The Most Important Fifth Wheel

The Most Important Fifth Wheel recounts the history of the steering wheel — and of driving in general:

A word here about the concentration required to control a car in those early days. Once you had hand cranked the engine, got it chugging and quickly jumped back into the driver's seat, you released the hand brake, depressed the clutch pedal (which might also be the brake pedal, but let's not get into that), put the car into gear and lurched forward.

There was no 'gas pedal' to press with your foot. The so-called 'accelerator' pedal on the floor merely released the engine governor which kept the motor turning no faster than a 'decent' 650-700 rpm. You used that pedal sparingly and only when in top gear.

Meanwhile, using a series of brass levers on some device in the center of your steering wheel you would then try to slow the engine down enough to make a proper gear change by 'retarding' the spark. On some cars you might have a lever that allows you to crudely adjust the flow of fuel through the carburetor. Forget the cell phone! See if you can get into high gear and achieve, say, 20 miles per hour without wrecking.

Early cars didn't have steering wheels:

The first automobiles, more than a century ago, were driven with "tillers," basically a steel shaft with a brass or wood handle on top. In 1900, Packard was the first American car to introduce a steering wheel instead of a tiller.

Early drivers sat on the right:

Incidentally, most American cars, like the European ones, had right-hand drive until the end of the first decade of the 20th century. Then it apparently began to dawn on everyone that the driver no longer had to lean out the right side of the vehicle with his whip hand. The only "horses" were those under the hood, and since the left side gave better visibility on American roads… hey, why not?