I have an old suicide knob, necker knob, Brodie knob, whatever you want to call it. I know its old but trying to see how old. I have had several of these over the years but this is different in the fact that the part you would grab with your hand while using it is all metal,except for the clear top. The picture inside seems to be on cardboard and looks authentic for 1950's early 60's. I am basing that on the leopard print bathing suit, with an old style fit and cut,the hairstyle of the pinup girl etc. Also you can see some spots of discoloration etc in the plastic. It is stamped Rainbow plastics. I know somebody here knows.
Mid '50s until .... every parts house, gas station, hardware store had a display. Probably dozens of makers. Popular with the mudflap & sunvisor crowd.
Pretty cool piece. Never used one in a car, about broke thumb with one on a tractor when the wheel cocked over. Told my dad what happened, he took it off soon after. Probably be fine with power steering. But yours is cool thing to show off!
Pin-up girl looks very 1962-1965-ish to me. Think "Beach Blanket Bingo" or early Elvis beach movie for reference.
Our elderly neighbor in the 60's had one of the "pin-up" versions on his 49 Chevy except when you turned the steering wheel and her image was upside down, her bathing suit dropped! Must be a collector's item now.
I can remember displays of them in parts houses back in the 50's and 50's but they were known as suicide knobs around here because it was too easy to get the sleeve of a long sleeve shirt hung up in one and loose control of the car. my grandfather had a metal and wood one on his Farmall Super C tractor that made it easy to one hand the tractor in the field. I ran that tractor a lot as a teenager. The old Case tractor that I raked hay on had one too. The only guys I ever saw with them on their cars in the 50's or 60's were the ones that that era's bolt on every piece of junk calling it customizing brigade had. If it had a light up wings hood ornament, sun visor. curb feelers and other fru fru stuck on it it might have a pinup girl suicide knob. In this area the owners were normally fruit pickers who had migrated from the Ozarks following the crops as they were the ones you usually saw with that junk on their cars.
When I was in high school in the fifties, you could tell who the guys were who had "serious" girlfriends by their cars. They had one of these, and the column shift was flipped to put it on the left side of the steering wheel so they could keep their honey close while they were driving.
Grandfather's left arm was a hook, he was required on his drivers license to have a knob on any car he drove. This was back in the 50's
I can remember guys saying, I am going to "Brodie" on down the road. It meant they were go to lay rubber and "fishtail" on their start.
I hate to be the party pooper..... but those (that style) have never actually been out of production since back in the day. It looks to be in fairly good condition, which leads me to think that it's not 'vintage'. I believe the plastic cap unscrews for access to the pin-up. The way that was printed may be a clue to its age. But there does seem to be some fading, and the swimsuit is dated. However, the pin-up industry still churns out the old images that aren't protected by copyrights because nostalgia sells. I've bought and sold a few dozen spinner knobs at my swap meet pop-up. I claim to be "familiar" with them but not an "authority" by any means. Here's a clip from the interwebs I have saved in my stash. One guy's take on where the names come from. He neglects to mention "Spinner", probably because it's the official and obviously understood name........ "Call them "Necker Knobs." There's a joke in there. The correct position is low on the left of the wheel when the car's pointed straight, so your right hand is free to hold the doll in the passenger seat. From what Mom said, in her 1940s youth, a Necker Knob was essential to execute a proper hard right SOS turn. SOS = Slide Over, Sweetie. “Brody Knobs” ... well, Brody came from a guy name of Steve Brody, who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge in the 1880s and lived. He became a New York local hero complete with a manager, sold pix of himself, etc. Never paid for another drink, they say, because of his fame. Brody became a catch phrase for any kind of slide, skid, fall, train wreck, etc. Like Johnny said in The Wild One, "I did a big Brody and everything went black", or something like that. He got hit with the thrown wrench, said he did a big Brody, and something ... Brody was a skid when I was a kid in the 50’s. “Suicide Knob” is a 90’s term, I think, from people who don't know what the hell a Brody is, never mind a Necker. I never heard it before that. Besides, “suicide” sounds so cool ... ooooh, danger!"
Yeah, one of the things this out is the discoloration of the plastic itself. And I have not been able to unscrew the top so it's in there and I'm not going to break it to get to it. Ha ha ha something else. That's really unique, though. Is it's all metal except for that top? All of these later, after market ones are all plastic. Even some of the old 50s and 60s ones were plastic. I have never seen one like this. Where the whole thing was metal, it's quite heavy
About broke my wrist driving a scout with one when it hit a rock and snapped the wheel around . I had a really old shift knob that you could put a picture in under glass. Someone stole it about 40 years ago off my Impala. Never seen another one.
I got pretty well an exact duplicate when I was 12 in '68. Now Im68 and I still have it. It may end up on my'32 5W if I ever get around to building it... And yes, I was told it was a"suicide knob" back then. I'll have to dig it out and look for any maker ID. Mine is compete red plastic at the top.
Back when they were popular in the 50's the state of Pennsylvania wouldn't allow them to be used. When you got your car safety inspected it was a reason to fail the inspection, so you took it off at inspection time. The reason the state didn't allow them was they thought the knob might snag on a shirt sleeve so one manufacturer, later more of them, put a button at the attachment point and the knob could be turned 90 degrees parallel to the steering wheel and that made it legal.
I had one on my semi tractor before power steering. If you didn’t use it (grab the wheel itself) it would find your wrist or elbow every time
Mine had the yellow rose of Texas. I bought it at the Western Auto in town. I mounted it on the right side handle bar of my bicycle. Shortly, I'm riding on the shoulder, and for some reason the local police car, going the opposite direction slowed onto the shoulder. My spinner put a nice big scratch along the passenger rear door of the near new 1957 Chevrolet squad. The officer was not very happy, probably because he was going to have to tell his supervisor what happened.
Dad built a hay hauling truck out of a late sixties school bus . It was built like a DuEzz hay wagon . Loading snout and chain in the center of the bed . He put an aluminum spinner knob on the steering wheel. It was very useful for turning on the headlands of the fields . Used one hand to turn the truck with the other hand on the hydraulic levers to raise the snout up and down. I never caught my sleeve on it even wearing a jacket hauling square bales late in the haying season.
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