Description
Great nostalgic piece! Impossible to find anymore. The old Plymouth steering knob is commonly referred to among car enthusiasts as a “Suicide Knob”.
Mount it on your steering wheel — it’s easy, just tighten the screws. You can steer your car with one hand by holding the knob (1.5″ in diameter) as you turn your steering wheel. A fun conversation piece and a great historical addition to your Plymouth Prowler.
History: The Suicide or “Brodie” Knob is named after “bridge jumper” Steve Brodie (1863–1901). A Brodie knob (alternate spelling: Brody knob) attaches to the steering wheel of an automobile. The knob swivels and is intended to make steering with one hand easier. Brodie knobs are also known as suicide knobs or necker knobs, presumably because they allow steering with one hand while the driver wraps the other arm around a passenger’s shoulders.
One disadvantage of the knob is that when you let go of the steering wheel after going around a corner, the wheel spins rapidly, and the knob can hit your elbow very hard. Other names include Suicide Knob, Granny Knob, and Steering Wheel Spinner.
Brodie knobs enjoyed limited popularity on trucks before the advent of power steering. Their main use today is still in trucks, particularly semi-trucks, where they allow simultaneous steering and operation of the radio or gearshift. They are also used extensively on forklifts in warehouses and even riding lawnmowers, where frequent sharp turning is required. The knob is standard equipment on most modern farm and commercial tractors, where its main purpose is to ease single-hand steering while the driver operates other controls or drives in reverse.
Brodie knobs were widely popularized, especially on the West Coast of the U.S., during the 1950s. They were primarily intended as an addition to a Hot Rod. The knob was used to spin the steering wheel rapidly in one direction while accelerating, causing the tires to spin and whipping the car 180 degrees — also known as “laying a brodie.” In the 1950s and ’60s, a person could walk into any local “Pep Boys” and choose from a wide variety of Brodie knobs with every conceivable theme — from candy-apple colors and product logos to pin-up images — and everything in between. They were especially useful when power steering was still considered a luxury.
