For years we’ve been fascinated with the Ford Motor Company’s 1965 experiments with Wrist Twist Steering, and finally we got around to taking a closer look.
Way back in 2016 we posted an intriguing newsreel item about a 1965 Ford Motor Company development called Wrist Twist Instant Steering. (See the video here.) We’ve always wanted to do know more about this unusual steering system, but information is not in plentiful supply. Here’s what we’ve learned so far.
The photo above gives us a partial reveal of the Wrist Twist unit, with a pair of miniature roller chains to transmit motion from the right and left handwheels to the central steering shaft. Meanwhile, the horizontal steering yoke remained stationary, though there was a conventional tilt-adjust control in the column to adjust the yoke’s angle for driver comfort.
The Wrist Twist concept itself was conceived by Ford engineer Robert J. Rumpf, who was recruited from the aerospace industry (he was an actual rocket scientist) to bring fresh ideas to the Dearborn automaker. And that he certainly did, both at Ford and throughout the automobile industry for several decades, with this innovation and a number of others. We found at least 15 U.S. patents credited to Mr. Rumpf, mainly in the area of vehicle safety and passenger restraints, and assigned to Ford, Firestone, and TRW Inc.
The patent drawing above (from U.S. patent 3312123, April 4, 1967) shows the inner workings of the Twist Wrist mechanism, The left and right five-inch handwheels operated in unison, allowing the driver to use either or both handwheels to steer the car, essentially with a twirling motion. According to the patent literature, the unit could accommodate a variety of sprocket ratios to alter the final steering ratio.
One thing we still don’t know, unfortunately, is what the unique steering interface was really like to drive, but we wish we did. (One media outlet recently compared the Tesla S steering yoke to the Wrist Twist, but we see no resemblance.) We know from the photo and film record that Ford tested the system in a variety of full-size Mercury models, but it doesn’t seem that any of the vehicles survived.
One plus to the Wrist Twist: It was easily adaptable to existing steering columns and gears with a quick swap out of the conventional steering wheel. But we can see one drawback that was probably fatal, a real deal-breaker in putting the system into production. In the event of a hydraulic failure in the power steering—say a broken hose or even a wet drive belt—there would be a complete loss of steering control due to the minimal leverage available to the driver from the tiny 5-inch handwheels.
The Rumpf-Ford patent addressed this issue by including a complete auxiliary power steering pump and hardware to serve as a backup. Two power steering hydraulic systems? For the cost accountants at Ford, that was no doubt a stretch too far. And that’s before we even consider whether the Wrist Twist was actually better than an ordinary steering wheel.
I drove the wrist-twist in a full sized Merc. It was really cool! It had a really high ratio so you could make a turn with little effort at all, but it had good road feel.
Fran Hernandez loved it and had the Merc in 1968 where were both at Kar-Kraft in Dearborn. He offered to let me drive it and I said he’ll yes I want to drive it !
(I remembered seeing it in the magazine’s of the day)
It was a memorable experience , one of many from back then.
Thank you for the excellent first-hand report! They make these stories come alive. -MCG
As a rehabilitative therapist, I can’t help but think of the possibilites as a possible adaptive modification for people with limited range of motion or amputees. It wouldn’t be the same hardware today, maybe a fly-by-wire setup. Very cool.
Isn’t the “Scott System” zero-effort adaptive driving setup essentially similar except for the lack of a redundant extra handwheel? It’s been around since the early ’80s at least and for many years was available only for Ford Econolines (it was expected that anyone who needs it would need a lift-equipped van as well).
Love the visionary ideas and styles from that era
IIRC it was Ed Cole who, when wind of this reached GM, stated “if we’d been driving this way for 50 years and someone came to us with the steering wheel, we’d give that SOB a million dollars!”