Time, as you may have heard, is a flat circle. This is generally accepted to mean that we’re doomed to repeat ourselves, to exhume the mistakes (and, hopefully, triumphs) of the past and bring them into being once again. I suspect we may be witnessing one of these cycles starting again, as signs are emerging, and it’s a cycle that merits a warning: we may be entering an era of non-round steering wheels.
Yes, the non-round wheel. It’s an enticing siren that has called auto designers to their doom before, going as far back as 1923 at least, with the Voisin C6 “Laboratorie,” an experimental racing car that employed all sorts of experimental ideas, including a water pump driven by a little propeller!
And, of course, a non-round steering wheel:
Now, on a racing car, these kinds of wheels can make more sense, along with yoke-type wheels, because in racing contexts, one’s hands tend to stay at the same spots on the wheel, and the amount of wheel travel is quite different than in day-to-day driving. So maybe we can excuse the Voisin here, but I’m not so sure, say, the 1960 Plymouth Fury should get such a pass:
That was a car definitely not intended for the track, and yet there’s a steering wheel, tentatively edging away from roundness, into the abyss of squirclehood, a terrifying descent into a wheel with corners.
Across the pond, Austin found themselves drawn to the dark allure of the nonsquare wheel with their “quartic” steering wheel in the Allegro, from the 1970s:
The big thing to remember for all of these attempts at uncircularity is that they only lasted a short period of time because, fundamentally, these non-wheel wheels kinda suck.
Round wheels feel better, and they allow the wonderful sensation of a wheel gliding through your fingers as it re-centers after a turn, which everyone loves, and whoever says they don’t is lying. Round wheels work instinctively and naturally, and as soon as you start introducing corners into the equation, comfort and usability start to go downhill.
And yet, here we are again, lessons forgotten, as we seem to be edging towards a new era of squaricalish wheels. I say this because our own publisher Matt, who is currently at the New York Auto Show, sent me this picture of the new Subaru Trailseeker’s wheel:
That thing is sprouting corners. This isn’t good. And then, of course, that reminded me of the Tesla Cybertruck I just reviewed:
That wheel was genuinely uncomfortable and annoying to use. Which is why seeing that this foul disease is spreading is so alarming. Look at this Audi:
It’s a more subtle one, but it’s definitely getting squared-off there. The Lucid Gravity is even more afflicted:
The “corners” aren’t dramatic, but those proportions are definitely creeping toward the rectangular. The Corvette, too, is pretty damn un-round, with that upper glossy quarter shaped like a pair of bike handlebars: 
I think we’re seeing enough current, mainstream examples of un-round wheels that I can feel comfortable announcing a general state of UNROUND WHEEL WATCH. This is, of course, still a level below a full UNROUND WHEEL WARNING but we’re definitely on that path unless we take some action now.
For the love of a wheel spinning through your fingers, a wheel that doesn’t change proportion when you rotate it 90°, a wheel that’s actually shaped like what it’s named for, then I call upon everyone to reject these be-corner’d abominations and push back, push back and hold fast, long enough for us to get through this period of wheel ensquarement, and emerge back into the sweet embrace of roundness.
Until, of course, it happens again.
My Prius has an interesting solution to the problem, although I don’t know if it’s intentional or if it has deformed over time. The wheel is actually slightly oval, wider than it is tall. That gives you the extra clearance at the bottom without making it intolerable to use.
I hadn’t even noticed it until I went to put a Wheelskin on and discovered that my measurements were significantly different depending on the orientation.
You can see the gauges better on the C8!
I don’t particularly like this trend.
The Plymouth pictured is a 1961. How do I know?
My father had one of the ugly brutes when I was a kid. Mint green, no less. It didn’t have the matching push-button automatic but, had the lowly three-on-the-tree manual which left unsightly blanks on the Jetsons-inspired dashboard to complement the squircle wheel.
My M-B C300 has a flat-bottomed wheel and I’m fine with it.
