Smart Fortwo.
I have a defect where approximately 10 of my 28 adult teeth never grew in. Eight of those 10 spots were filled with baby teeth that, incredibly, have survived over three decades. By adulthood, I had horribly worn teeth on my lower jaw and a gap on my upper jaw that got bigger every year thanks to the missing teeth. It was a mess, so for these 32 years of my life I just never smiled with an open mouth.
My wife and I have finally come into a pile of cash and we were hoping to buy a gearhead heaven property with it. However, my dentist recently told me that time was up. Either I had to start my tooth implant journey now or those dying baby teeth were going to cause some big problems. When all is said and done I will spend at least $35,000 on fixing my mug, more than I’ve spent on my most expensive car by more than a factor of two. It’s honestly hard to think of all of the other things I could buy with this money, but my choices are to get implants or live with the partial dentures that don’t even fit in my mouth right now.
The first step of the process happened at the end of last week. My dentist pulled the bad teeth, added in bone grafts, and sewed me all up. I’ve been depressed about this surgery for over a month and I’ve lost countless nights of sleep. I feel like Frankenstein’s monster and I sound like Sean Connery. I’m also stuck on a soft food diet, can’t chew anything, and am generally just in a trough.
My pain has been remarkably low thanks to an armada of drugs prescribed by the dentist. I have an opioid, a steroid, some fancy mouth rinse, and an antibiotic. That goes on top of my normal hormone replacement therapy, Ozempic, and blood pressure meds. Finally, I have a barbiturate for if the opioid doesn’t work. In other words, I’m a gosh-darned walking pharmacy right now and my head may or may not be in a cloud. Since the operation, I’ve been busy doing little, non-stressful things, like trying to turn a Hot Wheels car into a tiny radio-controlled car!
I fixed my old Xbox 360, modified an old Android phone, cleaned parts of the Plymouth project, found the parts to fix the loud Smart, and ordered the parts to fix the coolant-free BMW. Then, I started cooking up bold ideas, including spending what will be about $180 in total to turn some $2 Hot Wheels cars into some tiny drift cars. Look, don’t ask why I have three Emiras. That’s one I’m looking forward to, but it’s taking forever to get the parts in.
Another one takes me back to that Tesla yoke. Yes, that same yoke that everyone joked about. Yes, that same yoke that was so unpopular even Tesla reduced it to just an option. I’ve always loved the stupid thing and wanted my own version of it.
I’ve long been enamored with the idea of putting airplane-inspired parts in cars. I love flying and I love driving, so what if I could combine aspects of both? During the early days of the pandemic, I turned a flight stick into a gear knob.
Take a look! It was just a cheap flight stick screwed on top of the foam of a Mercedes W123 shift knob.
I want to do that again, but now, perhaps with the power of prescription medications, I also want to put a yoke in my 2008 Smart Fortwo test car.
I’ve had this idea rattling around my head for over a decade but I’ve just never moved forward on it. My original idea was to put a real airplane yoke in my Smart. I never really knew what kind of yoke to put into my car. Maybe I’d get one meant for a Cessna 172 or an Ercoupe.
However, this presents some issues. Not only would I have to install the correct steering gear thread into the yoke, but the Smart’s wheel has an airbag and a steering angle sensor. The car will drive fine without these things, but an airbag fault and a traction control fault will be permanent. I hate unnecessary warning lights, so that would have sent me down a rabbit hole of manually disabling that airbag with my Mercedes programmer tool and transferring over the steering angle sensor. But then I’d be left without an airbag in a crash and, look, I already have enough teeth problems.
This is also just a ton of work for a modification that I might not even like in the first place. This weekend, I had a bit of a eureka moment. What if I just replicated a yoke using an existing Smart steering wheel?
This is something I considered in the past, but every time I looked at my Smart’s steering wheel I saw it as a bad candidate for a yoke.
I’d want the yoke to have a flat bottom like an aircraft yoke or maybe an open bottom like a racing wheel. What I hadn’t considered was looking at the simple two-spoke steering wheel found in base model Smart Fortwos.
This wheel can be cut at the top and at the bottom. It’ll also be plug-and-play so I don’t have to screw around with any electronics. Oh no.
Amusingly enough, you can buy aftermarket Smart Fortwo wheels with cutouts in them already, but these wheels cost about $1,000 or more. I’m not putting a $1,000 wheel into a car I paid $1,400 for.
