Brocade Interiors And The Rim-Blow Steering Wheel: Cold Start

The Broughamization of America was a very real, very powerful thing. Throughout most of the 1970s, powerful broughamic rays inundated our nation, causing carpet to grow into thick, rich piles, roofs to become envinyl’d, windows opera-ized, lapels to grow to unheard of sizes, mustaches thickened, and everything generally became severely broughamized. One clear example of this is how car interiors grew protective layers of brocade as a result. Also, there was the rim-blow steering wheel, which isn’t necessarily related to broghamization, but sure is funny.

Lincoln, of course, was one of the most susceptible – or receptive – to the broughamic influences, and really leaned in, really reveled in it all. Look at all the layers of ornament on that Continental up top; it wasn’t enough to just cover the headlamps, for example, they had to add ornate fake grillework onto those covers. Every edge got chrome trim. Every roof vinyl. It was a dazzling time.

Look at this interior:

Holy crap, right? What’s that made out of, salvaged wedding dresses? Look on the door cards, too. It’s fucking Versailles in there.

And the colors! Sapphire and emerald! Different brocade patterns! Some ornate thing stamped into the pliant door vinyl! What a time to be in cars!

And then, of course, there’s this: the Rim-Blow steering wheel.

Now, to modern ears, we hear a hyphenated combination of slang terms for analingus and fellatio and that captures our attention, like a bag of chowder flung at a brick wall, hard. The reality is almost as exciting.

You see, between about 1969 to 1974 most American carmakers – including Ford, GM, AMC, Chrysler, all the big ones, – decided that Americans should be freed of the tyranny of having to honk their horns by pushing buttons or rings or areas in the center of the wheel, and instead should be allowed to honk by squeezing the wheel rim.

And thus the Rim-Blow wheel was born.

To honk the horn, you just needed to squeeze anywhere on the wheel rim – the “button” was a rubber insert on the inside circumference of the wheel. You can see it as a blue band up above.

Here’s how it worked:

So, nothing to do with any oral-based sexual acts at all! Who knew!

The rubber on these tended to dry and contract, making the horn hard to activate, or worse, honking nonstop. These fell out of favor after a few years, but if you encounter a car with one, see if you can give it a squeeze.