What’s The Best/Worst/Weirdest Production-Car Steering Wheel Design?

Second only to the driver’s seat, the steering wheel has got to be the part of a car’s interior that we interact with most. It’s the essential input device for the driver, and the centerpiece of interior design. As such, the steering wheel can go a long way in making or breaking one’s impression of a car, whether we’re just appreciating it as a design or actually climbing into the thing and driving.

I’m sure there are a few (if not plenty) of steering wheels that stand out in your memory for their looks or feel, or both. One of my earliest car memories is of my aunt demonstrating the insanely overboosted power steering in her mid-70s American wagon (I was five, sorry I missed the make) by flicking the wheel around with her pinkie, swinging the car first toward a telephone pole and then into oncoming traffic, which was thrilling. I remember the rim was thin enough that even my lil’ mits could wrap around it, and the backside undulated with humps and valleys – you know, for finger-fitting ergonomics.

That wheel was hot garbage compared to that of Dad’s MG Midget (like the Bring A Trailer example above), which was nearly a ringer for that of Speed Racer’s Mach 5 (inset). The wheel Speed wrangled was a wholly traditional three-spoker, but I recognized the esthetic as racecar. Combine that with the magic sauce of those lettered buttons, and that’s a top-three favorite wheel design for life. It’s a classic, and classics live forever.

Later, I was turned on to the beauty of the monospoke, which I actually saw first in an Aston Martin Lagonda (only in a magazine, mind you) instead of the usual gateway to one-legged wheels, the Citroen DS:

I particularly appreciate lack of effs Aston Martin gave for how the wheel looks in any position other than dead ahead. That thing must have looked quite a mess in actual use with that slab-sided not-a-hub flipping around, but when it’s sitting parked and pretty, nicely aligned? Delightful –  though sadly discontinued not long into the car’s run in favor of a conventional design. I also love everything else about the Lagonda’s driver-control choices, and revisit Doug’s video tour of the machine on the regular – even if he is showing off the boring regular-steering-wheel model.

Now, back to buttons real quick, and that wonderful Pontiac Grand Prix in the topshot. I unironically love this iteration of the W-body and its “B4U” body kit, and would happily murder to own the minty example featured by the Curious Cars channel further below.

Now, I get why the Grand Prix’s button-bedazzled wheel elicits lols and/or groans, but I think it’s fantastic. I’m not a big fan of the future of now, all screens and brushed aluminum and minimalism, but the future as envisioned by the 80s and 90s will always be a look I dig. The more buttons, the better – and all the better if they’re in the steering wheel. Speed Racer really got his hooks into me.

Your turn: What’s The Best/Worst/Weirdest Production-Car Steering Wheel Design?

Top graphic images: Curious Cars screengrabs