SRT Challenger steering wheels are only round on the top, some aftermarket versions have all sorts of hand rests and flat sides as well.
I like the flat bottom wheel in my Focus ST because it legitimately made ingress/egress easier. Otherwise there’s no excuse.
I’ll take triangular steering wheels if we can just get through this administration.
I like a good round steering wheel too, but squircles aren’t terrible as long as they have a large enough radius. You get used to them pretty quickly. But again, large radius squircles, not comically stupid ones like in the CT. Those indeed super suck.
For example, the bottom of the Vette wheel is okay, the top, not. Also, the Audi is acceptable, the Lucid is not.
Squircle = acceptable
Rectircle = not.
No rectangular squished circles. Only squarish ones.
Semi-acceptable – round wheels with off center hubs.
No. Wrong.
Sadly every standard Elise, Exige, 340R, 2-Eleven, Europa and 3-Eleven has an eccentric wheel. It’s not as bad as a flat bottomed wheel, but it’s still annoying when sliding around on track and/or on snow to have the thing that controls the car to be wobbling up and down and left and right.
There is no excuse for it, just move the steering column to the centre of the wheel and design the IP to work with that.
Plus if you’re marginal for knee room driving straight ahead you’re going to be fucked on the first tight corner.
If this is how my new car showed up, I’d definitely give the dealer shit for not having properly aired up my steering wheel.
Careful they don’t get you with the nitrogen-fill upcharge
I work for a food manufacturer, and one type of packaging we use is a tub which is somewhere in between a circle and a square, a lot like that Audi wheel a few pictures up, and we call those scrounds. I’d never heard that word before about five years after I started working there.
No…nope…naaaw…no thanks…
unacceptable…it’s called a steering WHEEL…like the wheels on the car? That are…round. So a steering WHEEL should be round.
Just to get the point across:
“The wheels on the bus go round and round…round and round…round and round…all ’round the town”
I love this Seinfeld bit:
Banya (reading): Why do they call it Ovaltine? The mug is round. The jar is round. They should call it round tine. That’s gold, Jerry! Gold!
Jason, this topic is important and I share your fear for the demise of rotationally symmetrical steering wheels. However, I am concerned you might be creating unnecessary confusion.
Is this a warning, a watch, a warning of an impending warning, or just an alert?
I need to know exactly how much anxiety I should be feeling right now, so that when Thomas posts the follow-up article a few years from now (“This 2023 Chrysler 300 is technically the last ‘new car’ you can buy with a round steering wheel“) I can adjust my levels of distress and exasperation accordingly.
The automotive equivalent of bell bottoms. They keep coming back like cock roaches, then die off when people realize (again) how stupid they are. Lather, rinse, repeat.
It’s sad, really.
There is always a generation too young to remember how bad something was the last time.
Same with authoritarianism.
The world is flat
Signed: a Subaru guy
Yeah, I hate this trend too. BMW is starting to offer a flat-bottom steering wheel in some of the 2025 model year ///M cars and they offered it in the iX electric SUV thing, and we get people calling and asking if they can buy a flat-bottom wheel for one of their other BMW’s (absolutely not).
Flat-bottom wheels was a big hit for Queen back in the day.
COTD candidate, right there!
This is becoming a trend with the justification that the wheel blocks the screens, which I don’t fully buy sometimes. I like Zeekr’s solution to it: make the instrument cluster screen low and rounded, and make the forehead (upper part) of the wheel bigger yet still round so there’s little chance you get your instruments blocked, but the wheel is still nice and round.
Design the screens around the wheel. The wheel is the primary vehicle control, the screens are graphics.
This is the sort of idiocy that comes from signing off interior styling on a non-functional buck.
The flat-bottomed wheel on the S650 Mustang is the reason I wouldn’t upgrade.
I’m taking a Z06 on trade at the dealership next week. The owner – a lovely gent – threw the keys at me, inviting me to take it for a spin (gulp). I’m sure if I drove it regularly I might get used to it, but……..nah.
