Anybody have a steering wheel with embedded tachometer?

My dad used to have a VW (gasp!) in the late 60's that had a tachometer in the steering wheel, in place of the horn button. I believe he described it as being weighted and on bearings so that it would stay right side up as you turned corners. Car got burned up in a fire while fairly new, so he didn't have any pictures 'cept those of it crispy brown.

Jethro's banjo steering wheel build (http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=344222) got me thinking about it again, and now I want to build one.

Anybody have pictures of something like this?

 

What type of VW? My family used to be into them and I don't recall ever seeing that.

 

It was just a lowly bug. The thing was installed by the dealer, and on the car when he bought it new. Not a vw made steering wheel.

I assumed it was a 60's hot rod thing that had carried over and duplicated in the vw aftermarket, so I was thinking someone might have pics from other types of cars?

 

ask BATMAN HE HAS ONE IN HIS CAR

 

There's no user here with the name of... hey, wait a second...

Seriously, it's a place to put a tach without cutting up the dash.

 

You could probably adapt one of those tire pressure meter housings you see on big-rig trailers to work

 

That would be cool as hell! Hope somebody has pictures of something like that.

 

I'm not buying it until I see a pic. I searched and couldnt find anything about them.

Seems to me unless it was wireless the wires would trip up even the smoothest of bearings.

 

That's exactly why I want a picture! How the #$@! did it work? No wireless in the 60s... but I assume it just gets a few wraps each turn like a horn button wire?

the big rig wheel tire pressure gauge is a good idea.

 

A horn button doesn't "pivot" and steering will overcome a "binding" wire. In order for a weighted tach to actually spin, the bearings would need to be almost ZERO drag and even a slightly "binding" wire (let alone 4 of them) would prohibit the "spin".

 

Are you sure it wasn't a clock? Because I have seen those. You need to PM Roadkillontheweb I guarantee if such a thing existed, he'll know about it. He's the guru on that kind of wacky shit.

 

http://www.roadkillontheweb.com/clocks.html

 

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD colSpan=4></TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width="100%">C24-113-415-CLOCK - HORN BUTTON WITH BUILT-IN CLOCK - FOR STOCK STEERING WHEEL - BEETLE 60-71 - GHIA 60-71 - TYPE 3 62-71 </TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width="100%"><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width="64%">Phone-in/Mailorder Price US $52.95
Website Discount Price US $39.95
You Save US $13.00! In Stock! </TD><TD align=right width="36%"></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
http://www2.cip1.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=347 <<<<< there you go. And they used batteries, not wires.

 

Tach/clock in the steering wheel horn button? Quick, it's buzzing 1830 hours, SHIFT!!! It looks like a pocket watch you'd have to take out and rewind, at least that old. New, maybe it's battery operated. Oh wait, it's a V.W., wrong site. Like Emmalie Lattila would say, "never mind". Butch/56sedandelivery.

 

well, if the tach stays oriented the same way when you turn the wheel, it seems that the wires would too, this would eliminate any binding. The outer glass may turn, but the actual TACH and wires would stay in the same position. I think it could be worked out fairly easy.
Make sense? now I want to make one...

 

I call Bullshit!!! I've collected and built VWs since the 80's and had some really rare stuff and seen some even rarer stuff, and I have never heard or seen this one. Not trying to be a dick, but I think hes feeding you a good story.

 

There are rumors that towards the end of WW-2 the nazi's were secretly working on just such a device.

story goes that just after the Aiiies invaded Germany these were discovered and that some G.I's smuggled them to the U.S.

One of them became a V/W dealer, and that after perfecting the tecnology, offered them as options to select customers.

One of those ex G.I.'s was interestly enough ,from Oklahoma. And that the same guy also claimed to know where the James Dean Porsche remains were stored.

 

Instead of wires...why not a slip ring contact? 3 or 4 wire?

 

seenn clock..tach shoudnt be to hard

 

as far as making it not move, thats easy,they already have wheel covers that stay stationary now as the car moves,exact opposite of spinning ones. those have bee naround a long time but they have popped up over again. as far as the tach,who said it had to have wires? might be cable driven. if it was on a fixed stalk through the center of a rotating colum, it would appear stationary while the wheel and colum rotated around it. might have been a one off item someone made or a very low volume custom piece. who knows.

 

i once had a tach with a built in steering wheel......

 

Somebody summon me?


Tach mounted on the steering column behind the wheel you bet! Tach mounted in the steering wheel, no way! Now edsel put the push button shifter there in 1958 but that didn't work so well.

Yes VW and others offered a steering wheel watch and they all wound with the movement of the wheel under normal driving conditions not electrical in any way. They also were not illuminated in any way.
The 51-52 Oldsmobile had one mounted below center on the steering wheel then in 1954-56 Benrus offered their first version for Chrysler products.

They offered them as Moparmatic, Chryslermatic, Desotomatic, Plymouthmatic and Dodgematic versions

Then in 1957 they changed and offered the second version

Here is the one I am selling on Ebay now!
They used this one on 1957-58 Chrysler and 1957-59 Desoto and with a different style retainer they also fit them in Plymouths. But since the face only send Benrus rather than a name specific to Chrysler products the same movement was used in other applications.

VW was one of them!


Here is the VW retainer. But most hard core VW collectors will tell you that this was not a factory option. Just available for the millions of VW owners.

 

If nobody but Bat Man has seen such a device, then I concede that there probably isn't one out there. My old man wasn't one to make things up or embellish for a story, however I was a kid when he showed me pictures of the crispy black steering wheel with a mechanical device in it. He probably said 'chronometer' and I thought he said 'tachometer', not knowing what the former word meant.

It must have been one of these clocks, and maybe he was telling me that it was mechanically weighted to wind itself as you turned the wheel. I just figured that since the vw guys copied everything the hot rod guys did, that there must be something out there.

It would still be cool to have, but if Edsel couldn't make something like that work, then I doubt I could do much better.

 

There would be no way I can think of to put a stationary spindle inside the column. Thats how the slider hub caps work, solidly mounted to the spindle. A vw has a hollow steering column running to the steering box, just like an early plymouth or packard or ford or most any of em. There would be no way to slide a solid shaft down the center of the column and mount it to anything other than the rag joint. Im calling BS as well, it was the clock as stated before.

To the best of my knowledge no dealer in the 50's,60's or 70's offered a tach of anykind for the dubbs. All the early drag racing pics of cars like the Empi inch pincher or Dynosoar had Sun tachs but that was common drag racing hardware back then. On a sidenote, the 63 I owned housed a 5 in moster tach in the dash in place of the speedo, fits damn near perfectly. I had a 2275 in it and it was mainly for drag racing so I didnt need a speedo. On the off chance I went cruising I just figured that if the shiftlight was on in any gear other than first I was breaking the speed limit almost anywhere in the US (called it my tangerine speedo).