Rinty

I always understood that the Saab switch was in the middle, as part of a gear shift lock out security system.

Rinty

Bull

As are many of the commercial airplane seats we all fly on.

Bull

Porsche also had a gear shift lock on most 356s, but used a separate key.

Regarding the Le Mans starts, applying logic and reason doesn't always work. While it makes no sense to many that drivers would hurry to be first out on the track, 99% of them did it. Most spent the first laps securing their belts or harnesses, leading to the elimination of the traditional starts for safety reasons as pointed out above.

Boston911fan

Yes, I saw them on the Lufthansa Boeing 747-400 I was on last year to Frankfurt! Here in Boston, the MBTA or the "T" (that's our public transportation system), has relatively new city buses that run on natural gas and the driver's seat is by Recaro.

Smiles

Right. Instead of a steering wheel lock, as most cars have, the SAAB has a gearshift lock, keeping it in reverse.

For what it's worth, the 32 Ford was one of the first cars with the steering lock. I pulled one apart once in order to start a '32 and it was a piece of cake; any thief could have done it, as well as hotwire the car, with its unlocked hood sides. I have an MG TD which is ridiculously easy to hotwire, with no steering lock. (Send me a PM and I'll give you my street address, along with a tracing of my house key. )

But the lockable steering was also a safety feature. When parking on hills, one should leave the car's front wheels turned into the curb (kerb) when facing downhill, and away from the curb when facing uphill. The steering lock helped keep it this way.

One final historic note: a lot of pre-war American cars had exterior door locks only on the passenger side. It was assumed that people would normally exit and enter a car with an easy-to-slide-across bench seat on the safe curb side.

But back to my earlier question: isn't keeping the ignition key to the left of the steering wheel for racing purposes similar to keeping RHD for the same reasons? What's really the reason?

Bull

I think you dismissed the "tradition" reason far to quickly in your earlier post. If it were not for tradition driven loyalty to the 911, it would have been gone entirely years ago.

MVMajor

save money on wiring

Gbos1

13 yo thread from the grave ………