STEERING MECHANISMS AND HOW THEY GOT THAT WAY

As the internal combustion engine began to replace the horse, the Ackermann non-turning front axle came into its own. With increasing front-end loads, reducing gears replaced simple tiller connections between hands of driver and front wheels. The story of manual steering gears is that of continued engineering effort to increase efficiency within the gear-box, to hold down steering effort and amount of “wheeling” required, as loads have gone up and tire pressures down. In the last few years, power steering for passenger cars has been introduced. At the start a luxury, it is fast becoming a necessity.