My drug-filled mind already purchased a Smart Fortwo Pure steering wheel, so it’s already on its way to my apartment. I already have a cutting wheel, so I’ll just need something to clean up the leather I slice through. The medications will be all gone by time it arrives. But you know what? Screw it, let’s do it, anyway. In a worst-case scenario, Smart steering wheels take all of five minutes to replace and I can put the old one back on. Here’s a bad render of my idea:
When the wheel arrives, I’ll first cut it at the top where the upper leather wrap stitches into the leather wrapped around the side of the wheel.
Removing a Smart’s steering wheel is as easy as loosening a single T40 bolt, pulling the wheel out, and then unclipping some connectors. Then I just slam the replacement wheel on.
If I’m feeling particularly silly and like the results of the first drive, I’ll then cut out the bottom of the replacement wheel and see what happens.
To be clear, this is quite possibly the second dumbest thing I’ve done with a car. Smarts aren’t racecars or planes, where you can get away with a yoke because you don’t have to do a full 360-degree spin to reach full deflection. Instead, this is a cheap city car. It takes more than a full turn to go from lock to lock. A do-it-yourself yoke is arguably unsafe and definitely stupid. There’s a reason the vast majority of car steering wheels aren’t yokes. I’ll realize that the second I try to grab a piece of wheel that doesn’t exist anymore. Here’s the Superleggera version!
So, don’t worry, I won’t take this on a highway or anything. I sort of just want to do it and play around with it to see if my decade-long idea is as bad as it sounds. Oh, and in case you were wondering, I consider my worst-ever automotive choice to be buying multiples of the same Volkswagens with the naive expectation that maybe the latest one won’t break on me. It shouldn’t have taken me four B5.5 Passats for me to figure it out.
At any rate, now you know one of my deepest, darkest automotive secrets. I think the Tesla yoke looks so cool that I want to make a dollar-store version of it. Please talk me out of this. Or do talk me into it. This idea is easily reversible, after all.
Topshot image: Daimler AG
Do it! Holiday vacation times are the PERFECT time for bad decisions! If it all goes wrong, just make a New Years resolution not to do that again. All will be forgiven, right? I mean, I resolved to never buy another neglected boat that will eventually have a small tree growing out of it, and everything has been great!
Since it’s far from your only car, what have you got to lose?
(except for full steering control)
Tis better to have wondered and fucked up than to never have wondered at all.
“Vincent van Gogh drank large quantities of absinthe while creating his signature painting style. His ear removing episode is often attributed to overconsumption of absinthe as is his liberal use of the color yellow.”
Altered states may spark creativity, seldom without risk.
I know you love the Smart logo, but I really think you need to make the yoke look like Darth Vader’s TIE fighter.
For the remaining rough ends where you cut through the wheel, the average big-box hardware emporium should have plastic or PVC caps that will fit. Some primer, black paint, and epoxy and Robert is your father’s brother.
PS I would say “Hope you feel better soon” but it sounds like you feel pretty good right now so I will simply wish you continued good fortune 🙂
Yes, plumbing parts. Personally, I’d use a couple of 45° angles and a piece of straight pipe to go between, and maybe the same on the bottom. A little epoxy to smooth the joints, wrap it in leather, and it’s complete. Like you say, aircraft yokes don’t have to turn as far, and it might be smart to have top & bottom so you can grab them when you turn the wheel past 90°..
Bad, low stakes ideas are the best ideas. Do it, but plan to undo it soon after.
On the other hand, the RC stuff sounds like a great idea that’ll hopefully justify an article later.
I feel that old slingshot dragsters are the only cars where a yoke is appropriate. But it’s a free country so good luck and don’t forget to document it
So the initial illustration made me think of a Bop It toy… and now I’m just thinking that if you gut a Bop It toy and mount it to the wheel, it will be infinitely cooler looking
Also, don’t listen to to me… or maybe?
If you’re not doing a 180 deg lock to lock rack to go with it, I’d recommend not doing it. Most cars are 2.5-3 turns lock to lock, as that’s comfortable for a standard car while maintaining a reasonable fidelity and about 90 deg for a standard turn on a normal road.
The problem comes with doing the hand over hand motion, where you’re removing a spot or spots to grip the wheel when you’re not right at the point where your hands rest, and this is the inherent issue I’ve always had with yokes that don’t have an F1 c-factor (rev of the steering wheel / mm rack travel) where you can go the full lock to lock without crossing over.