Since everyone (not us) is texting/streaming with one hand, and palming the wheel with the other hand, wheel shape is irrelevant
You can add the new Ford Expedition to the squircle.
I’ve had seven years of a flat bottom steeringwheel, and now that I have a fully round one, it feels…weird. I miss having a flat section to rest my fingers on boring straight freeway sections.
Yeah a flat bottom wouldn’t really bother me, while I do prefer a round bottom, and find it easier to get a grip on, if the personality is good I can deal with a flat bottom.
I think I may have lost the topic we were talking about…
My Allegro is from 1982, long after BL had given up on the quartic design. The round steering wheel is definitely better for driving purposes but it is occasionally a source of disappointment for people seeing the car. A more specific source of disappointment than simply the fact that it’s an Allegro, that is.
Your disappointment noted, I did think they were attractive compared to smaller cars available in the States back then. And as “compact” vehicles in Europe remain.
It all tempts me to move to a walkable city somewhere (EU, Latin America) where I can either walk, bus/light rail or ride share wherever I need to go. Rent a car occasionally as long as I feel like I’m not a hazard to others.
And yes, another vote against non-round steering wheels.
I didn’t say I’m disappointed; I think it’s a delightful car.
Ah. Well, that brings some happiness to me. Everyone else can go drive whatever they want. May yours give you many more miles and smiles.
How about this auto manufacturers:
You just get us a good QR system, and we’ll just pick our own wheels to use.
https://www.sparcousa.com/quick-release
I have a box of old aftermarket wheels I can’t use since everything got airbags. I used to love changing wheels, different diameters, maybe some red suede or blue alcantara.
Airbags are small now, I’m sure we could have a standard bag and hub system that would allow swappable wheels again.
Well, you had a major role in carmakers leaving the shiny piano-black plastic era. And people should recognize your input into getting us back to real buttons and shunning the “everything function is on the screen!” movement. So here’s hoping your plea for round steering wheels doesn’t go unnoticed.
In general, I agree with you – square wheels and “yokes” are incredibly stupid and have no place in an automobile. However… I just leased a Nissan Ariya, which has a wheel that’s round on top and flat on bottom and I unexpectedly love it. For most steering tasks, the round part of the wheel is all that I need to use. But for low-speed maneuvering, I very quickly got used to using the flat spot as an index so that I know exactly where I am in the steering process and I know exactly where my wheels are. Maybe I’m in the minority, but with a fully round wheel, I sometimes lose track of how much I’ve turned the wheel, unless I look at it, which is not where I should be looking when I’m maneuvering around stuff. The flat spot on the bottom of the wheel allows me to instantly know how far I’ve rotated it without having to glance at the wheel itself. The asymmetry is the key to its usefulness.
https://images.cars.com/cldstatic/wp-content/uploads/nissan-ariya-2023-21-interior-steering-wheel-scaled.jpg
If the front of the car is turning, the wheel is turned. That way you never lose track of where you are in the steering process. for 99% of my maneuvers, I’m moving while turning. It’s only in a very confined parallel parking where I stop and then turn the wheels.
Wait until they put the center screen on the wheel in front of the air bag…
They could project the screen onto the wheel…
That’s technically already happened in China, but in a far less dramatic way. Li Auto’s steering wheel has a narrow little screen on the top of the hub the instruments (pretty much just speed, charge, range numbers). There’s plenty of space for the airbag below it though.
Wait until they replace the windscreen with an AR projection…
Or replace the wheel with hand gestures.
I can’t wait for voice commands!
“Computer, warp 4”
But then nothing happens until you say “make it so” in the correct thespian accent.
Nothing happens even if you say that, if you’re in a Stellantis.
It’s just basic economic theory. Steering wheel roundness is as indicative of stock market performance as the hemline index. Change in investment value equals the perimeter squared over 4*Pi*area. A perfect circle is 1, anything less and we lose. Of course, there were several unintentional bear markets brought about by Ford and GM in the early 1980s due to quality control issues.