Are you still steering or are you already being steered?
03/23/2016
We are always on the road in pre-war cars and have the pleasure of gripping the large (and close to the body) steering wheel with considerable muscular effort. The development that steering and the steering wheel in particular have undergone is impressive.
Nobody really dares to think about autonomous cars yet, but even today's mid-range cars can park independently without steering intervention, keep the car in lane by correcting the steering or even follow the car in front in a traffic jam.
The steering wheel is small and has a thick rim, and power steering is hardly necessary anymore, as power steering is omnipresent today. Even the hydraulic assistance that used to be standard has already been replaced by electric systems.
Even 40 or 50 years ago, people had reservations about ordering even light power assistance because it gave them little feel for the road. These reservations were abandoned 20 or 30 years ago, and even sports cars - the Porsche 964 also had them - were now often ordered with power steering. And when electric power steering assistance arrived a few years ago, car testers mourned the classic power steering and complained about the poorer steering feel. And in the future, when the steering will have been taken over by the computer, we will remember the good times when we were still allowed to turn the round (or semi-circular) steering wheel ourselves.
We think the steering feel gives us an insight into the soul of a car and are already looking forward to the next vehicle with a steering column that goes right through to the track rod mechanism.