But in your hopped up state it probably sounds awesome, and you’ll quickly realize how much of an inconvenience it is once you come down off the high and/or just try it out for yourself.
If you want to make the car harder to steer, go for it.
Going in a few weeks to have bottom front teeth pulled so I can relate!
Heavy medication IS the mother of invention (or bad ideas) but why not I say! Will prove one way or another if it enhances (?) the driver experience of a Smart!
If you’d asked earlier I’d have said Aw HELL NO! but if you already bought the wheel you’re pretty much locked in. So go for it.
The third operation to fix my face was horrible, actual hammers and chisels were used. I had a surgical mask to wear afterwards for weeks, and the few times I left the house kids would recoil in horror when they saw me.
That’s how I feel about flat-bottomed steering wheels. Yokes are another quantum level of horror beyond that.
But, you know what you’re doing and you have the skills to put it all back together afterwards, so if it helps you get over your current misery go for it.
I also have three Hotwheels Emiras, but in different colours.
Should have worn a beekeeper’s helmet, which also would do a great job keeping you from chewing out your stitches.
I should have got a photo of my actual face printed on a fencing mask and worn that. Or scheduled the surgery closer to halloween.
This was all over ten years ago, and while it was very painful and distressing its nice being extremely handsome again, to the extent that wearing a mask for Covid was a relief from the constant envy.
Steering Jokes make sense if you are dealing with less than a turn lock to lock.
I could ask my dentist what he thinks, I value his opinion on cars and teeth. He has a Focus RS for commuting and has resisted the urge to mod it.
Between this and DT’s yearning for a non-working i3 model, it’s Bad Idea Day on The Autopian!
When isn’t it Bad Idea Day round these parts?
I saw the reference to post-surgery drugs and ill-advised car mods, and naturally presumed this was a Torchy post.
Good luck with the teeth! I’ve been there, at least for one tooth, and the results of waiting for the bone graft to work are worth the wait.
As for the yoke steering wheel – please don’t.
This is an infinitely better idea than DT’s plan to purchase a full-size non-working model of a car he already owns 2 full-size working versions of. What drugs is he on?
I say DO IT!!!
Argument against: It will look like a broken and incomplete smile, which is not what you want to see after spending $35,000 not to have one yourself.
If you want to make a change, go all steampunk and convert it to a tiller. A big tiller with an airbag for safety, but a tiller nonetheless.
Put a steering wheel on your motorcycle, ya goof!
Don’t.
Go for it. You’ve still got the original wheel and it’s easily reversed when you realize it was a terrible idea.
Do not do this.
Then, for when you’re out from under the meds and adjusting to life with 2/3rds of the teeth you had before, remember that you still should not do this.
Since it’s easily reversed, and you’re aware of the possible consequences, I say go for it!
I am not even going to read this and jump immediately to no.
Unless your car is literally KITT, yokes are dumb.
There is a reason that the steering wheel has persisted almost unchanged for decades as the top choice for steering automobiles.
People keep trying other things, but we keep ending up back at the steering wheel… this should tell you something.
The cycling world deals with this every few years when some ‘better idea’ is going to replace the traditional chain, sprockets, and derailleur system.
Every 5 to 10 since the advent of the bicycle, we suffer one of these ‘better ideas.’ Often it is just a rehash of an idea from the past everyone forgot sucked.
Oh yeah, this is totally galaxy brain stupid and it will only make the car worse. But at least it’ll be worth a laugh or two when I test it out in a parking lot. Admittedly, I rolled into work Slack this morning talking about cutting up steering wheels and Matt thinks it’s hilarious. This was the result.
I think my brain’s operating under IFR conditions right now, the pilot’s unconscious, and the autoland system isn’t working
Go ahead. You have the parts and the means to reverse it. You’re never getting this idea out of your head until you do it.
Some things are so monumentally stupid that you have to experience them to understand. Trust me, I’ve had my own personal blind spots covering ideas that I just HAD to prove were bad ideas by doing them.
As a bonus, you’ll get at least another day’s content out of it.
26″, 27″, 650b, 27.5 “, 29″, 32″ and is it 36″or 37” I don’t know or care. Think I missed some.
Just make certain it’s not made out of that plastic that seems to liquify over time or the yoke will be on you.
*slow clap*