The steering wheel is the most important thing in a car. Just ask anyone who’s tried to make a three-point turn in a yoke-equipped Tesla. Your seat aside, it’s the only constant point of contact with the car, it’s the tool you use to keep your ride out of the trees, and a great one can have a more profound effect on your well being than years of meditation and yoga, studies probably say.
A great wheel can make a car more powerful than an ordinary one. An epic wheel might not add true road feel, but it’ll do its best to convince you otherwise. It will also look amazing. At least, it should. But it’s amazing how many carmakers have got it wrong over the years, fitting ugly airbag wheels or placing the spokes so the rims weren’t comfortable to hold. Check out this rogues’ gallery of woeful wheels from icons including Porsche and Ferrari, then leave a comment and let us know about the ones we missed.
Ferrari F355
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Lame steering wheels are a problem that Airbags need to address. You can see the four-spoke wheel that was replacing three-spoke Ferraris such as the F355. In the two decades since its introduction, airbag technology is a lot more advanced than it was in 20 years ago.
BMW M5
Ferrari did give you an official center badge. When BMW junked its fantastic three-spoke M-sport wheels on the M3 and M5, the plain four-spokers that replaced them looked like they’d been designed for a 518i taxi.
Aston Martin Virage
The last Aston conceived before Ford took the reins in ’93, the Virage started life with a pretty nasty two-spoke wheel that suddenly looked a whole lot more elegant when Uncle Henry’s execs told them to swap it for this balloon-filled one from the Ford parts bin.
Chevrolet Camaro Z28
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Every American automaker spent money on performance cars by the 1960’s. Some of these automakers didn’t spend the extra money on steering wheels that were fit for cars capable of smuggling a Ferrari within a quarter mile. While Pontiac outfitted its hot Firebird Formula 400 and Trans Ams with a small sporty three-spoke wheel, Chevy couldn’t offer its Camaro Z28 buyers anything better than a terrible two-spoke rim with an optional fake wood center trim.
Ford Mustang Boss 302
Ford wasn’t any better. Even the mighty Boss 302 Mustang came standard with a horrible two-spoke wheel that would have been right at home on your granny’s Maverick. A more sporty three-spoke wheel was an option, however.
Ford Taurus SHO
Fast forward two decades and it didn’t look like Ford had learned much. Yamaha and Blue Oval collaborated to get a 220 horsepower out of their Taurus SHO sports sedan. The chassis was well-maintained to ensure that the front wheels were capable. Shame it didn’t put enough thought into the wheel InsideThe car.
Chevrolet Corvette C4
The ’84-’96 C4 Corvette had a few weird wheels, though we kind of like the two-spoke job fitted to the early cars. It’s definitely preferable to this abomination perched on the top of the steering column of C4 Corvettes during the car’s last two years on sale, including the ZR1. You can also see almost any 1990s Camaro.
Porsche 911 2.7
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Porsche’s ’73 911 Carrera RS is one of the coolest sports cars ever, so how did end up with one of the least cool steering wheels?
The situation was worsened for 911 regulars when Porsche placed a huge pad on the wheel in order to prepare for an airbag.
Datsun 280 ZX
Nothing underlines the Datsun Z’s 1970s slide from svelte sports car to corpulent cruiser more than the plastic hoop of poop hovering in front of the 280 ZX’s dashboard. The tragically two-spoke steering wheel was also used for the Turbo model. This is the main selling point of S30-series Z.
Renault 5 Turbo 1
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Yeah, we know these first-gen mid-engined Renault 5 Turbos have a really cool interior, and the bizarre asymmetric steering wheel contributes to that funkiness, so you could argue it doesn’t count as lame. But with a spoke on one side and not even a thumb notch on the other, we can’t believe it’s anything less than terrible to use unless you plan to drive everywhere with your left arm draped over the side of the door.
Do you believe there are cars that should be shamed and named for crimes against steering wheels design?
