Ford had a missile engineer design them a modern replacement for the steering wheel in 1965. As it turns out, we’re still using those pesky wheels but the “Wrist Twist” idea that he designed was so weird and fantastic the company made a short video about it. Completely patronizing to women and edited poorly, this one is a laugher from front to back. Just in case you thought we were getting all Siskel and Ebert on you with the editing comment, pay VERY CLOSE attention at 1:40 and you’ll know exactly what we’re talking about. Hilarious!
To be honest the whole concept is pretty interesting but we’re not sure what they were trying to accomplish other than the equivalent of an automotive party trick. Lots of times weird innovations like this actually help to contribute to some sort of technological advancement and other than an insanely over boosted power steering system we don’t really know what kind of a blind alley this one went down.
The weird thing is that it isn’t like power steering cars of this era were hard to maneuver, right? If you have ever driven anything from the middle 1960s and on through the 1970s that has power steering you know that Steven Hawking could whip the wheel around in a car like that. The “Wrist-Twist” is different but ultimately the same thing as a steering wheel, right?
Now, if they had some Captain Insano steer by wire system in this car we’d be all up on the (non-existent) wheel about it. Amazingly Ford was still messing around with this idea and the system all the way through 1968! While not the weirdest or the dumbest thing we have seen, it has to be in the Top 10.
WOW! Brian, with all of your precautionary comments about the content and the production, I expected a sexist and jumpy-edited disaster. But I didn’t see anything that different from other FoMoCo promotional films* of that era.
* This appeared as a film production, NOT like a videotape production; It’s that gauzy appearance which looks more like it was a film production.
olds did this in 61-62. had a chance to buy it in 97, but the 2500 cost was a bit much at the time.
Steven Hawking line …. classic!